East Honolulu Family Hike

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Moanalua Valley – May 18, 2013


Today was my fifth time in the valley (aka Kamananui) and I knew what I had to do today, find the Old Damon House and the Petroglyphs. Joining me was my family and Malia’s friend. It was a spur of the moment kind a hike. I just needed to get outdoors, since it’s been a while.

 

We started late, the trail was populated with hikers coming and going. This hike is popular for many reasons. But I like it for its lushes’ greenery that surrounds the carriage road. The trail is filled with many native and invasive plants.

 

There are 7 bridges we had to cross. These bridges were built over the stream so the carriage could avoid the stream. The kids chose to go below the bridges and through the running water.


scared 

After the 7th bridge, we saw the Pohaku, a large boulder covered with petroglyphs. I couldn’t identify many of the petroglyphs. But one looked like a human was holding a circular item. After analyzing all parts of the Pohaku, we continued on, fording 4 stream crossing and encountering marker 12. At this point, I thought the Damon House would appear, but it didn’t, so I pulled out Stuart Ball’s book Hiker’s Guide to Oahu and read that we passed the Damon House trail a while back. So we turned around and crossed the streams again.


Pohaku
 
Access to the Damon House starts on marker 11 and right after the Pohaku. The trail is short and led to what appeared to be a fire place. Behind the fire place appeared to be a platform which I assume to be living quarters. The tour around the house was short lived as we made our way back onto the trail and looped to marker 11.

remains

more crossings
 
We went over the 7 bridges again and completed the hike. The post meal hike was at the Navy Exchange. I immediately went to India Café where they had some Southern Indian Chicken, nice and spicy. The kids had orange chicken at some Chinese place and Michelle ate at Popeye’s.

 

After completion of the hike, I read the Moanalua Valley section again in Stuart Ball’s book and found out that there were two Damon Houses, 1) Douglas Damon (father) and 2) May Damon (daughter). Today we found May Damon’s house which was near marker 11, however Douglas Damon’s house is near marker 3. I actually saw the trail that veered from marker 3, but chose not to go there for some reason. Oh well, next time. This valley is nice, I always wanted to trail run the thing, but never got around to do it. Maybe during the summer, I’ll get a chance to do it.

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