Pu'u O Hulu Hike in Waianae
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 between light pole 7 and 8. I found the trail immediately leading up to Pu’u O Hulu Kai and started hiking. As I was hiking, I got paranoid from the residents driving by in their cars staring at me, so I hiked faster. In no time, my cardio ran out and I was huffing and puffing. I took a short break and continued on. To the right, I heard thunder, loud thunder. It got to my mind and I felt fearful for my safety. The first obstacle became this 10 foot rock face. It wasn’t too difficult, but with the rocks extremely wet, I had to make sure my handholds and footholds were solid which they were. After about 15 more minutes of strong thunder, my mind was able to ignore the sound and I could primarily focus on hiking. I passed a number of pill boxes before summiting Pu’u O Hulu Kai. The view is world class.
As I continued hiking on the narrow ridge, the rains started to fall. Going down was tricky, there were rock faces, however, these rock faces could be contoured. I was smart in analyzing the area before making decisions on this part of the ridge. However, if you precariously got stuck on a steep rock face and could not get down, work your way back and find a contour trail. In no time, I found myself down by the water tank which is the terminus for the Pu'u O Hulu Kai on this day. You could actually start Pu'u O Hulu Kai from the water tank as well.
I paralleled the fence for a little bit before starting the Pu’u O Hulu Uka trail. This trail seemed to be steeper than the kai trail. The trail seemed to be narrower too. There was this one section, which probably could have been contoured. It was really narrow. I had to crawl for a little bit to further progress. Going back, I saw the contour trail below my vantage point. I topped out at Pu’u O Hulu Uka. At this moment, I heard a guy yelling. His voice was inaudible, but by the sound of his tone, he didn’t want me to be up there. Well, what the hell did he want me to do, jump off 1000 feet to my death? I hate people like that. If you see a hiker that is high up, why yell? What good does that do? I ignored the idiot and instead of going down uka to the valley floor; I decided to head back to the water tank. While going back, I tried to find my exit route. My plan was to bushwhack my way to the fence, parallel the fence for a short while and onto Pakeke Street. I could hear the thunder behind me and the dark gray clouds rolling in, so I increased my pace down the mountain.
Once I got down near the water tunnel, I bushwhacked my way for about 10 minutes till I cleared the fence. There was a small trail that led to Pakeke Street. From Pakeke Street was a 20 minute walk to Kaukama Road and to my car. One observation I notice, was the beautiful homes in the area. It looked like a new community; it would be a nice place to live. Total hiking time was 2 hours and 45 minutes. It was a fun hike, next time I would love to do Uka to Kai, the reverse route.
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