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Haleakalā National Park
The sacred House of the Sun on East Maui
Haleakalā means house of the sun, and in Hawaiian tradition it is where the demigod Māui snared the sun with ropes to slow its passage and lengthen the day. The summit was a realm of the gods, visited by kahuna for ceremony and learning, and Native Hawaiians still hold it sacred, greeting the sunrise there with oli (chants). From Puʻuʻulaʻula, 10,023 feet (3,055 m) high, the view falls into a summit depression about 7 miles (11 km) long and 2,600 feet (790 m) deep, an erosional valley later partly filled by cinder cones and lava flows. Haleakalā last erupted sometime between about 1480 and 1600.
The park reaches from that alpine desert down to the rainforest and pools of ʻOheʻo Gulch in the Kīpahulu District on the coast. Isolation produced species found nowhere else, including the ʻāhinahina (silversword), and the park protects more endangered species than any other U.S. national park. Nēnē, the Hawaiian goose, were reintroduced to the crater in 1962. Haleakalā was part of Hawaiʻi National Park from 1916 and became a separate park in 1961. Sunrise visitors need an advance reservation to drive to the summit.