Haleakalā National Park

Haleakalā National Park is on the island of Maui, Hawaii. Haleakalā means "house of the sun," and the park is often known by this name. The coastal park includes the highest peak on the island, Haleakalā, where legend claims a demigod lassoed the sun. It is considered a sacred place to native Hawaiians. The park holds the distinction of being the national park with the most number of endangered species. It contains a wide range of habitats, including desert and tropical forest.

The 47 square mile (122 square kilometer) Haleakalā National Park was established August 1, 1916. It includes the mountainous Summit District and the coastal area, called the Kīpahulu District. The former is popular as a vantage point to watch the sunrise, although demand has led the National Park Service to require visitors to make reservations and pay an additional fee. Visitors must take different routes to the districts, which are not connected by road within the park. Both districts are remote and therefore popular with stargazers. About one million people visit the park annually.

Background

The Hawaiian islands developed as volcanoes in the ocean floor that continually built up through eruptions. The islands are near the middle of the Pacific Plate, which slowly moves northwestward. The magma that formed the islands pushes up through a weak spot in the plate, resulting in the chain of islands as the weak spot has shifted. Layer upon layer of lava cooled and the volcanoes grew. Haleakalā broke the surface more than one million years ago. Once it reached its maximum height, the plate pushed onward and it ceased to grow taller. Its high peak was subjected to frequent rainfall, and as water streamed down the mountainsides, it created two valleys. These eventually met to form the erosional crater. Later, eruptions resumed near the summit of Haleakalā and filled much of the crater.

The island of Maui is the youngest of the chain. It was once a much larger landmass called Maui Nui. It was more than 5,600 square miles (14,503 sq km)—almost twice as big as the modern island of Hawaii—and included seven volcanoes. When glaciers receded on North America, the resulting melt raised sea levels. Most of the volcanic peaks became isolated from one another, becoming the islands of Kahoolawe, Lanai, Maui, and Molokai.

Humans first began living on the Hawaiian islands more than one thousand years ago. Polynesians traveled two thousand miles from the Marquesas Islands in canoes. Early Hawaiians lived in small communities under the leadership of chieftains.

The first Europeans arrived in 1778. Captain James Cook led the expedition and named the chain the Sandwich Islands. Although the people of the islands were not united before Cook's arrival, they became so under King Kamehameha in 1810.

Christian missionaries and traders and whalers arrived during the 1820s. Diseases brought by the outsiders decimated the local population. From about three hundred thousand in 1778, the native population fell to just seventy thousand by 1853. American colonists established sugarcane plantations during the late nineteenth century. They eventually overthrew the kingdom to establish the Republic of Hawaii, which was annexed by the United States in 1898. Hawaii became the fiftieth state on August 21, 1959.

Congress created Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in 1916. This included Haleakalā, Kilauea, and Mauna Loa parks, none of which was provided funding. Haleakalā's first full-time ranger was appointed in 1935, and a road was constructed to develop access to the park. The National Park Service made Haleakalā a separate park in 1961. In the twenty-first century, the National Park Service works with representatives of native Hawaiians to protect sacred sites and native people's access to them.

Overview

Modern Maui looks like a figure eight, with its two volcanoes. Pu'u Kukui rises to 5,788 feet (1,764 meters). Haleakalā is Hawaii's largest dormant volcano, standing 10,023 feet (3,055 m) above sea level. From rim to rim, it is 2.5 miles wide.

The center of the crater is actually an erosional depression, the result of the merger of two valleys. At about 2,600 feet (800 m) deep, it is a vast expanse of dried lava, which forms spirals and lava cones as high as 600 feet (180 m). It is devoid of wildlife except for plants and some birds, and so deep that the infrequent visitors who travel for two hours down the hiking trail carved into the crater wall experience a quiet, often windless series of rocky slopes. The most recent eruption occurred in 1780 and took place on the southern side of the mountain, where lava flowed toward La Pérouse Bay.

The high peak of Summit District is associated with the demigod Maui. The trickster is credited with creating the island chain when he pulled the islands up with his fishhook and line. Native Hawaiians call the summit wao akua, or the wilderness of the gods.

The park includes a number of zones and habitats. These include the alpine aeolian zone, where little more than silversword plants live, subalpine shrublands, home to many native shrubs and rain forest, where several species of native birds known as Hawaiian honeycreepers flit from flower to flower for sips of nectar. The 'Ohe'o stream ecosystem is home to native fish and shrimp, and is completely within the park.

The ecosystems of the remote Hawaiian islands developed without the influence of outside species. Their ancestors arrived by accident in the very distant past and evolved to survive in the islands' conditions. These species struggled to withstand the arrival of new species, which included grazing animals and predators, as well as diseases. Even in the twentieth century, many species that reside in Haleakalā National Park are endangered. These include the Hawaiian petrel, or 'ua'u, migratory seabirds that nest in a colony at the top of Haleakalā. The nēnē, or Hawaiian goose, also nests at Haleakalā. Researchers believe this endangered state bird evolved from a common ancestor with the Canada goose less than three million years ago. In the past, the Hawaiian islands had six common goose species, but only the nēnē has survived. Breeding programs have increased the population, which was just thirty birds in 1952.

An endangered plant species, the silversword, resembles a yucca plant with its silver spikes of foliage. Silverswords may live more than ninety years, and die soon after sending up a single flowering stalk. The plants are threatened by foraging mammals and the encroachment of non-native species, as well as human souvenir hunters and careless hikers. Researchers are also concerned about the effects of global climate change on many plants of Haleakalā National Park.

Bibliography

"A Rare and Sacred Landscape." National Park Service, 19 Dec. 2023, www.nps.gov/hale/index.htm. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

Cessna, Abby. "What Is the Haleakala Volcano?" Universe Today, 23 Dec. 2015, www.universetoday.com/50277/haleakala/. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

"Haleakalā: History & Culture." National Park Service, www.nps.gov/hale/learn/historyculture/index.htm. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

"Haleakalā National Park, Maui." Go Hawaii/Hawaii Tourism Authority, www.gohawaii.com/maui/regions-neighborhoods/upcountry-maui/haleakala-national-park/. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.

Perrottet, Tony. "Descending into Hawaii's Haleakala Crater." Smithsonian, Dec. 2011, www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/descending-into-hawaiis-haleakala-crater-70943/. Accessed 5 Dec. 2024.