Brian Versus the Volcano, Part I

Winter is stoopid.

Since there’s nothing else going on I might as well recount my ride down Haleakala last winter. WARNING: this is a long story, but that is because of it’s epicness. I know a lot of you have short attention spans and a low tolerance for "lots of words" so I decided to split this tale into 2 or 3 installments.

Our family-sized tropical escape was planned almost a year in advance. Jackie painstakingly researched and forensically analyzed every micron of information about the enchanted islands of Hawaii. We settled on going to Maui during the first week or so of the off season, in December. Neither of us had been to Hawaii so the anticipation of scenes like this was quite high:



Early in the planning process I began researching mountain bike rides. I came across surprisingly little information. Everything I found tried to steer me toward a group tour: beach cruiser, yellow jumpsuit ride down the paved highway from the Haleakala summit (which they don’t even do anymore because of all the injuries that have occurred). This ride didn’t appeal to me at all.



Then I found some information about the Skyline and Mamane Trails as well as some trail in Poli Poli Park. This route would start at the summit and essentially take me down the “backside” of the volcano. Skyline is a 4x4 fireroad leading down from the summit, through some crazy topography that looks more like Mars than Earth. Mamane is more classic singletrack through dense forest about halfway down. I was looking forward to this section the most. From there it was onto the twisty Waipoli Road and maybe some hidden singletrack and stunts along the way. The best blog I found on the subject is here.

I planned to rent a XC bike from a local shop and do the ride solo. I called a couple of shops to reserve a bike. At each shop I called a very surfer dude tried to steer me toward a downhill bike. For those of you not familiar with downhill, these bikes are really more like motorcycles – huge tires, long suspension forks and HEAVY. They are built for going down – fast. I didn’t want to die on the mountain so I backed out of the offer and decided I would just deal with it when I got to the island.

The Master Plan involved having the whole clan (me + wife + 2 kids + mother-in-law + aunt) go to the summit for the famous Haleakala sunrise and afterward I would ride down. The travel books recommended doing this the first day of your visit since your internal clock is already screwed up and you must leave for the summit by 4:00 a.m. to be there by sunrise. Ah plans, they’re fun to have aren’t they?

We arrived on the Valley Isle to find this:





A Kona Low, which is a cyclone (ah, irony) that interferes with flow of the Trade Winds (this one actually reversed the direction of the winds) was camped off shore. It created this neverending swirl of rain and wind that swept the islands over and over…..and over.



To say this was a disappointing start to our vacation doesn’t quite capture the deflation. I’ve never watched so much Weather Channel in my life. The hotel flooded, but many areas were far worse off than us, some places losing power for significant time.



Houses were washed off their foundations. There were blizzard conditions on the Mauna Loa summit. That’s right, the volcano on the Big Island gets snow, so there was a blizzard – in Hawaii. We had arrived just in time for the 100 year storm. Uhm, so yeah, we went to Hawaii for the 100 year storm, then later that same year were back in Iowa for the 2nd 100 year flood in the last 15 years.

Awesome.

Our first two days on the isle, and part of a third, was a complete deluge. Occasionally we’d duck out into glorious sun only to get thoroughly soaked moments later. My kids swam defiantly in the frigid pool swearing it wasn’t, “that bad” (shiver, shiver, shiver).



We’d dart back inside the hotel when the wind blew sheets of rain in out of nowhere. It was like being in a movie. We mostly huddled inside, the murderous rage (uhm, I mean frustration) building. The kids disparately wanted to play at the hotel’s minigolf course – it was flooded.



The beach was closed, the roaring surf rolling in large brown waves of sand and silt. I watched a Hogan Knows Best marathon slightly worried about the internal bleeding from all the seething I was doing. By the way, Brooke Hogan really needs to listen to Hulk, he really does know best.



As the week moved on the weather improved, this meant my dreamride was rekindled. I made some more calls to bike shops, and this is when I met Aa’Ron. Hawaiians pronounce both a sounds in word with double a’s. This means Aaron (like Hank Aaron) is pronounced Aa’ Ron (like hay, hay there’s Ron). I don’t want to be stereotypical but Aa’Ron was about as Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure as you get.



He told me, “Nah, Bro, You want a downhill bike for that ride. Skyline is mucho gnarly Bro, super fast, super fun.” In my coolest suburban Midwestern jive I said something that must have sounded like, “Uhm, yeah, cooldude, ‘cept I’m a fat, middle-aged nerdlynerd and I would prefer the girly bike. Oh, and please be sure to affix the training wheels so I don’t ruin my touristy shell necklace.”



Aa’Ron was persistent, he said he knew the mountain and would take me down personally. He would rent me his DH rig, a Canfield, a supa bad monster of a cycle.



It was like Bodie, from Point Break, was challenging me to “live life man”.



How could I resist the wisdom of Bodie Zen Master? We settled on a deal. That morning the Summit Team (that’s all of us) woke up at 3:30 a.m. preparing for a 1.5 hour drive to the summit. Checking the Weather Channel the Kona Low was unexpectedly still kicking and the summit was blanketed with rain and high wind. Aa’Ron said it was probably closed, he called a couple of his contacts who all said things were not good. We pulled the plug and went back to bed.

I tried to make arrangements with Aa’Ron over the next few days, but things never came together. The weather had condensed a lot of other things the whole group wanted to do like a trip to Pearl Harbor





and a luau





so planning was getting tougher all the time. When a third attempt was aborted last minute by Aa’Ron I gave up hope. Jackie was a little peeved that I wanted to return the Haleakala mountain bike shirt I had bought earlier in the trip. She didn’t get the anti-poser sentiment. If I didn’t ride it I certainly wasn’t going to wear a shirt like I did. I maybe a nerdlynerd, but I least know that much.

So, the last day before we were to leave we made a last ditch attempt, but that's a story for another day...