Wandering Wednesday - The Slopes of Haleakalā

Since I'm not really wandering much, on Wednesdays or any other days, here's a blast from the past from our trip to Maui a few years ago. This was our non-sunrise visit to Haleakalā National Park. The drive up was lovely, scattered clouds, brilliant blue sky, perfect Maui weather.

 As soon as we got into the lava fields, the landscape changed, it was a very distinct line. I had always seen pictures of silverswords in other gardens mixed with other plants and thought they were beautiful and strange. But the utter starkness of the volcanic landscape in comparison to this luminous plant was so striking I was breathless. Or maybe it was the elevation, who knows?

 The switchback road quickly ascended. And the cloud cover increased.

 I like the simplicity of this picture, the way it's divided up is very soothing to me.

 Already at ten thousand feet.

 The clouds sort of cleared as we parked at the summit.

 I snagged this panorama picture showing the observatory buildings.

 See it was even sunny enough for a goofy selfie picture at the summit.

 And then it wasn't. It went back and forth several times. Brilliant blue to dark grey and back again. Here's Marc in front of what is probably a very nice outlook station if there was anything to overlook besides swirling clouds.

 Then it cleared again. Boom.

 And then the clouds came back and obliterated it all from view, like a wet blanket pulled over everything.

It was awesome being in the clouds up on top of a volcano.