Hiking Trails on Oahu

Pueo Falls - March 29, 2015 Back at it again! Last week, we did Pear Gulch in Makaha. This week we were going to do the elusive Pueo Falls. I've been wanting to do this hike for years now, today it would all come to fruition. I've been enamored with Pueo Falls since I read Nate Yuen's write up of it a few years back. At that time, I thought it was the highest waterfall on Oahu. I was wrong, but the falls is massive.  Baron invited the OAG's on this hike today. Joining Baron was Darren, Erik, and I. We had an early meet up time, 6am at Sport Authority. The planned route today was to hike Pueo falls and back out. On the way there, we would help Baron find 2 junctions 1) Kumaipo trail 2) King Kong trail. We expected to be out there at least 8 hours.  Baron has this thing about bypassing the Board of Water Supply service road. So we took the H4 and Gigi trail to bypass the road. Eventually we hit the Kan Aii Heiau and continued on the other service road pa...

Kawiwi to Tiki - August 15, 2014 Today was my second time doing Kawiwi and it was with the "overnight crew" minus Aprille. Last time we hiked together, we had to spend the night on the Waimalu Ridge trail. Hopefully today would yield better results...it did. With Sarah leaving in a few weeks back to college in the mainland, the OAG's needed to do a hike. Recently, choosing a group hike has been difficult. Our group has hikers with varying skills and abilities making it harder to choose certain hikes. Long story short, we chose to do Mt. Ka'ala in Waianae. The plan was simple, meet at Waianae Valley Road at 7:45am, go up Ka'ala, and go back. I picked up Darren at 7:00am and got to the trailhead at 7:50am. It seems like it takes longer and longer to get to Waianae from Mililani. Erik and Bernice got there at 7:48am. And Sarah, lets just say she got there at Hawaiian Time. As we got ready, Darren was eyeing Pu'u Kawiwi. We came across two University of Hawaii res...

  Pu'u O Hulu Kai - July 7, 2014 I haven't done Pu'u O Hulu in a while. Last time, I did it solo. It was fun, besides the oncoming thunderstorms. Today, Aprille wanted to take her friend Amanda on this hike. Erik joined them as well. They got to an early 8 am start. Initially I bailed o the hike, because Malia and Jared felt sick. However with some prodding they were able to get out of bed and go to summer fun. I text Erik and Aprille I was a go and drove to Maile to start Pu'u O Hulu Kai and meet them somewhere near the bunkers. Pu'u O Hulu, the hill itself is somewhat by, itself. I think it was connected to Heleakala at one time back in ancient Hawaii before major erosion. Makes you think how much water was flowing millions of years ago in that valley to separate Pu'u O Hulu from Heleakala. The Pu'u itself is split into two sections, one section is the Kai section and the other one is the Uka section.  Aprille them were going to start from the Uka section ...

Upper & Lower Makua Cave – July 13, 2012 I’ve known that there was a Makua Cave. You can see it from the road. However, ever since Nate Yuen’s posts a few months back, Oahu hikers now know that there is another cave further up the mountain. There is also a trail that goes up to the Upper Cave, but it is over loose rock and you must know how to scramble pretty well. Inviting me today was Christian and Marvin. They came to my house at 7 am and I drove us to Makaha. We got ready and started on the trail to the Upper Makua Cave. It took us about 20 minutes. We scrambled up the mountain, which was somewhat steep. There were two caves. The caves were pretty big, nothing spectacular though. But the view from the caves were spectacular. Christian thought the cave was bigger and didn’t think that these two caves were the ones. So we went more up the mountain negotiating this steep rock face. It was like Kawiwi because the rocks were really loose and the climb was steep. I took a wh...

Kea'au Middle Ridge – March 18, 2012        On the quarterly Hawaii Trail & Mountain Club (HTMC) schedule today was Kea'au Ridge. The HTMC route today was to hike up Kea'au’s Middle Ridge to its summit, and then go back. As much as I wanted to do this hike, I did prefer to do the Kea'au-Ohikilolo rectangle. That route consist of taking you up Kea'au’s Middle Ridge, then making a left to Pu’u Ohikilolo, taking Ohikilolo Ridge down to a junction before returning to a dirt road. If I could compare it to another classic route, I would compare it to the Keahi a Kahoe hike which is similar hike. The real Kea'au Ridge is located to the east side of Ohikilolo Valley, and of course the ridge on the left side is Ohikilolo Ridge.  The meeting place was at Makaha beach at 8:30am. I drove to Makaha in plenty of time, but as I passed Makaha Beach, there was no one there. Perplexed, I drove further until I hit Kaena Point. Oops, not the right way so made a decisi...