The Hana Highway is 52 miles of twisty road, often with many one lane bridges. The scenery is spectacular.

Keanae. A sign warns not to get near breaking waves because you could get swept away.

Hamoa Alua island. Trees on top.

No Comments »

A little roadside stand in Kipahulu sells fruit and smoothies. There’s no electricity here, so the refrigerator runs by propane and the coffee maker by solar. The blender for smoothies is bicycle-powered. The woman working behind the counter recently escaped from Los Angeles with no regrets.

When the earthquake hit recently, Kipahulu was completely cut off because a bridge was damaged. FEMA helicoptered in copious amounts of canned food, but locals here didn’t really need it. They do just fine from hunting, fishing, and gathering fruit, and can teach us all something about self-reliance.

Here’s the new temporary bridge.

The damaged bridge is in back of this new temporary bridge and crosses a steep, deep chasm.

2 Comments »

The Kipahulu Ohana is a community-based group in Kipahulu (near Hana) in Maui engaged in a number of projects such as raising taro, having cultural walks, reclaiming land from invasive species and animals, and important, bringing awareness of traditional Hawaiian ways and culture to all.

In 1995, a small group of Native Hawaiian residents came together to revive, restore, and share the practices of traditional Native Hawaiian culture with others in Kipahulu. We, the Kipahulu ‘Ohana, are a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating residents and visitors of the “ways of old” through cultural demonstrations and hands-on activities. Using the wisdom and spiritual guidance of our kupuna (elders, learned teachers), we seek to re-establish a Hawaiian lifestyle in Kipahulu. By initiating sustainable projects, dividing the labor, and sharing the results we will preserve our culture.

Sue and I spent a great day yesterday with Scott Crawford. He’s active in the group, and showed us Kapahu Living Farm, a taro field they’ve reclaimed and have been adding to. The field is in Haleakala National Park, and the Ohana has a partnership with the park that allows this, and also permits them to be in areas not generally open to visitors. Their planned cultural walks will also be in the park. For a local group to be allowed such access in a national park shows the respect others have for what they’re doing.

Bob Morris (me) and Scott Crawford, Kapahu Living Farm. Taro growing in background.

Scott Crawford next to taro.

Another project is the Kipahulu Kitchen, a community area where they’ve recently gotten the ok to have a restaurant, do food processing, and sell jellies, jams, etc. This part of Kipahulu has about 200 people and is completely off the grid. There is no electricity or public water. Propane fuels the stoves, solar power is widely used, and water comes from streams off Haleakala. Yet they now have an operating commercial kitchen (which uses trucked-in water due to country regulations.) After our hike we had fresh-caught fish, rice, and real poi. It was delicious.

Poi, among other things, is hypo-allergenic. Babies that can not take other foods and are in danger can often be fed poi and then do quite well.

Scott was a wealth of information on Hawaiian culture and the local plants and trees. Many of the most important plants here were brought thousands of miles across the ocean by Polynesians, a fact confirmed by Hawaiian oral tradition as well as by scientific research. You can read more about these plants at Canoe Plants, “Today’s guide to yesterday’s life-sustaining plants.”

He also blogs, quite even-handedly, at Hawaiian Independence Blog about the growing sovereignty movement, which is national, not racial. The Kingdom of Hawaii allowed anyone to become a citizen, and any citizen could vote. Back then, as now, the people were a mix of multiple cultures. This is the crucial point. It’s not racial. Once outsiders understand this, and learn how the land was stolen from Hawaiians, they often become sympathetic to the movement.

In Sept. 2001, dengue fever hit Hana. Scott got it before they knew what it was. He recovered, and then everyone, people, landowners, government worked quickly and effectively to knock it out. Landowners opened floodgates to clear out stagnant pools of water thus destroying where the mosquitoes breed. Everyone worked together, and they did it so well that the U.N. recognized it as a model for how others can stop dengue also.

The hope of the Kipahulu Ohana is that the sustainable practices they are bringing back and refining will be used by others too. What they are doing in Maui is important. Their cultural walks will be open to the public soon. Email Scott for more info on any of this.

[tags]Kipahulu Ohana, Kapahu Living Farm [/tags]

1 Comment »

This 6 mile round trip hike is mostly on a lava field, the lava is called a’a. It looks a bit like freshly tilled earth from a distance, but is solid rock. The hike looks easy. It’s not. The trail is filled with loose rocks, and is very scrambly going indeed.

The sign is about a mile in. You can see the trail, and also how going off-trail would be difficult going indeed.

The brown areas are a lava flow from about 1790 on the foothills of 10,000 ft. Mount Haleakala.

Walking back

The a’a piled in the front right is the ruins of a native Hawaiian structure from some centuries back.

No Comments »

Sign at Maui Tacos

No Comments »

Haiku, Maui.

6 Comments »

Yes, in Maui…

1 Comment »

South side of Maui

Some extended native Hawaiian families have rights to land that others don’t. Hey, the land was stolen from their ancestors.

No Comments »

This five mile trail is one of the most strenuous hikes on Maui. We did 1.5 miles up a steep grade with lots of lava rock and ended at the wind turbines. They have 180 foot towers and the blades are 100 feet. Probably not many get this close to them, as the hike is hard and any access roads are on private land. There are 20 turbines, installed this year, and they now supply Maui with 10% of their power.

The island of Lania from Maui

The wind turbines

Heading back. The rock formations are lava, as is most of the island.

8 Comments »

90% of electrical production for Hawaii comes from imported petroleum. In other words, the oil comes in by boat. Yikes. Not real sustainable, is it? However the state is acting fast to create renewable energy.

Just this year, new wind turbines on the West Maui Mountains now provide Maui with 10% of its energy, with plans in progress to increase that to 20%.

Hopefully they’ll make it even more than that. Power can also be generated from the movement of tides, and there’s plenty of ocean around Maui too!

I can see the turbines in the distance out the window. They aren’t overly obtrusive and are well away from homes, etc. They are deliberately painted white to keep birds from flying into them, rather than a camouflage color that would fade into the background. Wind turbines are huge and noisy, so it’s best to keep them away from people, but then most people wouldn’t want to live where’s there’s steady powerful winds anyway.

Why bring in oil by boat to generate electricity when you can generate your own without oil.

2 Comments »

We drove today around the northern tip of Maui on route 340, skirting the West Maui mountains. The road for at least ten miles is one lane, cliffs on one side and a sheer drop on the other. The views are spectacular in this remote part of the island, however sometimes there is no guard rail and there are lots of blind curves, so driving caution is highly recommended!

Yet another idyllic beach in Maui, there were just a few others here too.

These bluffs had to have been formed by volcanoes.

3 Comments »

The sugar in those little brown packets of “Sugar in the Raw” at Starbucks are processed here at Hawaii’s largest operating sugar mill in Maui. It is surrounded by thousands of acres of sugar cane. Next door is the Alexander and Baldwin Sugar Musuem, which explains how the sugar is processed and doesn’t attempt to gloss over the indentured servant status of Japanese migrants who used to harvest the cane, all part of the history of colonialism in Hawaii.

No Comments »

We went on a Cessna ride yesterday, piloted by a friend, from Maui to the Big Island, which about 50 miles across the channel. As you can see, the scenery is amazing. This valley is on the Hilo side of the Big Island.

No Comments »

East side of Maui, circa 600-700 years ago.

No Comments »

East side of Maui. Not sure how old it is.

No Comments »

1/2 mile in on the road to Lahaina by the general store. There’s probably many more in the West Maui mountains, however these are easily accessible.

No Comments »

Hana Highway twists and turns for some forty miles, with over 600 curves and dozens of one lane bridges. Hana itself is a tiny little village of 1,200 with a couple of stores, a hotel, and that’s it. It had been a plantation town, and in many ways still is. Mostly populated by native Hawaiians, I felt in a different country, not just in a remote part of Maui. There were several “Reinstated Hawaiian Government” signs along the way too. They are part of a serious, growing movement for Hawaiian independence and should not be discounted. (See comments for more on this.)

Hana Highway passes through spectacular vistas of ocean, coves, rain forests, with each twist in the road seemingly a different eco-system. There are trailheads everywhere. Exploring all them would take months!

3 Comments »

On the 45 minute boat ride back from Lania to Maui.

No Comments »

The cliffs are a’a, a type of lava that looks like freshly tilled soil, but is solid rock. In the background are the foothils of 10,000 ft. Mount Haleakala, which erupted 200+ years ago, creating the cliffs.

Photos taken during a hike in the Makena area of Maui.

No Comments »

West Maui mountains from Kihei

2 Comments »

Waihee Valley hike on a suspension bridge. The area is a tropical rain forest, or close to it. Just two miles away is the ocean. The valleys and ridges here are about the steepest I’ve seen, climbing them off-trail would be extremely difficult.

Iao State Park, the oft-photographed needle, which is about 250 ft. high. It was used as a lookout by the indigenous peoples during the massively bloody war between Hawaii and Maui in the late 1700’s which eventually resulted in the unification of all the islands under one king.
Native Hawaiians are permitted to climb the needle, doing so in barefeet and with no rope. After looking at the needle through binoculars, viewing those steep, slippery sides with lots of loose soil, I can not fathom how they climb it, except to say that they do and that they are obviously amazingly skilled climbers.

Comments Off

This 10,000 volcanic mountain on Maui is dormant, but not extinct. These photos were taken from the top, where the winds at times were 60 mph with a temperature of 49. Hypothermia weather indeed. A park ranger told me the weather can be anything from idyllic to heavy snow. Winds can range from 0 to 120 mph.

Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island from eighty miles. The triangles of white are snow, not clouds. I’m told this much snow on them is quite unusual. Both are over 13,000 feet. I’ll climb one someday, yes I will.

This is the crater. it’s a 3,000 foot vertical drop to the crater floor. The dark field in the front is a more recent lava flow. Didn’t get to hike down there this time, but will next trip!

I love being above timberline in alpine desert terrain, if you couldn’t tell.

Comments Off

Sugar cane and tourism are the main industries in Maui, where Sue and I are honeymooning. Vast tracts of the island are cane fields. The cane mill spews pollution into the air on a daily basis. The owners of the cane fields refuse to allow roads through them which means everyone must drive way out of their way to get to some areas. I guess the state never heard of the right of imminent domain, which would allow them to build a road through those fields if they choose to.
Cane fields are burned to prepare for the harvest. More spew into the air. The powers-that-be in this island paradise (and it is a paradise) are feudalistic indeed. A new business moving to Maui would not be allowed to pull this kind of shit, but the cane field owners, who control vast tracts of now very valuable land, have been here for decades if not hundreds of years.
And oh yes, when the cane fields burn, it’s not just the smoke to watch out for. All manner of spider, centipede, and scorpion come a’crawling out, some venemous, some not. The deeply ugly 8 inch cane spider is not venemous but will certainly give you a startle if it jumps on you, as it sometimes will. Some scorpions and centipede are indeed venemous. Harvesting the cane is done by machine. Workers who do venture into the fields dress in multi-layers of protective gear because, aside from the beasties, cane is sharp and will cut you.
Hula is a serious big deal here. There are hundreds of hula schools, and there is a major state wide hula competition, the Merrie Monarch Festival, which is named after King Kalakaua who re-legalized hula in the 1890’s after sex-hating missionaries had tried to kill it for decades.
And guess what, he and his sister were overthrown by business interests from the US.

In 1887 a small group of haole business owners and lawyers, backed by their own private paramilitary force, coerced King Kalakaua into abrogating the Hawaiian Kingdom’s constitution in order to replace it with one they themselves had drafted. This constitution, known as the Bayonet Constitution, eliminated the king’s power and undermined the Native Hawaiian-controlled legislature by making the House of Nobles accessible only to those with large incomes or land holdings. This constitution also ended citizenship for hundreds of Asian immigrants who, in the eyes of the haole, were not considered trustworthy.

He is much loved here; for bringing back hula, for traveling the globe and bringing Hawaii with him, and for, yes, loving to party. I watched videos of past Merrie Monarch Festivals. Hula can be extraordinarily graceful and beautiful, with categories for both ancient traditional styles and well as modern genre bending hula cum surf entries. One fascinating thing, body size and proportion matters not. There were hula dancers of all shapes and sizes, big, small, fat, skinny, and that’s a good thing indeed.

Comments Off

10,000 ft. Mt. Haleakala on Maui erupts every 200 years or so, and when it does, a type of lava called a’a flows down the mountain to the sea. This photo of me was taken in the large a’a flow areas on the Kings Highway hike. A’a at first glance looks likes soil freshly turned with a Roto-Tiller, however is is solid rock, with plenty of sharp edges. Hiking through it would be considerably more difficult than any tallus field in the High Sierras. Fortunately, there is a well-maintained trail which although it can be tricky going at times because it is small rocks and easy to twist an ankle on, is still way easier than going off trail.
At the end of the trail is a secluded cove, and even though we were there at near the peak of the tourist season, we were the only people there. Maui hiking areas,campgrounds, and trails have a refreshing absence of signs telling you what to do, parking is free and easy, and all beaches are public, a marked difference from L.A.

Comments Off