Haleakala

Declared in 1961 as a separate section of Hawaii Volcanoes park, Haleakalā protects an enormous shield volcano whose erosion crater, more than 11 km around, offers one of the most celebrated sunrises in the United States, described by the writer Mark Twain after his 1866 visit as the sublimest spectacle he ever witnessed. Its Hawaiian name means house of the sun, after a local legend in which the demigod Māui snared the sun at the summit to slow its passage across the sky and so lengthen the days.