Hosmer Grove Maui Ceramic Art Tile
— — a temperate forest the volcano kept.
Not only on a wall.
“An experimental forest from 1910, planted by the territory's first forester to see what could grow this high on a tropical volcano. Pines and cedars from California, sugi from Japan, eucalyptus from Australia, deodar from the Himalayas. About twenty species survived. They are now seventy feet tall, on a Hawaiian mountain, at six thousand eight hundred feet. Native honeycreepers feed along the half-mile loop, the scarlet ʻiʻiwi and the crimson ʻapapane working the ʻōhiʻa lehua. People come for the silence and the cool air. Most leave the campground before dawn for the summit and the sunrise. The grove keeps its quiet either way.
Hosmer Grove Maui Ceramic Art Tile, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Hosmer Grove sits inside Haleakalā National Park on the north slope of the volcano at 6,800 feet (2,070 m). The grove and its small campground lie just inside the park entrance on the Crater Road (HI-378), about ten miles below the summit. It was established in 1910 by Ralph S. Hosmer, the Territory of Hawaii's first Territorial Forester, as a trial of which temperate-climate trees could survive at altitude on a Pacific volcano. About 86 species were planted; roughly 20 lived. The grove is the lower trailhead for the Supply Trail, which climbs to the Halemauʻu Trail and the crater rim. The campground holds six sites, first-come first-served, and remains the only drive-up campground in the summit district of the park.
At 6,800 feet (2,070 m), the grove sits above the trade-wind inversion most days, in the band where Maui's cloud deck climbs the slope each afternoon and the air drops to the low 50s Fahrenheit. The campground is one of the few places on the island where a winter visitor can see frost on a windshield in the morning. Eucalyptus, sugi, and incense cedar produce the smell more often associated with the Pacific Northwest than the islands. Visibility shifts hour to hour: a clear morning gives way to a wall of grey by lunchtime as moisture pushes up from Kahului and Pāʻia, and the grove enters its own weather. Layering matters here even in August.
Hosmer Grove is the first major stop inside Haleakalā National Park, about a mile past the entrance kiosk on the Crater Road. The park entrance fee is $30 per vehicle, valid for three days, and the America the Beautiful pass is honoured. The Hosmer Grove Nature Loop runs about half a mile through the planted forest and an adjoining native shrubland, with interpretive signs at each species. The six-site campground is free with self-registration, first-come first-served, with potable water, vault toilets, and grills. Most visitors stop briefly on the way up to the summit and skip the loop entirely. Birders and overnight campers come for the grove itself, often arriving the afternoon before so they can walk the loop in low light when the honeycreepers are most active.