| In the words of an old surfer, sailor and pilot I know, that’s called “funning yourself to death.” What makes it even better is that, along with the killer fun, Jason Latas and Adam Quinn, co-founders of Maui Eco-Adventures, make sure to toss in lessons about the importance of preserving an ecosystem that’s sometimes embracing, sometimes challenging you—but which, if we’re not careful, might one day slip away.
Jason and Adam seem like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer after a year of pumping iron. Adam, who’s worked as a boat captain and physical therapist, is built like a well-muscled sprinter, while the cheerful, crewcut Jason has the burliness and power of a former triathlete, snowboarder and martial artist.
That strength served Jason well when he worked as an exotic-animal handler at the Phoenix and Wichita zoos. But his most unforgettable experience was not tussling with a camel or big cat, but looking into the eyes of elephants. “There was this black hole of knowledge, just like with the eye of a humpback whale up close. The wild has secret knowledge that you can’t translate. There’s no time when you feel closer to the universe than when you’re out there.”
As soon as Jason and Adam met on Maui, they set out to create a work life that would keep them “out there” whenever possible. The challenge, Jason told me, was to create a truly original, imaginative eco-tour company, one that would give visitors an awe-inspiring outdoor experience that would “get them out of their element and really teach them where they are.”
They convinced the Ritz-Carlton to let them design an eco-tour program and then won the keys to the gates of the Kapalua preserve, with its fascinating Maunalei Arboretum. Along with describing the botanical and historical attractions in a comprehensive, entertaining way, they learned how to teach visitors, for example, how tough it is to keep Maui free of alien species when one hiker’s shoe can track in a massively invasive weed. Jason and Adam also learned that having daily tours on private property, with exclusive access to truly remarkable sites, should be the core of the Maui Eco-Adventures experience.
With Oliver Dukelow, who’s wife’s family had owned land in Kahakuloa for generations, they worked out their next private-property tour, and still their gem: a tour of Kahakuloa Village at the northwestern tip of Maui, combined with a trek from Nakalele Point. The Nakalele Point is an incredible lesson in the geology of Maui. Visitors hike above the shoreline through the island’s youngest lava flow, a landscape of basalt bluffs—crags that have been eroded over the centuries by salt laden blasts of wind and that plummet to a roaring sea. Streaked red by oxidation, the cliffs tumble into fantastic shapes: rippling, mushrooming layers of pahoehoe (smooth, unbroken lava) 20 feet high; gargoyle pinnacles of sharp, broken lava known as a’a blown out into sponges or beehive shells; hunks of carved lava on the ground that look like the armor of a fallen triceratops. Along the way Jason reveals a petroglyph with the ‘ohana (family) sign, and deposits of the beautiful yellow-green veins of olivine that kids call “Maui gold.” The climax of the hike is a view of pools, thunderous surf and the Nakalele Blowhole, which shoots up geysers of spray 60 or 70 feet.
From Maui’s wild prehistory, the hike through Kahakuloa Village takes you into Maui’s gentle communal past. Oliver Dukelow and his wife’s functioning taro farm, which has pohaku (rock)-ringed lo’i (taro patches) dating back centuries, and whose harvest is given away, not sold, is set in an enchanting landscape of ti gardens, palm groves, and spectacular hillsides. Jason continually points out plants from whose bark the Hawaiians made tapa cloth, or harvested food and medicine, such as pohole (ferns) and noni (native mulberry)—all of which grow throughout the farm, irrigated by a stream partially diverted in the traditional Hawaiian way. Dukelow and his wife (who, Jason tells me, can “chant her ancestors back a thousand years”) not only still work the farm, but use it for educational purposes, so young Hawaiians can learn about their aina (land) and their ancient crafts.
Maui Eco-Adventures has won access to such once-forbidden territory in part by gaining the trust and friendship of local people and large landowners. The company teaches visitors to think of the host’s property as a trove of environmental treasures: habitats for endangered birds or native plants, from humble ferns to koa and ohi’a trees, that require careful preservation.
To create such a literally path-breaking repertoire of tours, Jason, Adam and their other guides work tirelessly. “Our guides need to be able to hike up to five miles with 50-pound packs, then set up a buffet lunch.”
Jason and Adam interview prospective employees while they carry a pack to see how comfortable they are with it. One fairly petite woman shouldered the pack cheerfully and replied, “Is that all you got?” She was hired.
Fueled by that kind of spirit, Jason tells me, “Maui Eco-Adventures is creating something new every day.” The regular tours—which also include hike/kayak and rain forest/waterfall adventures—“almost run themselves now, and we can be more creative. We like to be challenged. If our guests want to be pushed, we’ll go first.”
Where Jason and Adam have gone is Maui Eco-Adventures’ Personal Guide Service, where guests experience on outdoor adventure after another in a true ecospherical rock-and-roll ride. It took some improvisational derring-do for Jason and Adam to team up with companies like Kapalua Dive Shop and Sunshine Helicopters to offer such custom tours, trying to deliver whatever the guests could dream up. Sailing followed by three nights in Hana. Night scuba off Lana’i after a day sailing, fishing or horseback riding.
Wildest of all are the “Fun For Big Boys And Girls” trips and “Extravaganzas,” combos of vehicle- and human-powered adventures: ocean rafting, exploring Lana’i, choppering back to Maui: or Haleakala sunrises and mountain-bike madness; or sailing and scuba diving off Moloka’i. Trips are limited only by one’s budget (up to $12,400 for three guests) and imagination.
The Personal Guide Service has become the healthiest part of their business. And Maui Eco-Adventures is just one part of Jason and Adam’s parent company, Latatudes and Adatudes, an international tours service featuring unusual treks to Tanzania and Mt. Kilimanjaro. The Extravaganzas and other splashy tours have gotten Jason and Adam their share of high-powered clientele, but they’ve never forgotten that part of the job of spreading the word about environmental preservation involves reaching people who can’t do a fantasy splurge. Maui Eco-Adventures offers discounts to kama’aina (Hawai’i residents) on trips that aren’t sold out, and does community service with groups like the Boy Scouts. Teaching malama (care) for the land is a vital part of the hikes, and is particularly important to Jason, a new father, who likes to say that “we’re borrowing the land from our children.”
It’s good to know that, on any given adrenaline-charged day, parts of Maui’s rain forests, mountains and seashores are on loan to guides determined to teach their customers how to get totally stoked on it, but also how to cherish it.
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