Cardiac Arrest Road

The exquisite turquoise, greens, and deep blues were out today, after a rainy night and grey overcast skies in the early morning.  It rained when Liz and I went to the small farmer's market just up the road, but only scattered drops that hardly mattered.  Fresh bread, ginger root, tumeric, lettuce, tomato and a bell pepper were just the thing and we soon were back at the condo to collect Helen and set off on our northern journey to the Nakalele Blowhole, and beyond for as far as it was safe to go.  

We were somewhat cautious as we started, as we had read the following from recent prior travelers for this road on the far north of West Maui:

"Probably the most excitement you can have for the cost of gas on the island. Makes the road to Hana look like the Trans Canada highway across Saskatchewan!! Hairpins, single lane, no room to meet an oncoming car, sharp drops, steep hills, you name it. Not for the faint of heart"

"...we encountered several cars in what must be the worst place to encounter cars. After what was literally a death defying backup so a couple of cars could get by (I told my wife to get out of the car
so only I would plunge off the edge...no joke), I will never go past the blow hole again. There's really no need to. If you can guarantee that you won't meet other cars, it's a beautiful drive. But if you meet cars in the wrong place (which we did this year) you will be thanking God that you're still alive before you try to go to sleep..."

"I wouldn’t take grandma, little ones or a pregnant wife."

"What possessed us to take this drive, I may never know. But we woke up early one morning and headed North from our hotel in Kaanapali...the road narrowed down to what I say isn’t even suited for a car, this road is no wider than a bike path in places and at times it’s hanging onto the side of a cliff with no room for error. It was at that point that I lost any interest in wanting any pictures from the remaining drive and all I wanted was to get the heck off this road and back to a road wide enough for two cars and had a yellow middle stripe...If I ever see this road again it will be by plane or helicopter."

Needless to say, we started off happy to see a divided road with a yellow line, and even the frequent road signs to "sound horn" just seemed an ordinary precaution.  The views were breathtaking, as the grey skies had lifted and the sun made the ocean gleam with deep colors. 

While I wondered about the sanity of the many bike riders we passed as we drove along, the road itself seemed no worse than the narrow parts of our Comptche-Ukiah Road, or even Highway 1 around Elk or on the way to Rockport. I asked Helen if she wanted to drive back and she said "What, on this road?" so maybe I am just used to narrow, windy, and dropoff roads.   We passed the Blow Hole at Nakalele Point, but chose not to walk in the stiff winds down to the pool below, observing the misty sea water arise from the hole from the cliffs above.  The winds were so strong that they occasionally blew me a half-step backward, which I figured would not be a good thing when going down or up a cliff path.

A ways past the blow hole was an abandoned, burned out shell of a car nosed head in to a cliff--how long had it been there (a long time it looked), and what was the sad story?  Then, suddenly we were on a road that had narrowed, lacked a center line, and seemed to have a pocked and  cracked surface.  There was a wide pull over on the cliff side, and this seemed the appropriate place to turn around rather than risk achieving the Darwin Award.

We headed home, still alive and now focused on finding a lovely spot for lunch as we passed one lovely view after another heading south.