The Best Hike on Oahu
Poamoho - April 19, 2014
I had another opportunity to go on what true hiker’s consider the best hike on the island. After hiking avidly for 4 years now, I consider Poamoho to be the best hike on the island of Oahu. There is no other hike on the island that offers a better hiking experience than Poamoho.
This hike was previously scheduled on February 15th, but due to weather it was rescheduled for today. We had 26 people sign up for this event as ‘eldest HTMC member’ Fred Boll took on major responsibility in coordinating this hike.
I picked up Erik at 7am to drive to the trailhead. Upon arriving at his house, I thought to myself, kinda early. As I picked Erik up, he text Daniel to see what the meet up time was ~ 8:30am. Hoah crap, so we cruised at Zippy’s and talked major story about completing the original KST ~ Pupukea to Kipapa.
As we drove to the trailhead, 50% of OAG’s were in attendance, David, Daniel, Erik, Allison and I. Also notables were Jay, Nate Y., Alaina, Nate L., Pat, and I guess Will. This would actually be Allison and David’s first time on Poamoho. It will be an experience they will cherish in their hearts, only until the next time.
The ride up the access road took about 30 minutes, it was a bumpy 30 minutes. HTMC member Brian graciously drove us up. On a side note, I feel bad for the drivers as they have the painstaking task of having to clean their vehicles after the hike.
We had a treat today as the ohia trees were in full bloom. Only 5 minutes into the trail, 2 huge ass yellow ohia trees with thousands of flowers were in bloom. I’m not a plant fanatic, but this was impressive. We were also treated to orange, salmon, and of the course the red ohia’s in full bloom.
Last time, I remember the trail being easy, it actually seemed easier this time as we got to the preserve in about 1 ½ hours. I had no idea where to look, but I tried to look for snails. Daniel and Erik said there should be this greenish color snail located here in the preserve. After much of a fail trying to find these snails, I caught up to Erik near the summit. He pointed out lobelia. There were a bunch growing near the summit.
At the summit is the Cline Memorial. I talked with a few ladies at the summit as they told a story about carrying rocks up Poamoho so the club could put together the Cline Memorial. This is historic stuff, makes me want to interview them and record their stories on my private website. For some reason flashbacks of interviewing my grandmother in the early 2000s came upon me as she told stories of her experience in the Manzanar Internment Camps during WWII. I must have interviewed her about 3 times during her life asking the same questions over and over again. Her answers were all consistent giving me an accurate picture of what went on during that time of her life. Of course, I can’t empathize what she actually went through, as I can’t even begin to imagine what Japanese-American’s went through at that time.
Back to Poamoho, Allison was fulfilling a dream as she walked in the meadow letting the wind seduce her. Daniel and David found a spot adjacent to the Cline Memorial to just chill and soak up the moment. I devoured my snacks because my appetite has been fluctuating recently. Sometimes I’m hungry, sometimes I’m not. The summit was socked in for the most part, the hiking gods limited us to about 2 minutes of views as they seemed a little upset today. They can be so moody, but one must always respect them.
We let time pass by at the summit. Allison gave us the “hint” that she wanted to go to the cabin. After stalling out, Erik, David, Nate, Jay, and I decided to join her. The walk to the cabin was super muddy. It felt like true KST action there. When I got to the cabin, I saw that everyone was outside. Jay mentioned that DLNR locked the cabin door while they were doing field work. DLNR has full rights to the cabin and we as hiker’s only are guest. Pat Rorie showed up after taking a casual walk to Pu’u Pauao and told us that DLNR is planning to put up a fence along most of the KST to keep out pigs:( As we proceeded to leave, DLNR came back, but obviously they did not want to let us into the cabin. We were respectful of their non verbal wishes and had some conversation with them.
Turnaround time was 1pm, we booked it at a fast pace in some sloppy mud. Kawailoa was a mudfest last week and Poamoho was a mudfest this week. I think I brought a fraction of Northern Koolau mud back with me to Mililani. It took us only 2 hours to get back and Fred drove us back to our cars at the parking lot.
From there, we rendezvous at Shige’s in Wahiawa. The saimin there was excellent. Just like always we had good conversations about hiking sharing knowledge, stories, and experience which no blog or fb group page can compare.
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