I'd just arrived in Maui for the start of a month-long vacation in Hawaii. The
first 10 days I'd be by myself on Maui, after which I would join my family in
Oahu for the remainder of the trip. I had done something like this a few years
ago and had had a great time. This time I was doing things a little differently,
choosing to dirtbag the 10 days on Maui instead of getting places to stay like
I did the last time. I rented a van from Maui Vans (cheap, but a little beat
up) and planned to sleep in it much as I do back home with my own van. There
would be some tricky parts that I wasn't really sure how would work out. For
one, the State of Hawaii is not very friendly for such arrangements I've been
led to believe and there are very few campgrounds on the island. Secondly, I
couldn't travel with fuel and once on the island I couldn't find a place to
purchase isobutane gas for the small campstove I'd brought. This was a
minor point - there are far more food options around Maui than there are in the
Mojave Desert. Lastly, sleeping outside in Hawaii isn't as easy as one might
think - the high humidity and high nighttime temps (in the high 60s, typically)
could prove troublesome. Nevertheless, I was willing to give it my best shot
and see how it goes.
Sand Hills
After I landed around noon in Kahului, I went about collecting my rental van
and then some basic supplies - sleeping bag and a few cheap blankets at
Walmart, groceries at Safeway and gasoline. I tried three places for the
isobutane
gas before giving up - it really wasn't that important. While I was in
Kahului, I visited Sand Hills
in nearby Wailuku. This may have been a small
collection of windblown dunes at one point, but now it is completely paved over
and developed with homes and apartments. There are two closely-spaced points
vying for the highpoint, the northern one in someone's driveway, the southern
one on the roadway. I checked out both to be silly before moving on.
Puu Hona / Puu Moe
"Puu" is similar to "Mount" in Hawaiian, so it shows up on a lot of summit
names in the state. Most of these are just small volcanic cones on the
sides of the much larger West Maui and Haleakala, but such is the nature of
peakbagging on Maui. These are two such bumps on the SE side of West Maui but
they make for a good workout hike even if the scenery isn't quite up to
expectations for Hawaii. The highest, Puu Moe, rises some 2,300ft above the
starting point in only 2.5mi. The start is shared with the trailhead for the
east end of the Lahaina-Pali Trail which traverses across the dry
southern flank of West Maui. There's no sign off Hwy30 so you have to know
where you're going - it's 1/3mi south of the junction with Hwy310. There is
a gate
sometimes closed with a chain that you can drive through to reach the TH
parking another 1/3mi up a dirt road. There is a second gate, locked, at a fork
in the road before the TH that you can see climbing steeply up to Puu Hona.
I didn't realize
the first gate was open to vehicles so I parked at the highway, but it doesn't
make much difference. A sign
at the second gate restricts motor vehicles but
not hikers. It was more popular than I would have guessed, running into two
parties in the few hours I used it. Puu Hona is half a mile from the second
gate and rises to over 900ft in a hurry. The road bypasses the summit to the
south, but easy cross-country gets one to the rocky summit. The low
vegetation here
is dry and a bit parched, making for unrestricted views but not very pretty
scenery. Along with a benchmark, there is a small memorial to
someone's dad who appears to have passed in 2015. The road
continues up from Puu Hona and soon pine trees begin to
appear. It seems a fire swept across parts of the slopes about 2-4yrs ago,
leaving swaths dead, others injured, others untouched. This combines to make a
bit of a treewhack to reach Puu Moe which is also just off the road. The live
trees are thick in places but easy to wade through with bendy branches, but
the downfall from the dead ones makes for an obstacle course with the added
bonus of leaving one's clothes streaked with black soot marks. My first day on
the island and I already look like crap. The summit
has no views thanks to
the trees, but there are 3-4 interesting piles of rocks among the trees,
looking like some sort of memorial, old and littered with decaying pine needles.
One can continue up the road another
3/4mi to Puu Anu at 2,972ft where there is a close-up view of the giant
windmills found on the SE Ridge of West Maui. There is a fork in the road just
below Puu Anu that can be taken down to intersect the Lahaina-Pali Trail to
make a loop of things. Having already been to Puu Anu on that previous trip,
I headed back down once I reached Puu Moe (I couldn't find a corresponding
Puu Larry or Puu Curly, in case you're wondering like me).
Despite the overcast skies which let no sun through, I sweated up a storm on
the way up and my shirt was still wet when I got back down to the van. This
humidity thing will take some getting used to...
David A comments
on 12/08/16:
I'm expecting a Puu Kukui trip report from you on this trip!Anonymous comments
on 12/08/16:
The Days Inn in Kihei is nice for if you get sick of hot, humid dirtbagging.