13. Bottomless Pit is a yawning black well, ten feet in diameter, rimmed with colored lava spatter a few feet high. Use caution approaching its edge. Baseless legend claims that it sinks to sea level. Although no bottom can be seen, debris chokes the opening sixty or seventy feet below. It is a vent, through which superheated gases were emitted in an eruption of long ago. The rim around the throat indicates that a little lava sputtered out with the gas. During the flank eruptions of Mauna Loa and Kilauea similar vents exhale columns of blue, incandescent gases at intervals. Old Hawaiians at Kaupo say that the pit was used for disposition of umbilical cords of babies. Various reasons are assigned to the custom, such as to make the child strong, or to prevent its becoming a thief.
14. Ka Moa o Pele Trail branches from the foot of the Sliding Sands Trail to join the Halemauu Trail across the crater. It is a scenic route between silverswords on Ka Moa o Pele, a red cinder cone. Flowering plants can usually be seen from June to September. Pa Puaa o Pele, Pele’s Pig Pen, is the rim of a spatter cone, now buried, in the low pass between Halalii and Ka Moa o Pele. Hikers from Sliding Sands to Holua should go around the right or east side of Halalii to see the Bottomless Pit and Pele’s Paint Pot, a colorful pass just a short distance beyond.
15. Bubble Cave is a large, collapsed bubble with heavy walls. It was blown by gases in ancient molten lava. Only a small segment collapsed in the center of the roof, which serves as entrance and smoke-hole; old-timers were wont to camp in this natural shelter. It was the rest stop now supplanted by Kapalaoa Cabin.
16. Wailuku Cabin, outside the park, was built by the State Board of Agriculture and Forestry for the use of hunters. Arrangements for its use must be made at the Maui Office of the Board in Kahului. Trails to it are not of park standards and are not recommended to sightseers.
17. Old and New Volcanics: Dikes that protrude as slabs of light-colored rock from slopes of the ridge toward Hanakauhi mark part of the ancient divide between Koolau and Kaupo Valleys, the great erosional canyons worn into the mountain during an age of quiescence. This divide is deeply buried inside the crater under the cinders and flows of renewed eruptions that form the present floor. Adjacent Mauna Hina and Namana o ke Akua, green with shrubs, grass, and scrub mamane, are cinder cones from ancient eruptions. Puu Nole, a garish, black youngster in the community, has only silverswords on its barren slopes. Towards Paliku the trail is flanked by some of the most recent lava flows, only a few hundred years old. Their source vents are visible on the slopes of Hanakauhi and the north wall of the crater.
18. Lauulu Trail is plainly visible as it zigzags up the north wall. Although not maintained at present, it is passable and allows rugged enthusiasts to climb the rim for views of the crater. On the outer slopes, moist grassy plots, often fog-bound, blend into jungle that drops to the Hana Coast, 8,000 feet below. Kalapawili Ridge extends from the summit of Hanakauhi Mountain eastward around the head of Kipahulu Valley to the tiny lake, Wai Anapanapa. It is readily traversable for the good hiker.
19. Paliku is very different from the desert wastes in the other parts of the crater. Lush grass and ferns, overhanging forest trees, and a verdant cover on a towering pali result from abundant clouds pushed by the trade winds over the east wall. AKALA, the giant Hawaiian raspberry, ripens abundantly back of the cabins in July. It is excellent for pie, conserves, or dessert. Native Hawaiian trees include: MAMANE, far larger than the scrubby growth in the crater; OHIA, with gray-green leaves and red lehua flowers; KOLEA, with thick magnolia-like leaves four inches long; OLAPA, with leaves that tremble in the slightest breeze, like those of quaking aspen. The conifer above the Ranger Cabin is a cryptomeria, a Japanese evergreen planted early in this century.
20. Kipahulu Valley, beyond the eastern rim, is a remote, jungle wilderness walled in by loftiest cliffs; a no man’s land, it has barely been explored, let alone touched or altered by civilization. Look from the cabin at Paliku across the pasture to the lowest notch in the sheer eastern pali. For a view into Kipahulu, a good climber can follow an old goat trail, steep and tortuous, that leads up the left side of the draw to this notch. A chorus of bird songs rises from the primeval forest in Kipahulu. With them you may hear complacent squeals of wild pigs that have been undisturbed for generations.
21. Kaupo Trail is a good trail that winds down Kaupo Gap, across little meadows, through groves of small AALII trees, and under spreading KOA trees to the park boundary which is below the 4,000-foot contour. Wild goats may be heard on the pali or on the lavas in the gap. Kaupo Ranch extends below the park. From the redwood water tanks, a jeep trail descends through pastures to ranch headquarters. It is 8 miles from Paliku to ranch headquarters, which can be hiked in a half day. Kaupo Village on the belt road around Haleakala is 1½ miles further. The route is interesting, but arrangements must be made in advance to be met by car either at the ranch or the village. It is fifty miles from Central Maui by the shortest road. Although Kaupo Trail crosses private property, advance permission is not required to use it; but, in due consideration, please use care to close gates and do not molest or damage any property. The reverse trip from Kaupo Village into the crater is not recommended because of the long, arduous climb up the unsheltered, south-facing mountain slope.
