This past Sunday Roman and I got to do another hike in Haleakala National Park, but this one was much different than the one we did in the crater. That one was dry and barren, and this one was wet and green. It was called Walk on the Wet Side and we had to call in advance to reserve spaces on this hike. It was over 4 hours long and we got to hike through private property that is owned by the Nature Conservancy.
The beginning of the hike started in Hosmer Grove, which includes many alien tree species that do not belong in Hawaii. Ralph Hosmer planted them in the early 1900's, I believe, because he wanted to have wood for timber, but the trees have not been doing well in Hawaii. It is so strange to walk through because you feel like you are not in Hawaii at all and my allergies even started acting up!
After an hour of so, we came to a clearing where we sat down and took a break. After that was the amazing part!
We walked through a trail that was surrounded by ferns and all sorts of native Hawaii brush. The guide gave us some pieces of a fern called Pohole that we got to eat (and it was pretty good! Strange after taste though!). Not only were we surrounded by over 16 species of ferns, but we were also walking through clouds! You can see in many of the pictures from that part of the trail that there is just white in the background. Well, that's the clouds! It was pretty wet in there and we had to walk down this little boardwalk, since the area is known to experience flash flooding, to get the the viewing platform. We were lucky because we got to see one of the rare bird species only found in Hawaii (sorry, I forgot the name) and it even hung around for a long while. It was pretty cool. Even the mold everywhere was cool. It felt like 1970's furniture. :)
Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=136295&l=a6eff&id=723885367
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