Checking out Massive Waterfalls in Waianae Valley (C-Rider & Ka'ala Falls)

C-Rider & Ka’ala Falls - February 1, 2014

This weekend had lots of rain which meant one thing…

Earlier in the week, The Red Baron was monitoring the weather and planned a hike in Waianae Valley called C-Rider falls. This falls got its name from Waianae Steve who has been hiking in the valley for 30+ years. He created and has maintained many of the trails back there in what is now an elaborate network of trails.

This group was suppose to be big 10+, but with rain comes cancellations. In the end, it was just Baron, Darren, and I. I came a bit early, Baron and Darren were there, so we must have started before the projected start time of 8am. I was excited because I had a chance to try out my new North Face jacket which claims to be waterproof. I bought the jacket in the Philippines, most of the products are fakes which makes me think this one is a fake.

As we walked up the valley road, Baron found the junction marked by pink paint. From there, we entered a forest and went through the valley. It only took us 1 ½ hours to get to the stream and a series of waterfalls. Growing were some massive kalo plants, the leaves were the size of me. I called it Big Kalo falls. After heading upstream and taking silk pictures, it was apparent that we needed to focus more and get to our destination which was the massive waterfall chute known as upper C-rider falls. We lost the trail for a bit and did some problem solving. After about 10 minutes, Darren found the way. The biggest problem were blackberry trees and its pokeys. We continued up some simple roped sections until Baron started getting really excited at what he was seeing. There, a massive 250+ foot waterfall was streaming down this vertical chute. It started to rain really hard. The waterfall started to spray. It was sight to behold. This experience only happens when there is rain in Waianae. Since Baron was so excited and it was raining so hard, we decided to try for Ka’ala falls.

one of the lower falls

lower series

Huge waterfall

Going back was easy, albeit very slippery. We got to a point on the C-rider trail where it intersected with the Ramble trail. Baron knew that Ka’ala falls was in the next gulch over. We hiked on the Ramble trail for near ½ hour until we hit the Ka’ala Falls ridge. Just like the Three Poles hike, this ridge was unrelenting. It just went up and up. My legs got so tight and weak. My cardio was struggling. I tried to take slow breaths, but my tight muscles were taking all my oxygen. I sucked it up and kept up with Baron. Baron started getting excited again as we neared Ka’ala falls. We could hear it gushing. As we hit the junction, more excitement came over us as Ka’ala falls was raging. Baron and Darren went last week and they said Ka’ala falls wasn’t as good as it was today. Baron told me that Ka’ala falls is spillover from the Ka’ala bog. The Ka’ala bog is this bowl which I guess holds a lot of water. When it rains, it has to spill, so it spills over this waterfalls chute and creates Ka’ala falls. You can kinda tell as the flow is not constant. There must be a pool of some sorts that fills, once it can’t hold the water, it comes down.

Ka'ala falls w/ Darren on big rock

We stayed at Ka’ala falls for a long time. The lighting was terrible (white out), coupled with the rain, my camera shots did not come out well. I really need to buy a good lens cleaner and a ND filter for my camera. After a while, we went back and followed the bottle caps back to the picnic bench, then down the dirt road to the hunter’s check in station. These type of hikes are underrated. For one, its hard to see a raging C-Rider and Ka’ala falls. The conditions were perfect today, slippery, but nothing dangerous.