Hiking Trails on Oahu

  Manoa Cliffs - January 17, 2018 I've been hiking for 8 consistent years now. Hiking with a purpose is hard to do. Some people like to get out there, but I need more. I need something specific.  Looking for native plants seems to be something specific and something I want to do.  On towards the Manoa Cliffs Trail. They have a restoration area where they outplant many native plants. We would get to see a lot of native plants concentrated in one area.  Joining the hike today was Darren, Jared, Daniel, Ryan and Kellie. We had Ryan who has done restoration in this area before. He could help us identify many of these plants and take us to areas that we didn't know we could access.  The hike to the restoration area was longer than I thought. It took a little over 1 hour. It did not disappoint. Lots of mamake trees. Ryan said they released a lot of Kamehameha butterflies in the area. Kamehameha butterflies love to eat mamake. What caught my attention was the Kokio, al...

Makapu'u Tidepools - January 14, 2018 Michelle wanted to take her co-workers to the Tidepools. Off we went to Makapu'u. We met at the Lighthouse trail at 8:30am. Joining our family were Suki and her two kids Sabrina and Hunter. Also joining were Jen and her husband Justin.  Getting down to the tidepools was simple enough. The kids were excited and wanted to rush down. I tried to get them to take their time because the rocks were very loose. But kids can take care of themselves more than adults think they can.  The Dragon's Nostrils were firing. It was the strongest I've ever seen. The pools were great nice color, but we had to be careful as the waves were big. The great thing was that there weren't too many people at this time. We had a chance to enjoy the pools. While there, we saw a whale about 50 feet from shore. That was exciting. But I couldn't get a nice picture. I took some nice pictures of the Dragon's Nostrils and the family. By 10am, people tourist...

Pohakea to Palikea - January 7, 2018 Baron invited OAG with him on this hike. He wanted to do a route from Pohakea to Palikea and make a loop out of it. Seemed a little ambitious, but he gave a 10 hour window for it, so there would be time to complete it.  I was excited as this would be an opportunity to do this section of the WST again and get a chance to see more native plants which is rejuvenating my passion for hiking.  Erik and Aprille picked Michelle and I at 6:15am and drove us to Walmart Kunia where we met with Baron, Darren, Kellie, Bernice, and Marilou. There would be 9 of us on today's trek. We would carpool in 2 trucks through the Kunia farmlands to the trailhead.  Baron has mastered this area and so has Darren and Erik, they easily made their way through a maze of dirt roads to the trailhead. We started hiking at about 7:15am. The initial part of the hike was on a jeep road up a steep incline. The grade was like 40%, although that is my estimate, it coul...