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...

Pu’u Piei – January 21, 2012 I needed to do a short hike because I had to get to a birthday party by 1pm. So I decided to do Pu’u Piei. According to Stuart Ball’s book  Hiking on Oahu , Pu’u Piei is about 3 miles long. I figured it would only take 3 hours to finish this hike, so if we got to Kahana at 8a, there would be no problem. Pu’u Piei is a high end intermediate hike. The trail goes uphill for about 1600 ft. until you hit the crest of the ridge, then its more ups and downs before you hit the summit. I had a feeling that there would be a lot of huffing and puffing. I picked up Nate at 7 am and off I drove to Kahana valley. At 8a, we parked at the Orientation center. As we were getting ready, Pu'u Piei was looming in front of us. We started to walk on the gravel road towards the Nakoa trailhead. We then turned right on a paved road and headed into the valley looking for utility poles, none where in sight. After about 30 minutes, we were perplexed. Where was Pu’u Piei and the ut...

  Mariner's Ridge - September 25, 2011  (*  * as of January 2013, Mariner's Ridge access has been closed to the public.)   After Olomana yesterday, I decided to take an easy day and take Michelle and the kids hiking.  In my mind, the next step for the kids to progress is Mariner's Ridge.  The kids have done Manoa Falls, Aiea Loop, Tantalus Trails, Hau'ula & Papali, and many more basic hikes.  Mariner's Ridge is a little more difficult than those trails.  Although short, the ascent towards the summit needs some cardio and strength.  It would prove to be a good challenge for the kids. On Saturday night, I told the kids that we were going hiking in the morning.  Malia wanted to bring her friend Charlize.  I approved her request.  I woke up early, got a coffee and waited for everyone to wake up.  We all got ready and left the house at 9:30 am.  We had to drive towards the end of Hawaii Kai and to Kaluanui Road, n...

  Ice Ponds of Kalihi Valley - June 13, 2011 I was reading Joshua blog 808 Goonies yesterday and stumbled upon a secret trail that led to cascading waterfalls. Wow very impressive. Its called the Ice Ponds. Why Ice Ponds? Its not frozen. Two local stories exist. 1) Its a place of gathering for tweakers smoking Ice (Crystal Meth), not too appealing. 2) The stream is cold as ice. I guess the urban legend yields many stories.  On this day I went with my wife Michelle. The initial plan was to only take her out to lunch, but I threw in a hike because of my recent addiction. Though she resisted, I persuaded her enough to at least come along. We headed toward Kalihi Street at 9:30 am. I had no specific directions, but a source on the internet provided some coordinates to the Ice Ponds. The night before, I inputted the coordinates into google map and a location popped up. With that to work on, we headed deep into the valley.  We parked near the end of Kalihi Street a little ...