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...

Manoa Middle – January 14, 2012 I did this hike in my dreams. It’s a hike I’ve wanted to do for some time now. Only a few years ago, this hike was extremely difficult to do for two reasons 1) overgrown 2) no clear directions. Great work by an anonymous clearing crew and maintenance by the HTMC make this hike a reality. I joined the hiking group Oahu Weekend Hikers & Adventures today as they were going to do the Manoa Middle Loop. This loop consist of taking you onto Pu’u Pia, then descending down the valley to where Waiakeakua stream flows. We would then make a left at a junction to gain Manoa’s Middle Ridge before making the steep ascent to its summit. From the summit, we would turn right on the KST towards the Mount Olympus trail. Finally we would go down the Olympus trail before making a right onto Kolowalu and back onto Pu’u Pia.           Leading the hike today was Udom and Laredo. Both are HTMC hikers and help out with this group. T...

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...