Drive south from the bungalows for 35 minutes, past the last resort in Wailea and the last sand at Makena, and the road finally gives up in a field of black lava at La Perouse Bay. This is Maui at its rawest — no facilities, no shade, frequent wind — and one of our favorite mornings on the island: spinner dolphins in the bay, archaeology underfoot, and a coastline that looks the way the island did when it was brand new.
Maui's youngest lava flow
Everything black around you poured out of Haleakala’s southwest rift at a vent called Kalua o Lapa — the youngest lava flow on Maui. For years the date was quoted as about 1790; more recent radiocarbon work argues it is a few centuries older. Either way, this is the island’s freshest ground, raw enough that in places barely anything grows on it yet.
The bay’s modern name comes from the French explorer La Pérouse, whose ships anchored here in 1786 — the first Europeans known to set foot on Maui. Its older name is Keone’o’io, and this coast was anything but empty: the remains of fishing village sites, walls and house platforms sit in the lava all around the trail. Treat them as what they are, someone’s home. Stay on the obvious paths and take nothing.
The scenery does the rest. Turquoise water against ink-black rock, kiawe trees leaning out of the wind, the long profile of the mountain above, and on clear days a horizon stacked with islands. Bring more water than feels reasonable — the lava radiates heat by mid-morning, and there is no shave-ice truck at the end of this road.