Climbing to the Dangerous Peak of Kawiwi

Kawiwi to Tiki - August 15, 2014

Today was my second time doing Kawiwi and it was with the "overnight crew" minus Aprille. Last time we hiked together, we had to spend the night on the Waimalu Ridge trail. Hopefully today would yield better results...it did.

With Sarah leaving in a few weeks back to college in the mainland, the OAG's needed to do a hike. Recently, choosing a group hike has been difficult. Our group has hikers with varying skills and abilities making it harder to choose certain hikes. Long story short, we chose to do Mt. Ka'ala in Waianae. The plan was simple, meet at Waianae Valley Road at 7:45am, go up Ka'ala, and go back.

I picked up Darren at 7:00am and got to the trailhead at 7:50am. It seems like it takes longer and longer to get to Waianae from Mililani. Erik and Bernice got there at 7:48am. And Sarah, lets just say she got there at Hawaiian Time.

As we got ready, Darren was eyeing Pu'u Kawiwi. We came across two University of Hawaii research students trying to get into the lock gate. Darren, who works for University of Hawaii easily started a conversation and tried to get us a ride on the long service road. However, the students were given the wrong key and the code they tried didn't work, so they had to park their truck and hike it in. We left them and walked up the service road. About 15 minutes up the road is a clearing. It was time for Darren to try persuade the group to do Pu'u Kawiwi. He said, "we are all capable of doing Pu'u Kawiwi, so what you think Sarah". Sarah, under so much pressure said, "its up to Bernice". Bernice was like, "ummm, do you think we can do it?". Of course Darren's answer was, "of course we can". Then they all looked at me and ask if they could do it. I said, "I guess" with a concern look on my face. 

I was worried about the mental state for Bernice and Sarah. The climbs up Kawiwi aren't particularly hard, but it does warrant focus. One thing I learned from Bernice and Sarah from our overnighter was both women are mentally tough and can endure quite a bit of adversity. As we hiked, the concern I was feeling wavered away and I got myself mentally prepared for the climbs we were about to do. 

The plan now was to go up the narrow Kawiwi ridge, connect to No Name Peak via the broken teeth section, and then continue towards Tiki Ridge back down into the valley and exit the service road. Hike estimation was about 6-7 hours, but it would be longer than that. 

Darren led the hike which warrants caution as he tends to forget the route. But Kawiwi is straight forward and I had confidence that Darren could lead well. Before getting to the base of Pu'u Kawiwi, we came across a kalo patch, a good sized one. Sarah was in awe. It was the wet kalo fed by an underground spring. We took a long break there, then continued on. The trail was really overgrown this time. I guess the plants grew from the two hurricanes that brought a lot of rain to the island. Darren tried to remove some branches which fell on the kalo. 

Sarah in her element

 

Getting to the base was difficult and took us quite some time. The trail was overgrown and was hard on the legs. As we started to climb the ridge, the trail was still overgrown. For some reason, it ate up a lot of time. About 1 1/2 hours in, we finally got to the scrambling sections. The first scramble was simple. Bernice and Sarah were now in beast mode as they tackled the hardest parts of the hike. The ridge thins out and it becomes 'serious'. Exposure is great. When we could, we contoured around the rock faces. I didn't remember contouring too much last time, but this time I took all the contours available. Eventually, we got to the hardest climb, a vertical wall about 15 feet high. I remember only making 3 moves, but they were critical in getting me up the wall. After the moves I was able to get to safe spot. Erik followed suit and helped Sarah get up. Darren spotted Bernice and we all got up safe without the use of a rope.  

This is how she got her nickname (p.c. Erik)

It was near 4+ hours when we hit the summit of Pu'u Kawiwi, we were treated to some magnificent views of Waianae. One conversation was about food. We teased Bernice because she brings the best food on hikes. Then we looked at Sarah's bento in a solid plastic container and were like WTH. I then ate my fresh pineapple. 

okazuya on a hike

summit of Kawiwi

At 1pm, we proceeded to the connector. The ridge is narrow and descends to a saddle. On both sides were vertical drops. A fall would be tragic. One of the hardest obstacles on the connector is a Makaha contour. I remember dropping down about 6 feet to a narrow ledge via white webbing. The webbing is solid, but old. The short down climb requires total concentration. A fall here would be bad. The ledge traverses about 15 feet before climbing up to a safe spot. The second obstacle was a fence descent on the Waianae side. Descending the fence was tricky and I had a hard time leading Sarah, but Erik stepped in a gave instructions. 

broken teeth section

After about 1 hour on the connector we finally hit the 'moment of truth', the broken teeth section. I continued leading, Bernice was right behind me. I wasted no time and remembered how to handle the obstacle safely. To better explain this obstacle just think of it as big crooked rocks that you have to climb over and around. The drops on both sides are vertical. If you fall, there is no surviving. I tried to guide Bernice, but she was in total concentration. The hardest part of the broken teeth was the 'sliding rock' obstacle. While sitting you have to slide on this big rock set at an angle to a crack in the rock and grab hold of a tree to proceed down to a safe spot. If you slide too far, you might fall off the rock and tumble down thousands of feet below. It can be a hair raising experience. A few more moves on the broken teeth and I hear Bernice say something to the effect of wooohooo, total adrenaline coming out of her voice. 

I think we all wanted to take a break, but I ask the group if they could push on up towards No Name Peak. We did. It was 20 minutes of cardio up the mountain through overgrown brush. Although we contoured a bunch of rock faces, we did have to scramble up a number of rock faces. I didn't realize it was this much rock faces, I guess my memory on this part faded already. Before topping out, there is a rest spot with a money view of Makaha. The summit of No Name is overgrown, obstructing the view of Makaha. The tone of the group became that of relaxation already. Most of the obstacles were done, now we just had to finish the hike. 

money view

We took a short break at No Name, before hitting a fence that descended steeply down the ridge. It looks hard, but wasn't. The terrain was eroded and I remember dislodging a ton of rocks. But since I was leading, it didn't matter. After completing this task, we got to the big rocks of the Tiki ridge terminus. We found the Tiki trail and quickly descended. Darren and Sarah were having a blast in the back and missed a critical junction. Erik was smart enough to have us wait. As soon as we heard Darren's voice, we told them to backtrack and find the junction. Tiki is steep for the most part, but we tried our best to be efficient and complete it as quickly as possible. We were nearing 8 hours in the hike already and I can tell everyone was hanging. 

Once we bailed off Tiki, we followed the orange bottle caps out of the valley. We were so relieved to see Waianae Well II. I was so thirsty, I filled up at the well and drank a 1/2 liter of water in less than 30 seconds. The walk down the road was uneventful, but we talked story the entire way towards our cars. Sarah had to go to the beach, while we went to our PHM at Sushi Bay. We met Aprille at Sushi Bay, but the wait was about 40 minutes, so we bailed on Sushi Bay and drove over to Hapa Grill to eat dinner. The food there is good. I had an Avocado Bacon Burger. The only thing healthy was the avocado, but since I burned a bunch of calories, choosing something bad was an option. 

Success for the overnight crew. Would love to do a backpacking trip with OAG in the near future.