Haleakala National Park Trivia
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49 free Haleakala National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Haleakala National Park trivia quiz covers the two very different halves of Maui's national park: the 10,023-foot summit of the great East Maui volcano, with its cinder-cone-studded depression, sunrise crowds and Science City telescopes, and the rainforest coast of Kipahulu with the Oheo pools and Waimoku Falls. Questions cover the geology (why the crater is not really a crater and when the volcano last erupted), the legend of Maui snaring the sun, and the rare life found nowhere else, from the silversword to the nene and the tardigrades of the summit. The history questions take in the 1916 Hawaii National Park, the 1961 split from Hawaii Volcanoes, the Boy Scouts who carried geese into the crater, the 2017 sunrise reservation system, the bike-tour ban and Charles Lindbergh's grave beside the park. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is marked on every question, so it works for a car game on the switchbacks or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia or National Park Service pages and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Hawaii Volcanoes and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which famously winding Maui road do visitors drive to reach Haleakalā National Park's coastal district?
Hāna Highway
Hāna Highway carries visitors past Hāna town to the coastal entrance; no road inside the park links that district to the summit.
Q 02What does the name Haleakalā mean in Hawaiian?
House of the sun
House of the sun: hale means house and lā sun. In legend the demigod Māui hid near the summit and roped the sun's rays one by one as it rose.
Q 03In legend, why did the demigod Māui lasso the sun from Haleakalā's summit?
To slow it and lengthen the day
To slow it and lengthen the day: in the best-known telling his mother Hina's bark cloth would not dry, and the beaten sun agreed to cross the sky slowly for half the year.
Q 04In the Hawaiian legend, which relative showed Māui how to snare the sun on Haleakalā?
His grandmother
His grandmother, in the best-known telling, cooked bananas for the sun in the crater; once Māui stole them she gave him a stone axe and a hiding place by a wiliwili tree.
Q 05Which of these Hawaiian peaks rises higher than Haleakalā's 10,023-foot summit?
Mauna Kea
Mauna Kea and its neighbour Mauna Loa are the state's only higher peaks; measured from its base on the sea floor, Mauna Kea is taller than Mount Everest.
Q 06Despite its name, Haleakalā Crater is geologically what?
An erosional valley
An erosional valley: streams cut two great valleys back into the summit until their heads met, leaving the Koʻolau and Kaupō gaps on either side.
Q 07The floor of Haleakalā Crater is dotted with which volcanic features?
Cinder cones
Cinder cones stud a summit depression about 2,600 feet deep, and their loose cinders make hiking its trails feel like walking on a beach.
Q 08Which dating method showed in 1999 that Haleakalā last erupted long before the accepted date of about 1790?
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating of charcoal under the youngest flows gave 1480 to 1600; the old 1790 date rested on comparing two explorers' coastal charts, neither accurate enough to judge.
Q 09Like Hawaii's other great volcanoes, Haleakalā is which type of volcano?
Shield volcano
Shield volcano: fluid lava spread into broad, gentle slopes. USGS still counts Haleakalā as active, with at least ten eruptions in the past 1,000 years, though the park calls it dormant.
Q 10Haleakalā was originally part of a 1916 park that also included which two Big Island volcanoes?
Mauna Loa and Kīlauea
Mauna Loa and Kīlauea formed the other section of the park until 1961, when it was split in two and Haleakalā became a national park in its own right.
Q 11A Hawaiian community group has restored ancient irrigated terraces in Haleakalā's coastal district to grow which staple crop?
Taro
Taro, or kalo, grows again at Kapahu Living Farm, which the group has run on park land since 1995; the harvest is made into poi and shared with the local community.
Q 12Haleakalā National Park is split between its summit district and which coastal district?
Kīpahulu
Kīpahulu lies on the wet windward coast, and no road inside the park joins it to the summit, so reaching it means a separate drive around the island.
Q 13The Pools of ʻOheʻo in Haleakalā's coastal district are known to tourists by which nickname?
Seven Sacred Pools
Q 21Hawaii's state bird is thought to have evolved from which mainland bird?
Canada goose
Canada goose ancestors strayed to the islands, and their descendants adapted to bare lava: the webbing on the bird's feet shrank back to help it walk on rock.
Q 22Roughly how many Hawaiian geese were left in the wild by 1952?
30
About 30 birds remained after hunting and introduced predators; captive breeding, begun in 1949, has since rebuilt the wild flock to a few thousand.
Q 23Haleakalā National Park is said to hold more of what than any other US national park?
Endangered species
Endangered species: Hawaii's wildlife evolved in isolation, so invading animals, weeds and mosquito-borne bird malaria now threaten plants and birds found nowhere else.
Seven Sacred Pools is a nickname, said to come from a local hotel owner's advertising; far more than seven pools actually step down ʻOheʻo Gulch.
Q 14The Pipiwai Trail in Haleakalā's coastal district ends at which 400-foot waterfall?
Waimoku Falls
Waimoku Falls ends a trail through a bamboo forest, but hikers are told to keep back from its base, where falling rock and flash floods strike without warning.
Q 15The upper valley above Haleakalā's coastal district is closed to the public to protect what?
Native rainforest species
Native rainforest species: the valley's fragile forest shelters rare birds, so only scientists and park managers are allowed in.
Q 16Which famous aviator is buried at Palapala Hoʻomau Church beside Haleakalā's coastal district?
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh, dying of cancer, left a New York hospital in August 1974 to spend his last days at his Maui home, having sketched a simple grave for himself there.
Q 17How often does the Haleakalā silversword flower?
Once, then dies
Once, then dies: the plant may wait decades as a silver ball of leaves, then sends up one tall stalk of hundreds of flower heads, scatters its seed and dies.
Q 18The Hawaiian name of Haleakalā's signature plant, ʻāhinahina, describes which colour?
Gray
Gray: ʻāhinahina is the silversword, whose leaves are coated in silvery hairs that reflect the fierce mountain sun and hold in moisture.
Q 19What once nearly wiped out the Haleakalā silversword?
Grazing livestock and souvenir hunters
Grazing livestock and souvenir hunters: goats and cattle ate the plants while visitors uprooted them as keepsakes, so the park now fences grazing animals out of the crater.
Q 20Which goose, Hawaii's state bird, did Boy Scouts carry into Haleakalā crater in 1962?
Nēnē
Nēnē are thought to have died out on Maui before 1890, so the 35 birds the Scouts hauled into the crater were the island's first in some 70 years.
Q 24Biologist Sam Gon III called Haleakalā the richest place on Earth for which tiny creatures?
Tardigrades
Tardigrades, or water bears, survive the summit's fierce sun and freezing nights by drying into a dormant state, the same trick that lets them endure the vacuum of space.
Q 25The Hawaiian name coined in 2010 for Maui's rare kiwikiu describes which feature?
Its curved beak
Its curved beak: no older Hawaiian name was known for the Maui parrotbill, so a language committee coined kiwikiu from kiwi, curved, and kiu, a chilly wind of its forest home.
Q 26As of 2024, how was Haleakalā fighting the insects that spread avian malaria?
Releasing males carrying Wolbachia bacteria
Releasing males carrying Wolbachia bacteria works as mosquito birth control: wild females that mate with them lay eggs that never hatch, so each generation shrinks.
Q 27Which endangered seabird now nests mostly in burrows in Haleakalā crater?
Hawaiian petrel
Cats, mongooses and rats eat the chicks in their burrows, so the park works hard to keep feral animals out.
Q 28Hosmer Grove, beside Haleakalā's summit road, is a forest of what?
Introduced trees from around the world
Introduced trees from around the world were planted here as a forestry experiment, and the tall newcomers now shade out the native plants beneath them.
Q 29Drivers need an advance reservation to enter Haleakalā's summit district in time for which daily sight?
Sunrise
Sunrise became so popular, with parking at the top so limited, that every vehicle entering between 3 and 7 am now needs a reservation.
Q 30Why did the Park Service suspend commercial bicycle tours inside Haleakalā National Park in 2007?
Multiple fatal accidents
Multiple fatal accidents: three riders died within a year, so the park halted tours that had been coasting about 90,000 visitors a year down from the summit.