Far Above Jurassic Park — The Towering Travelers

During our trip to Maui we took a helicopter ride, and this beautiful collection of photos seemed to deserve their own blog post.

It was a struggle to find a company that would have doors off and also allow Jason to bring a real camera, and we ended up booking a private tour with Go Fly Maui, a small company that’s mostly a helicopter pilot training school but also does some private photography flights. The co-owner and our pilot, Nick, recommended a flight path and then we set off over western Maui.

Photo of an aerial map of the Hawaiian islands — The map Nick used to suggest routes (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of ocean waves from above — Waves from above (photo/Jason Rafal)

Doors-off helicopter flights aren’t for everyone - I think I would have been pretty nervous if I hadn’t been up in both a helicopter and an open-cockpit biplane before. It helped knowing that our pilot was good enough to both teach other people and put up with crazy professional photographers. Nick was also fun to hang out with and pointed out all the points of interest.

Photo of the Maui coast — Flying along the west Maui coast (photo/Jason Rafal)

We started off by flying along the northern coast of Maui, where we saw jagged cliffs, surfers, and beautiful beaches.

The Nakalele blowhole from above (photo/Jason Rafal)

After we hit the northernmost edge of the island, we headed up into the mountains. The mountains of west Maui are largely inaccessible except by helicopter or backcountry expedition, and I was excited to get to see the area. It’s a ton of absurdly lush jungle with absurdly tall waterfalls and, predictably, looks a lot like Jurassic Park. There’s a drought right now, but the majority of the waterfalls still had water tumbling down hundreds of feet of cliffs. The scale was impossible for my mind to comprehend - I kept trying to look at trees to figure out relative sizing, but it only got me so far. I have rarely felt so small.

Photo of Honokohau Falls — The awe-inspiring, 1,100-foot Honokohau Falls (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo looking down a waterfall — Looking down (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of a helicopter cockpit — I tried to just let Nick worry about what all of these meant (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of the Wall of Tears — The Wall of Tears (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of the Needle — The Needle (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of a mountain ridge with the ocean in the background — Looking south (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of mountains with the ocean in the background — West Maui Forest Reserve with Pacific Ocean behind (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of mountains — Looking east (photo/Jason Rafal)

After the mountains we headed back toward the airport, over ground that looked very flat and brown by comparison. Maui had sugar cane processing until 2016, and Nick pointed out the old equipment as we flew overhead.

Photo of sugar processing equipment — Old sugar processing equipment (photo/Jason Rafal)

Photo of Nicole on the helicopter — Back on the ground; obviously had a terrible time (photo/Jason Rafal)

If you can’t tell from the above photos, the helicopter ride was amazing. If you’re not afraid of heights and are okay with the expense (it was the most we spent on an activity on the island by far), we would definitely recommend it. When we drove around the west side of Maui later in the trip, it was really cool to see some of the coastal places we had flown by at ground level as well.