The Dangerous Razor Ridge

Razor Ridge-Kumaipo - January 21, 2019

Starting off the new year gets us to Makaha and Baron. We have a slowed down recently and I haven't been documenting too many of my hikes due to my interest in native Hawaiian plants. With that being said, I got a chance to do a hike that I haven't done before. 

Razor Ridge is a difficult hike in Makaha. The ridge branches off Kaimaileunu near the Tiki Summit. Joining the group today was all guys: Baron, Darren, Erik, Matt and Ted. 

We met at Baron's house at 6am and took 2 cars to Makaha Towers. Gene met us at the front and walked with us on the H4 trail to the junction of Razor Ridge. The time was about 7am or later. It took us over an hour to get to the Razor Junction. It was about midway into the valley. We started going uphill in a cardio lung busting incline which took us to Lama Lookout. Gene and Steve built a bench up there and a dominating view of Ohikilolo beckoned in front of us. I was more interested in the grove of Lama trees, but the view was great. 

Gene left us to go back to his apartment in Makaha Towers to watch the NFC Championship Game while we headed up on Razor Ridge. It was difficult bushwhacking as Darren and Baron made the statement, "it wasn't like this last time". For some reason, I remember the time was 10:22 am. The ridge was razor thin, hence the name Razor Ridge. We eventually hit the first major obstacle, the notch with a nasty 20 foot down climb. There was webbing, but we didn't trust it. Darren pulled out his webbing and threw it down. Baron did the down climb and mapped out the route. I was next and held the webbing with my left hand and the original webbing with my right hand. It wasn't too difficult because there were many holds. However both sides had massive hundred foot+ drops and a fall would be fatal. We went one by one and soon we would hit the next obstacle which was to climb up the notch. This climb is about 100 feet. The hardest part was the first 20 feet, then scrambling the next 80+ feet to the safe spot. 

Darren led the way and dropped his webbing although it took him 3 tries to get it down to us. It snagged the first two tries. Baron explained to me his planned route and then went up. I used that information to get up. It was very hard. The footing was over soft dirt and I struggled. About half way, I took a break and recovered, then finished to the safe spot and yelled clear to Erik. 

This section took us over 30 minutes because it took some time to climb the 100 feet. By this point in the hike, it was getting very hot and I was sweating profusely. Because there wasn't much room at the resting spot, I told the others that I'm going to head up. It was about 20 minutes before we topped out at the fence line of Kamaileunu Ridge. We were thoroughly exhausted.  I scarfed down my turkey sandwich. 

After a 30 minute break we headed towards the Tiki Rocks via the fence line, but took a left turn at a contour trail. We followed the contour trail for almost 1 hour. We saw so many native plants. It was very good to see a number of native plants on the contour trail. It was easy peasy when we hit the Kumaipo Junction. 

The Kumaipo trail is a old Hawaiian route used by the ancient Hawaiians to go from Waianae to Makaha valley, most likely to relay information. In no time we got back to the Makaha Valley floor and headed to the icy pond. It was 2:30pm when we got to the icy pond. I jumped in the water right away and cooled off, a little too much as the water was ice cold. It was a nice way to end a what ended up being a hot hike in Makaha Valley. 

The post hike meal was at Brick Oven Pizza, but when we got there it was closed, so we went to a Pho place.