Haleakala CraterMassive and majestic, the world’s largest dormant volcano towers above the Hawaiian

Haleakala CraterMassive and majestic, the world’s largest dormant volcano towers above the Hawaiian Island of Maui.So immense is the Haleakala Crater on the Hawaiian island of Maui that the American writer Mark Twain wrote: “If it had a level bottom it would make a fine site for a city like London.” The crater of Vesuvius, he said, was a ‘modest pit’ by comparison (http://bit.ly/1IT554R).Haleakala’s vast bowl is 21 miles (34km) round and more than ½ mile (800m) deep, large enough, in fact, to accommodate the New York island of Manhattan. Within lies a stark landscape of tumbled rocks, multi-coloured cinder cones and bizarre lava formations resembling grotesque statues. But on a mountain 10,023ft (3055m) high, the crater is often cloaked in cloud.Mark Twain, after watching from the rim as the sun rose over the cloud-filled crater, wrote: “I feel like the Last Man… left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world.” (http://bit.ly/1L7FVzG). It was, he said, the most sublime spectacle that he had ever witnessed. Today, visitors can join organised trips to view the Haleakala sunrise, when the pink and purple shadows and filmy clouds are slowly suffused with bars of burning yellow and gold. The name Haleakala means ‘House of the Sun’. According to Hawaiian legend, the demi-god Maui crept to the summit before sunrise and roped the rays of the sun one by one as they appeared over the rim.The volcano’s huge, barren crater is not entirely the result of volcanic action. It has been carved out over thousands of years by erosion wind, rain and down-cutting streams such as Kaupo and Keanae have all played a part. But the multi-coloured cinder cones, such as Pu’u o Maui (Hill of Maui), almost 1000ft (300m) high, result from volcanic action 800-1000 years ago, long after Haleakala had pushed its peak high above the sea. Sulphur and iron spewed out with the burning lava account for their predominant yellow and red streaks. The cones include Bottomless Pit and Pele’s Paint Pot - named after the goddess Pele - said to have created the volcanoes.Strewn across the crater floor are volcanic ‘bombs’, which range from fist-sized to car-sized. They are fragments of molten lava that cooled before striking ground. There is some greenery amid the ash and cinders within the crater - bracken fields carpet parts of the southern slopes. But the most remarkable plants are the gleaming grey silverswords. Their succulent leaves are covered with a mat of fibreglass-like hairs that act as mirrors to reflect the scorching sun, and they grow in a spikey rosette that protects the plant’s roots from the sun by day and from freezing by night.~ JMImage Credit: Haleakala Crater at sunrise. (Photograph by Jeremie Schatz, My Shot). Sourced from http://bit.ly/1Mo43wKMore Info:Roughing It by Mark Twain: http://bit.ly/1L7FVzGHaleakala National Park: https://www.nps.gov/hale/index.htmEast Maui volcano (Haleakala): http://on.doi.gov/1HmZn6S -- source link

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