Hiking Trails on Oahu

Pu'u Pia - December 20, 2015 Following the Nishikida party at Aunty Pat's house, we went home and I fell asleep. In the morning, I got a bunch of text message and voicemails from Aunty Pat and Ty saying that my mom has Aunty Pat's phone.  Feeling opportunistic about the situation, I offered to take it down to Manoa with the intention to drop it off and do Pu'u Pia thereafter.  I drove down to Aunty Pat's house and drop the phone off with Byron, and then drove off to Pu'u Pia. I haven't done Pu'u Pia in 5 years. I have this urge to revisit old trails. From the cemetery, I walked all the way to the top of Pu'u Pia, it took me 30 minutes. The top of Pu'u Pia was super windy, there was a wind advisory today.  After a short break at the top, I started going down. It started to rain heavily. I had no water or backpack. I ran down as fast as I could. It took me about 20 minutes to get to me car. I was soakin' wet, but changed shirt and went back hom...

Kahuwai'iki - June 29, 2014 Initially I thought I found all the waterfalls in Manoa in 2011. I was content and thought all my hard work paid off. With limited information on the web, solo hiking, and unbelievable passion, I spent dozens of hours in Manoa Valley looking for those waterfalls on my own. Then in 2012, hiking friends Baron & Marvin mentioned to me another waterfall called Kahuwai'iki, which spills from a stream that converges with Wahi stream in Manoa Valley. My first reaction was denial since I spent so much hard work trying to find the Manoa waterfalls on my own. This denial went on for at least 2 years. I was like ahhh, I found all the waterfalls in Manoa, so I'm done. But when hiking groups do the Manoa waterfall tour, they go to Kahuwai'iki which reopened my quest to at least make an appearance to this waterfall.  Being that today's Lulumahu to Olympus hike was canceled because of weather and it was 6:15am, we had some time to figure out what pl...

  Lua’alaea Falls – August 27, 2011 This is it, the last remaining waterfall in Manoa Valley I have yet to witness. I thought this hike could have been done 3 months ago, but as my favorite saying goes, satisfaction comes to people who are patient. If you look at the topo map, Manoa has 5 distinct streams, Aihualama, Wai'hi, Lua’alaea, Naniuapo, and Waiakeakua stream. Naniuapo stream branches off Waiakeakua, so I thought a waterfall wouldn’t run off that stream, but it does. In addition, there is not too much information on Naniuapo falls. I actually thought it was Lua’alaea when I discovered it 1 year ago. I already found 4 out of the 5 waterfalls in Manoa. However, finding Lua’alaea falls has now become a challenge. I know it seemed not too difficult to find, but all the directions on the internet weren't good enough. These are the two hints that exist. 1) It branches off the Manoa falls trail 2) It is on Haukulu Road. I’ve tried both options many times and came up empty. On ...

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...