Revisiting Piliwale

Piliwale-Lulumahu - January 2, 2015

This hike was intriguing for 2 reasons 1) I get to have a chance to do Lulumahu Ridge 2) Hike with Heather again. Back in about 2011-12, someone cleared Lulumahu Ridge to K1. Whoever did it worked extremely hard as its not an easy ridge to clear. I also get to hike with Heather again, she has been on hiatus for about 1 year. Last time I hiked with her was in 2013 when we did the epic hike Waiahole-Manana. Heather and I have this running joke that I'm the imaginary friend of Marvin. In the good old days I use to hike with Marvin a lot, and then Marvin use to hike with Heather a lot. My name came up in conversation during those hikes. Marvin the good man he is use to schedule hikes where Heather and I would meet. But I would bail on all of those hikes. Heather started to think I was Marvin's imaginary friend. The joke would continue on facebook, until we finally did a hike in 2013. Heather did quite a bit of running in 2013-14, so I saw her a few times before the hike today.

Last time I did Piliwale was in 2011 with Marvin & Christian. I didn't remember it being too difficult, but that was at a different time. I was stronger and focused to do difficult hikes. Now days my mind has to be right to do these difficult hikes. I can do them, but I need to be in some type of mental mode to do them. 

Darren set this hike up and invited a lot of people. But in the end, it would only be us 3. We met at the Nuuanu hunter's check in station to stage a car, and then I shuttled us over to the Pali Lookout. Heavy rains were in the forecast, we thought about bailing, but Heather said, "lets go", so that was it. We hiked at a quick pace and got to the Piliwale trailhead in about 1 hour. From there we ascended the steep ridge to the notch. This section wasn't too hard, the climb up the notch wasn't too hard either because someone created an easier climbing section to go up. The rock section after the notch was the most difficult part of the hike. There is an overhanging section, your mind needed to be right. I didn't have too much difficulty, but could see someone having problems on this section. The next 3 climbing obstacles weren't too hard and were actually fun. By then, the clouds rolled in and we were almost completely socked in. After those fun climbing sections, the ridge narrows considerably. Its a super cool angle. We had one more climbing obstacle before multiple scrambles up to K1. The trail was overgrown and it was difficult to get proper footing. We topped out at K1 in about 3 1/2 hours to a shit load of rain and wind. I was super cold. I can't find my North Face waterproof jacket which is the money jacket especially in this weather. With my Nike windbreaker I had to use today, it did the job, but not well. 

narrow section on Piliwale (P.C. Darren)

Piliwale is a scrambling hike as well (P.C. Darren)

Darren & Heather had me lead down Lulumahu ridge. I was laughing in my head because they already did this ridge and I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I only had the track that Jay sent me. Lulumahu ridge is narrow and exposed for the most part. It is vastly overgrown and you should wear pants on this ridge. Heather and I had shorts which wasn't a good idea. Rains and winds were heavy going down. It was an uncomfortable feeling, however you get use to it after a while. Just miserable conditions! There was one point where the ridge splits and I took us down the wrong ridge. Heather caught my mistake and we had to go back to the junction losing about 15 minutes. After taking the right junction, we continued on going down. The trail eventually hits this big ass iron wood pine, weird to see an iron wood on this very part of the island, but I guess they can survive anywhere. We were on the trail for over two hours already, and the trail split again. I took the ropes down and the rest followed suit. But that was the wrong section. Shit! The hard part was that there were no footholds coming down, so going up was a bitch. With no holds, I put my weight on the entire rope to get up. We continued on down to the bottom of the ridge, we lost the trail again as the track was off. We were close to the road and decided to push through to get to the Lulumahu trail. When we got to the reservoir, the rains came hard. We were wet and finished the hike freezing our asses off. We ended the hike at about 3:30pm. I changed into comfortable clothes and felt better. No post hike meal today, as Heather had to go and I had pork guisantes in a crock pot at home and it was close to dinner time.  

Group photo in the rain (P.C. Heather)