Hiking Trails on Oahu

Olympus - June 10, 2016 After much consideration, Sarah wanted to do a ridge, so we decided on doing Olympus-Manoa Middle.  Start time was at 8am at Alani Drive near the Chinese cemetery. Joining the hike today was Darren, Bernice, and Sarah. I carpooled Darren as Bernice was parked. We joked that Sarah would get there at 8:30am, but she arrived early.  We started up Alani towards Kolowalu at 8:11am. For some reason, it took us forever to get up Kolowalu to the junction, like two hours or so. Apparently, we had a lot to talk about. It was good discussion, really good.  We headed up the Olympus trail at a somewhat faster pace. However, at each helipad, we talked story. I mean a lot of story. Not seeing each other for a while, yielded many things to talk about. We finally summited Olympus past 12pm. It took us over 3 hours to summit. Darren and I waited like 15 minutes for Bernice and Sarah to make their way. They took so long, so we went to look for them. They were talking...

Olympus to Hawaii Loa – September 30, 2012 We set off to Makapu’u, but realized that it was not meant to be on this day. Preparation was good, but time was the ultimate killer of this hiking excursion. Marvin has always criticized me for not finishing the Ko'olau Summit section known as K1 to Makapu’u. Really, I didn’t care about this section all too much. Apparently it is a big thing in the Oahu hiking community. It is actually one of the merit badges that a good hiker on Oahu must obtain to be considered…??? Not sure about that one, but doing K1 to Makapu’u is a great accomplishment. I’ve just never put too much thought into it, mainly because the initial goals I set for myself was to 1) chase waterfalls 2) finish Stuart Ball’s book. But while hiking with Marvin, it comes down to summit crossings. He has done 96% of the Ko’olau Summit already and a good amount of the Waianae Summit. Since I’ve been hiking with Marvin over the past year, I’ve been joining him on some great crossov...

Waiakeakua Pools - June 12, 2011 I've been trying to prep for the Waiakeakua pools for a while now. I've already found Manoa Falls, Aihualama Falls, & Naniuapo Falls in Manoa Valley.   I headed towards Manoa Valley at 8:00 am. Trail directions to Waiakeakua are a little sketchy. It appears that the bloggers and website hosts who know where Waiakeakua is, keep it a secret. The recurring hint is Pu'u Pia. I've been to Puu Pia once already, and did not see a sub trail. I needed more clues to find the trail to Waiakeakua Falls. I looked in the Puu Pia section of Stuart Ball's book, The Hiker's Guide to Oahu and there was a clue. The topo map shows that when the Puu Pia trail takes a U turn, the Waiakeakua stream appears at the same time. Since Puu Pia is at about 500 feet of elevation, one would think that getting to Waiakeakua stream would require descending down the mountain to the valley floor. This was my plan. 1) Go onto Puu Pia 2) When the trail takes an o...

  Mount Olympus (Awa'awaloa) via Wa'ahila Ridge Trail - June 4, 2011 Mount Olympus is the highest peak in Manoa. Its Hawaiian name is Awa'awaloa, but some years ago, students at Punahou renamed it Olympus. The name stuck and its also on listed as Olympus on Hawaii maps. I wanted to do this hike yesterday, but with a flash flood in effect for Oahu, that was out of the question. So I decided to do it today, which after much reflection was still a mistake. Lets just say climbing a steep mountain one day after a downpour isn't the right thing to do because you know, slippery mud.   I headed towards St. Louis Heights Drive at 8:30 am. After turning on a couple of side streets, I ended up at Wa'ahila Ridge State Park. I remember doing the first 30 minutes of this hike with the kids a couple of years ago and they had trouble, so we turned around. The lower Wa'ahila Ridge Trail claims to be a novice hike because there is little elevation gain. However, there is rock cli...