Here is a Haleakala sunrise on Maui. It's around 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. with the sun coming up over the island's crater. It's 1979, the year I graduated from Lahainaluna High School in Lahaina.
It's a very chilly (about 40 F.) and with the wind chill factor, it can be close to freezing in some months. An amazing event to experience, especially when your blood has been thinned out over years of island living. The sunrise coming up is a breath-taking as the sun spills into the cloud-filled crater the size of Manhattan and you're 10,000 ft up on the island. Haleakala was designated a National Park in 1961.
Hawaiian legend is the demi-God Maui climbed up Haleakala snared the sun one morning as it was rising. The islanders would have more sunlight in their day as it used to pass too quickly, committing them to darkness and cold. Hence, Haleakala, or "House of the Sun" was named. Pretty much the original house of the rising sun.
Full Version
According to ancient legend, Haleakala got its name from a very clever trick that the demigod Maui pulled on the sun. Maui's mother, the goddess Hina, complained one day that the sun sped across the sky so quickly that her tapa cloth couldn't dry.
Maui, known as a trickster, devised a plan. The next morning he went to the top of the great mountain and waited for the sun to poke its head above the horizon. Quickly, Maui lassoed the sun, bringing its path across the sky to an abrupt halt.
The sun begged Maui to let go, and Maui said he would on one condition: that the sun slow its trip across the sky to give the island more sunlight. The sun assented. In honor of this agreement, the Hawaiians call the mountain Haleakala, or "House of the Sun."
To this day, the top of Haleakala has about 15 minutes more sunlight than the communities on the coastline below.


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