Qualla: Haleakala https://qualla.com/haleakala en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:09 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/8/e/8/v/haleakala-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Haleakala https://qualla.com/haleakala Haleakala: Introduction https://qualla.com/haleakala/ Photo credit Kenny Louie from Vancouver, Canada, CC BY 2.0. In Hawaiian legend, the demigod Maui climbed to the summit of this volcano, hid behind a wiliwili tree, and snared the sun's rays with ropes braided by his grandmother. He beat the sun until it agreed to slow its arc across the sky, giving the island longer days to grow food and dry tapa cloth. The Hawaiians named the mountain Haleakala, "house of the sun," and that name has outlasted empires, kingdoms, and every other language spoken on the island. At 10,023 feet, the summit still earns it. Sunrise here is not a gradual event but a sudden eruption of color that floods a depression seven miles across and 2,600 feet deep, turning cinder cones into islands of rust and gold floating in a sea of cloud.

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Image: Kenny Louie from Vancouver, Canada | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/8/e/8/v/haleakala-wp/8e8v-haleakala-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Haleakala: A Crater That Isn't https://qualla.com/haleakala/ Photo credit Public domain. The massive depression at Haleakala's summit looks like a volcanic crater, and most visitors call it one, but geologists know better. Two river valleys carved into the mountain's flanks over hundreds of thousands of years, their headwalls eroding backward until they merged at the...

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Image: Public domain

]]> Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/8/e/8/v/haleakala-wp/8e8v-haleakala-a-crater-that-isnt.mp3 0:06 2 full Haleakala: Silverswords and Weaponized Mosquitoes https://qualla.com/haleakala/ Photo credit Michael Oswald, Public domain. Haleakala shelters species found nowhere else on Earth, and it is losing them fast. The Haleakala silversword, a spectacular plant that produces a single stalk of flowers after decades of growth and then dies, once blanketed the upper slopes so thickly the mountain shimmered silv...

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Image: Michael Oswald | Public domain

]]> Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/8/e/8/v/haleakala-wp/8e8v-haleakala-silverswords-and-weaponized-mosquitoes.mp3 0:06 3 full Haleakala: Science City Above the Clouds https://qualla.com/haleakala/ Photo credit The original uploader was Viriditas at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0. Above the tropical inversion layer, where the atmosphere thins to 71 kilopascals and the nearest city lights are an ocean away, Haleakala's summit offers some of the clearest, driest, stillest air available to ground-based astronomy. The cluster of domes and instruments at the su...

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Image: The original uploader was Viriditas at English Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/8/e/8/v/haleakala-wp/8e8v-haleakala-science-city-above-the-clouds.mp3 0:06 4 full Haleakala: The Road to the Top https://qualla.com/haleakala/ Photo credit Navin75, CC BY-SA 2.0. Haleakala Highway, completed in 1935, climbs from sea level to over 10,000 feet through a dizzying succession of switchbacks and blind turns. Cattle sometimes wander into the road. The temperature drops roughly three degrees Fahrenheit for every thousand feet of elevation gain, a...

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Image: Navin75 | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/8/e/8/v/haleakala-wp/8e8v-haleakala-the-road-to-the-top.mp3 0:06 5 full