Exploring a hike in Mililani

Waikakalaua Stream – November 23, 2012

We didn’t find the tunnels today, but that’s okay. A few months back, I scouted possible access points to get down towards Waikakalaua Stream. Today, along with Erik, we would find what we were looking for. Erik has lived in Wahiawa his whole life and I have lived in Mililani most of my life. This hike, albeit an exploration hike would make a lot of sense. Waikakalaua stream separates Wahiawa from Mililani. The hike is described in Stuart Ball’s original book, though I don’t have that book, it wouldn’t matter today as we were going to explore a different route.       

Our goal was to find the pool and tunnels. We would allot ourselves 2 hours in and 2 hours out, for a total of 4 hours.

Erik and I met at the Park & Ride, and immediately we drove up the road. We took a left on the road across Mililani Ike and followed it till its end. After getting out of our vehicles, we immediately tried to find a trail going down the mountain. We found a possible starting point because there were many long hoses attached to many trees heading down the mountain. Based on that obvious clue, we bushwhacked our way down the mountain holding onto roots and plants. The descent was steep, but not too bad. In about 20 minutes we got to section near the stream. At the bottom was a trail that went right or left. We went left, and followed it until a junction. Going left at the junction appeared to head back uphill to Mililani Mauka; we kept this thought in the back of our minds. We decided to go right and head towards the stream. In about 5 minutes, we hit a huge bamboo grove, the biggest I’ve seen ever. After that, we hiked a little bit more till we hit a pool people call, “paradise”. The pool is huge, but stagnant on this day. On a rainy day, this pool would look awesome. From the pool, we hiked a bit more until we hit some major California grass. I tried to push through, and probably could have, but it wasn’t worth it, so we went back.

Paradise Pool, not so much paradise

We back tracked to the bamboo grove. From there we chose to go further upstream, crossing it, and encountering another pool. We kinda ignored it and continued hiking the trail. We eventually encountered what appeared to be a ridge. We followed the ridge which topped out at a jeep road. This road headed left or right. Right we thought would get us to the trailhead of Schofield-Waikane. Left was what we wanted to do, find those tunnels!

huge bamboo grove

Now this part of the hike became very confusing. The jeep roads forked many times. We tried to stay true and use our hiking instincts to make good decisions. But eventually we kept on hiking and said, “fuck it, let’s do it”. Problem was that we didn’t find the tunnels and kept on hiking “forever”. We eventually saw a moving figure heading towards us. I thought it was a psychopath, but didn’t have my glasses, so couldn’t see the person. Erik said it was a woman. He was right; a woman was walking on the jeep road. WTF? We thought. We asked the lady if she knew the area. She was impressed that we came from Mililani Mauka. The lady said that Higgins Road was further ahead and she usually walks the jeep road to feed some stray cats. She also wanted to show us the road that would lead to Mililani Tech Park, but we denied her offer.

Higgins Gate

Erik and I got to Higgins Road and walked it. We could see golfers playing to the left of us on the Leilehua Golf Course. Erik, who by the way just played there today, gave me a tour from Higgins Road. There was no turning back, so I texted my friend Reid to pick us up from Higgins Road. After walking a little over a mile on Higgins Road, Reid picked us up and took us back to Mililani Mauka where instead of going home, we tried to find the trail that we seen while at the bottom of the gulch. After about 20 minutes of searching, we found the wide open trail going to the bottom. This was very important as it sets us up for next time. More exploring, especially in my hometown, can’t beat it.