I arrived home from Hawaii last night, but still have a few Hawaii posts to finish off. The whole trip was just amazing... I met lots of great people, put in some great training on the bike in one of the most scenic places I've ever been, relaxed, and ate lots of yummy fish tacos, gelato, and banana-split milkshakes (not all at once, of course).
The most unusual ride of the trip was the climb up to the Haleakala volcano crater. Haleakala (pronounced hall-ee-ock-a-la) is a shield volcano that forms 75% of the island of Maui, with its summit being 10,023 ft above sea level. Its latest eruption is best estimated to have occurred in the 17th century. From what I can tell, that classifies this thing as ‘dormant’… or at least I hoped so as I was pedaling my way up!
Living in Pittsburgh has given me a lot of practice riding hills, but climbing Haleakala presented an entirely new challenge: A long, winding road that climbed at an average 6-7% grade for just under 27 miles. At one or two points, it briefly leveled or dipped down slightly, but for the most part it was up, up, up! We started riding as the sun was coming up, and knowing that it would be a long morning on the bike, I settled into a comfortable gear and prepared to spin my legs off.
From the base, the top of Haleakala was barely visible through the early morning fog and clouds. It was really interesting to see how the landscape and plant life changed as we climbed higher. We started at about 1700 ft above sea level, and for the first few thousand feet of elevation gain, the plant life was pretty standard: grass, trees, flowers. As elevation increased, the trees became shorter, scrubbier, and grew sparse. At around 5,000 feet, we officially entered Haleakala National Park. This was the only place I took a short break to grab a snack and refill my bottles at the group's van and stretch my back/legs a bit.
By this point, there were no more trees in sight as looked upwards to the observatory at the top of Haleakala -- we had arrived above the tree line. Large rocks were taking over as the predominant land feature, and yellow flowers seemed to be one of the few plants hearty enough to survive the altitude/rocky soil/weather conditions.
At around 7,000 feet above sea level, we started noticing that we were looking into the clouds instead of up at them.
By 8,000 feet, the clouds were below us!
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| See the road snaking though the landscape below me? (For a shot taken with one hand while pedaling, I think this picture turned out well!) |
Since I’ve never done a continuous climb longer than 6 miles, or at an altitude close to half of Haleakala’s altitude, I wasn’t sure how hard to push myself. I wanted to be sure I would stay strong enough to complete the climb, and I was a little worried about having breathing issues from the altitude near the top. Overall, I think I handled the altitude adjustment well, but I did notice a bigger difference than usual in effort level when I went from heart rate zones 1-2 into zone 3. It was a little harder to breath working at a higher effort, so I kept a low gear and enjoyed the scenery while I spun my way to the top. Every 10 or 15 minutes, I would crank up the gearing a few notches and stand up for a minute or so to stretch out my legs and back. (I think these stand-and-stretch breaks became more frequent as I got closer to the top!)
When I reached 9,000 ft above sea level, I felt like I was on an entirely different planet. Large volcanic rocks ranging from black to grey to reddish brown were strewn about; the black-topped road with its double yellow line was the only thing breaking up the endless sea of rocks.
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| Chillin' above the clouds... happy to have reached the summit! |
I felt a tremendous feeling of satisfaction from completing the climb and reaching the summit after 4 hours of being in the saddle. We won’t encounter any climbs this long in Race Across America, but knowing that I can complete such a climb is a nice boost of confidence!
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| View from the top looking into the crater… this is what I picture Mars to look like! |
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| Volcanic rocks everywhere! |
