Not a tree, shrub, or even tuft of grass obstructs the view.
To describe such a scene is impossible.

A study of the map, with the figures showing elevations, will give you a better idea of it than a long verbal description.

It is an extraordinarily desolate scene.

A few wild goats scramble over the rocks, or rush down the nearly perpendicular cliff; occasionally a solitary bird raises its harsh note; the wind howls fiercely; and as you lie under the lee of a mass of lava, taking in the scene and picking out the details as the rising sun brings them out one by one, presently the mist begins to pour into the crater, and often by ten o'clock fills it up completely.
The natives have no tradition of Haleakala in activity.

There are signs of several lava flows, and of one in particular, clearly much more recent than the others.