Sunrise at Haleakala Summit

When we said we were going to Maui for part of our honeymoon, everyone who had been before said we just had to go up to the Haleakala Summit for a sunrise. It took about 3 hours from our resort in Wailea to the summit of Haleakala National Park, so we were up at 2am (yikes!) to meet our tour group at the base of the volcano. We took a biking tour group, Haleakala Bike Co., but elected not to bike down as we had plans for the rest of the day.

The ride up was dark and we slept in & out, waking to see signs illuminate from the van's lights with our elevation height rising. Once we got to the top, it was hard to see how high we were up, except for some lights of the town below. It was chilllllly. Thankfully we had packed layers and the hotel had given us blankets.

Sunrise that day was 6:10am and around 5:15-30 we started to see the morning colors. 

The summit where we were is 9,700 feet above sea level! Other peaks are over 10,000 feet up.

Bundled up hubby!

It was a lot more crowded with other tour groups than I thought it would be. As time went on, we crept closer to sunrise and everyone crowded around the edge to view the clouds, colors, and views of the ocean, the towns below us, and other islands - you can see The Big Island!

In the distance on the right side you can see The Big Island.

Another cool thing to see was what seemed like a "wave" of cloud coming over the volcano.

So many beautiful colors!

I definitely recommend taking a tour, as I cannot imagine driving ourselves up the windy and steep roads in the wee hours of the morning, nor would I want to miss seeing the views on the ride down.  The ride down was awesome as well, as it was so blue and clear, and we caught a sugar cane fire which looked quite ominous yet cool. It was crazy to experience the winding roads on the way down, that we couldn't on the way up in the dark.

The smoke on the left going straight up is the sugar cane burning.

Haleakala means " house of the sun". We were certainly in her home that morning.

More from our Hawaii honeymoon here and click to see what else we did in Maui.

All photos by me.

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Sunrise at Haleakala Summit