Hiking Trails on Oahu

  Kaena Point (South Access) – April 1, 2012   Les Merrell Memorial Hike   If you haven’t been to Kaena Point before (before this day I haven’t), you are missing out my friend. The hike is hot, but short – 2.5 miles one way. There are two ways to get to the western most point of the island. The first way is from the Waianae Side. The second way is from the Mokuleia Side. The Mokuleia way is a bit longer (but not by that much).   At Kaena Point, there are marine wildlife like no other on Oahu. I saw monk seals, albatross, and whales, not to mention the fish and other sea life.  The monk seals were cruising on the rocks near the shore. The albatross were flying all over, so close in fact; you have to duck your head to avoid them colliding into you. The whales are just 100-500 yards off shore spouting water into the air. shearwater albatross monk seal With all the wildlife beauty, the hike today was to honor Les Merrell. I don’t know the back story of Les...

Pupukea Summit – March 31, 2012 Being my 32 nd  birthday, I decided to plan a birthday party at a summit. I haven’t celebrated my birthday in 20 years. My last birthday party celebration was when I was 12 years old, 6 th  grade. Over the years, my birthday just became another day. Usually a lot of 30 year olds have their parties at clubs or restaurants. A few things I hate about that, 1) Too much unwarranted attention, which I hate 2) I have to share the room with others, which I hate. While planning a birthday hike, I had to choose a non-popular trail, so we would have the summit to ourselves. Going through Stuart Ball’s book  Hiking on Oahu , there was no doubt which hike I would choose: Pupukea Summit Hike. This hike is about 9 miles round trip. It’s an easy 9 miles because the trail is graded and most of the trail is on a paved road. Although relatively easy, the trail for some reason gets little traffic, maybe because of a few complicated junctions. You can compare i...

  Hanauma Bay – March 24, 2012 Kokohead overlooking Hanauma Bay I always wanted to do this short easy hike. If you live on Oahu, no matter where you go (doctor’s office, office building, restaurants, stores, etc), you tend to notice the artwork on the wall.  From time to time, you see pictures of Hanauma Bay. The pictures are beautiful! For a while now, I’ve been wondering how photographers get that vantage point of the bay. This search went on for a while. I even tried to find the access point to the hike or road. With no success, I started to give up. But I’m not one to quit without trying and on a hike one day with Steve, I found my answer. He gave me simple directions to the access point which would take us to a ridge to get up to the vantage point. After some research, the ridge is on Kokohead, not to be confused with Koko Head Crater. Both are adjacent to one another. Most everyone on Oahu know where Hanauma Bay is, but most everyone doesn’t know that Kokohead forms...

Kea'au Middle Ridge – March 18, 2012        On the quarterly Hawaii Trail & Mountain Club (HTMC) schedule today was Kea'au Ridge. The HTMC route today was to hike up Kea'au’s Middle Ridge to its summit, and then go back. As much as I wanted to do this hike, I did prefer to do the Kea'au-Ohikilolo rectangle. That route consist of taking you up Kea'au’s Middle Ridge, then making a left to Pu’u Ohikilolo, taking Ohikilolo Ridge down to a junction before returning to a dirt road. If I could compare it to another classic route, I would compare it to the Keahi a Kahoe hike which is similar hike. The real Kea'au Ridge is located to the east side of Ohikilolo Valley, and of course the ridge on the left side is Ohikilolo Ridge.  The meeting place was at Makaha beach at 8:30am. I drove to Makaha in plenty of time, but as I passed Makaha Beach, there was no one there. Perplexed, I drove further until I hit Kaena Point. Oops, not the right way so made a decisi...

Maunawili Demo – March 16, 2012 Christian and I planned this hike last week. We wanted to run the entire Maunawili Demonstration trail from Waimanalo to the Pali Lookout. The route is 10 miles and could take a hiker up to 6 hours to complete, twice that time if you want to go back. The Demo trail as it’s called was built from 1991-1994. Legendary Hawaiian Trail & Mountain Club (HTMC) hiker the late Dick Davis was the person who created the route. After running this trail today, the route Mr. Davis created is one of the best I’ve seen on this island. It contours the Ko’olau cliffs on the windward side passing Ka’au Crater, Olympus, and Konahuanui. I digress; Na Ala Hele consulted with Dick Davis and contracted the Sierra club to build the trail. They did 7.5 miles of the trail, and in 1994 the boy scouts completed the remaining 2.5 miles of the trail. I met Christian at the Pali Lookout at 8:30 am. Christian was going to stage his car there. Then I drove us to Waimanalo near some fa...

Hahaione to Mauna Oahi – March 13, 2012 With my wife going to her new job in Kahala, I figured I could do a hike in Hawaii Kai and meet up with her for lunch. Or even better, complete a hike in Hawaii Kai where she would have to pick me up at trails end and then go for lunch. I had a plan today, make it plan a and b today. I wanted to do either Hahaione to Tom-Tom or Hahaione to Mauna O Ahi. Regardless of which route I took, I needed to get picked up, so I thought... The lesser known Hawaii Kai hikes always enamored me for some reason. Just finding these trails becomes fulfilling. You could also hike with the Hawaii Trail and Mountain Club (HTMC) or Sierra Club as they do some of these hikes on their annual schedule. Hawaii Kai is home to some of Oahu's greatest intermediate hikes. As a beginning hiker, once you graduate from doing easy trails like Manoa falls, Maunawili falls, Diamond Head, Makapu'u Lighthouse, Aiea Loop, and other simple trails, you'd want to try the Hawa...

Waimalu Ditch – March 12, 2012 I wanted to do Waimalu Ditch for a long time now. I missed the club outing a few months ago. Waimalu Ditch, the name itself does not sound too appealing, however it was given that name because of the irrigation ditches to transport water.  The trail should be named Waimalu Valley because it is a beautiful valley hike with some great swimming holes. I dropped the kids off at school and drove to the Pearlridge area. Who would have thought that you could actually do a hike in the morning and drive down the street to shop at Pearlridge in the afternoon? It can be done. I had a place to eat in mind; I’ll talk about that later. I drove on Moanalua road and made the left going up Keonihi place and then parked on Onikiniki place near the gated community. The rain was coming down hard. I felt like not doing the hike because of the elements, in addition, I was hiking alone. Nevertheless, passion and spirit is able to trump all doubt. I started going down the hi...

Kealia (just to the picnic bench) – March 11, 2012 After doing Kealia in January of this year, I knew it would be a perfect family hike. What I look for in a family hike are three things; 1) a reward at the end (waterfall or summit view), 2) short - less than 3 miles RT 3) fun. The word fun is relative because my demented idea of fun is hiking for 14 miles in the Ko’olaus for 8 hours and doing it like it has been done before, which it has. Most peoples idea of fun hiking are the bird singing, native plants, and interesting terrain. I spread the word the day before, but no one took the bait, so it was just us and Jared’s friend Keito. I set the meeting place at Wahiawa McDonalds at 10a-10:15 am just in case. We ate at McDonald’s and by 10:15 am no one else came, so we drove to Mokuleia. We pulled into Dillingham airfield passing the runway. After getting ready, we started the Kealia trail. Kealia offers a good beginners trail. There are switchbacks to aid the knees, which means a gradua...

  Pu’u O Hulu – March 9, 2012 *This is the harder way up Pu'u O Hulu Rains and hail were pounding East Honolulu and the Windward side today, so I decided to hike in the Waianae’s. There was a chance of thunder storms, so I planned a short hike by myself. Well, my wife was supposed to come, but she was sleeping and I needed to leave early as the storms were coming in. Pu'u O Hulu separates Maile and Nanakuli somewhat. It looks to be a massive volcanic rock formation that dominates the area while your driving to Waianae. Pu'u O Hulu appears to be the terminus of the Waianae Coast, but people who've been to Waianae understand that you have to go around Pu'u O Hulu to get to the town of Waianae and Makaha. I digress, Pu'u O Hulu has double peaks. The peak near the ocean is appropriately called kai, and the peak heading towards the mountain is called uka. My goal today was to do both peaks. Off I drove to Kaukama Road in Maile. I parked on the side of the road betwee...

Hamama falls & Waihe’e falls – March 3, 2012 ---Exploring Hamama falls (upper and lower), unknown waterfall (upper and lower), Waihe'e falls (upper and lower)--- After the disappointment from the Hidden Valley hike, we drove to  Waihe’e street  to the Hamama falls trailhead where Waihe'e valley was firing on all cylinders. There were at least 5 1000+ waterfall chutes coming down in this area. This was my third time on the Hamama falls trail and Marvin's second. Hamama falls is no secret anymore, its popularity has expanded because of the articles posted on the internet. Tourist and locals who don't even hike, know about this falls. Since I found the trail a few years ago when it was still sort of a secret, I kept it in the secret trails category, however it should be in the the touristy category.  Neither Steve nor Ikaika have done Hamama & Waihe’e falls. They were in for a treat! As we parked on Waihe’e street, we seen a load of cars near the trailhead....