Haleakalā National Park (Cabin Permits)

I’ve stayed in all of the cabins, multiple times, over the past 15 years, mostly on horseback. Here are my tips for future hikers and campers:
• Bring lighters/matches and newsprint and light cardboard to get fire started. The Durologs provided in the cabin take awhile to really get burning.
• You will want warm fuzzy slippers to wear inside the cabin, especially at night.
• Bring scouring powder & scouring pads to scrub the pots and pans, cleanliness is subjective to the previous cabin occupants if you know what I mean.
• Bring tongs and a small hand broom and dustpan. Also bring salt & pepper, clothespins, and sarongs to hang in the windows as curtains. Bring fairy lights- miniature strings of lights battery operated- to hang around the cabin for ambiance & subtle lighting.
• The wood stoves are not big enough to bake food inside anymore. Used to be able to make pizzas or biscuits or cobbler or pies, not any more.
• If you’re going to “donate” leftover food items, please label and date them. Campers with allergies and sensitivities thank you in advance.
• We hiked down Sliding Sands to the cabin (approx 3 hours), and we hiked out of the crater on switchbacks. (Approx 5 hours). Highly suggest bringing 2 vehicles if you do this; one vehicle parked at the summit parking lot and the other vehicle parked at the switchbacks trailhead parking lot. It was after sunset when we reached the parking lot and it was impossible to hitchhike up 6 mi to the summit parking lot.
• Don’t take rocks and don’t stack rocks. Repeat: Do Not Take Rocks.
• Highly advisable to bring your own cleaning supplies. And then take them with you, no one wants to use your dirty rags.
This cabin was the dirtiest I’ve ever seen. Previous campers hadn’t wiped the counters down or swept the floor. We hiked out a huge bag of rubbish not ours. Have fun and enjoy!

I love the place and we had an overall great time but there were mice running about eating through our food.

Well, I was just checking to see if there were ANY openings in the crater, and as luck would have it, there was one. So we built a trip around that. The nature of the system makes it VERY difficult to find success, but I can't think of any other way to structure it. Friends were stunned at my chance success.

We enjoyed staying at Paliku Cabin in Haleakala on December 20, 2023, with a family of 9–3 siblings and our grown kids. There was little toilet paper when we arrived, and the rangers come over and resupplied us. They were staying at the ranger cabin, fortunately. We had a delicious warm dinner, thanks to the gas burner, and the wood burning stove. It had rained all day, and we got an early night—in bed by 8 pm. The next morning, my daughter was surprised to find a mouse had eaten her dry oatmeal meant for breakfast, and another mouse had eaten through a plastic snack container of nuts, chocolate and dried fruit, that I left in my backpack on the floor. Lesson learned: food in the kitchen and food left on the dining table were not nibbled by mice.

A good location for an overnight stay in Haleakala. Hike in on Keonehe'ehe'e, then out via Halemau'u trail. Very peaceful and quiet. Cabin users have donated lots of cooking pots and pans, utensils, and cups and plates. The Park furnishes logs for burning in the wood stove. Someone needs to bring a plastic dustpan to make sweeping out the cabin easier.

Hiking Haleakalā National Park is a special experience and highly recommended. If you go, please take the time to appreciate the rules. This is culturally sacred place and a very fragile ecosystem.

It was perfect weather and the cabin was great!

Simple, clean accommodations in a beautiful location. Got a bit cold at night.

We stayed 2 nights at Paliku cabin. Delighted to find the cabin in great shape and surprisingly well-stocked with pots/pans/dishes/utensils/propane. A few mice inspected our gear the first night but ranger provided a trap the second and we blocked the gap under the front door with dishrags--much quieter second night. So great to see how the native vegatation has boomed with the removal of feral goats and pigs!! Great job, NPS and neighbors!!! A true national and global treasure. We exited down Kaupo Gap and, yes, NPS is serious when they say the trail beyond the park boundary is unmaintained by them. Easy to follow the ranch road for the most part (watch for that pedestrian gate when you first encounter deer fence just below the park!). The last 1/2 mi just above Kaupo ranch and village is the toughest to find. The NPS trail leaves the open ranch road, and the signs showing this junction are buried in roadside vegetation. You wind through lantana and other weeds following what really amounts to a cow/deer path. There are a few NPS post signs but, again, these are tough to see in the weeds. The last 200 yards is through an active goat paddock with overhead guinea grass--thank goodness the goats and cows have eaten the grass down in patches so you can work your way down to the road and trailhead pretty easily. Leave a solid hour for this last bit of the hike, and plan on walking the ranch road out to the Kaupo ranch office--gates and potholes make it tough for a vehicle to get to the trailhead itself.

Love Palikū cabin. Dishes, silverware, pots, pans, and propane stove all provided. Plus an allotted number of logs for the wood burning stove.