Stairway to Heaven (Haiku Stairs) and Haiku falls

This past weekend was Thanksgiving weekend and a friend of mine asked me if I would accompany him to the well known stairway to heaven since he had never been before.  Keeping with the spirit of the thanksgiving holiday I willingly accepted his invitation and notified my wife that we would be leaving our house early the next morning for haiku valley.  While I usually jump at any opportunity to hike that I get when I am free, the stairway to heaven, or the haiku stairs, is one that I do not usually agree to do.  I have a very strong disdain for this trail at this point.  The first couple of times that I climbed the haiku stairs I thought it was the most incredible thing ever, but years later and a plethora of trips up the 3,922 stairs have rendered me almost completely void of any desire to ever do this again.  I guess you could say that the "thrill" of this hike has kind of worn off for me.  I still enjoy it when I do go but I guess I believe it's a little over-hyped.  For me, the amount of gratitude that I recieve from doing stairway is small compared to what I feel when I hike many of the other trails here.  I am not sure of the number of times that I have been up the stairs but I would say it is easily in the double digits and as for the future, I will surely not be trying to make that number grow.

My wife and I were very grateful to have our friend pick us up early on sunday morning and to give us a ride to the trailhead.  We drove towards kaneohe and as we entered haiku village two other friends pulled up behind us and followed us to where we would park.  Upon parking we swiftly exited our cars and gathered our things and hurridly headed to the gate being as quiet as possible not to bother anyone who lives in the neighborhood.  Once at the gate we walked around the right side of it and proceeded down an old road.  The junction to get to the trailhead is a matter of minutes, at the most, at this point and is on the left side and fairly obvious (pass a junction with a cement parking block in front of it, the correct junction is on the left just after this, and about a minute or so after seeing a water tank on the right side).  We took the left and headed into the bamboo forest and were immediately met by a tree blocking the trail and easily made our way around it.  Shortly after this we came came to a clearing and continued ahead, veering slightly to the right and then promptly proceeded back into a wooded area and once again were greeted by a path surrounded on both sides by bamboo (during this stretch you will come to a few openings - if you can't find the trail to find the continuing path just keep looking in front of you for a clearing in the forested areas....If while in the wooded area, you see a trail going right and another going left, take the left fork).  Finally, at the end of the bamboo forest, we ran into a fence with a hole cut into it and easily crawled through it and emerged out on the access road, which by taking a right would lead us directly to the stairs.  We took the right and casually made our way as we could now see the H3 pillars directly in front of us and knew that in a matter of moments the exhausting climb up the 3,922 stairs would commence.  In no time we had reached the tent where the guards hang out during the day, and at this point we took a left and headed for the stairs and started our trip up the "Stairway to Heaven".

One by one we passed around the fence that is meant to keep hikers like us out and began our journey up the stairway to heaven.  From the beginning the climb does not let up.  It climbs and climbs and after about ten minutes becomes nearly vertical.  There are two vertical sections followed by a brief section where it levels off for about one minute and then one last vertical section before reaching a concrete lookout and a resting spot.  A few people in the group took this opportunity to relax and catch a breather while the rest of us continued up the stairs.  In my opinion, the portion of the stairs that I just desribed, is by far the hardest and most tiring and after reaching the first resting point the rest of the climb is not all the bad.  As we made further progress up the stairs the next bunker and stopping point came into sight.  We accelerated our pace and made it to the bunker in a hurry and then briefly grabbed some water before making our final push to the summit.  As we poped our heads out of an old concrete structure, in which we had just been resting in, the haiku stairs summit finally came in to view.  Two more strenuous, vertical climbs and we would reach our destination.  As we arrived at the top of the last of the stairs I could see one of our friends already perched on top of the old ccl building that sits at the terminus of the Haiku stairs.  As we approached he came down and greeted us and then the guys in the group decided to follow me across the KST to see where the moanalua middle ridge trail begins and to take a glance at it.  It was insanely muddy and windy on this day but we had a good time on our short trek across the KST.  We took a few pics and then headed back to the Stairway terminus and began our descent down the stairs.

Due to my incessant taking of pictures, I was in constant catch up mode as we all made our way down the stairs.  The trip down went by very quickly and once at the bottom the group agreed to join me on one last stop before heading back to our cars.  We continued back to the old access road where we had began our journey earlier in the day and followed a faint trail down to a stream where there was a very pretty little waterfall with a small swimming hole to wash off in and play at for a little while.  We all stayed for probably a half hour or so and had a great time before retracing our steps and walking back to our cars.

This was one of my favorite hikes up the stairs yet due to the great company and crew that we had with us on this day.  For a very long time now, I have been saying that I will not be coming back to the stairs every time that I finish a hike there.  I will make this statement again.  If anyone is to see me on the stairs you can bet I will be coming down from the moanalua saddle or tripler ridge or that I will be making my way to the Moanalua middle ridge.  Once these three hikes are completed during the day, I will not be setting foot on the stairs for a very long time.  Of course, I've made these statements before only to be caught on the stairs the next week so we shall see if I hold true to my word.  In the meantime, it's back to doing what I love most, which is, any trail but the stairway to heaven.

Directions: Okay, so I have seen a lot of other posts on the Haiku Stairs facebook page and a few other facebook hiking pages and people give all sorts of different times and information.  At the risk of making some people mad, lets just settle this once and for all.  The guards get there at 4am so arrive at the bottom of the stairs way before this if you wanna hike.  The guards leave at noon on the weekdays and at 4pm on the weekends.  If you get there after 4am in the morning and the guards are there, they will politely tell you to leave.  Promptly do so and be respectful.  Come back another day.  Don't be stupid and attempt to sneak by them.  This would be the dumbest thing you could do.  As for getting to the trailhead (From Waikiki) take H1 West to Likelike Highway towards Kaneohe. Once on the Windward side, take Kahekili Highway towards North Shore. At the third trafic light, take a left on to Kahuhipa St. and follow it to Kuneki street where you will take a slight left (if you go straight the road will dead end).  When Kuneki street ends there will be a gate on the left side which is the access road you need to walk down to start the hike.  Park anywhere in this area or before, making sure you don't park illegally or park in a manner that will irritate the residents.  Be quiet and respectful as walking down the street and towards the trailhead.

Moanalua Middle Ridge to Haiku Stairs (night hike)

One of the big trends in the hiking community as of late seems to be night hiking.  I had recently hiked the koko crater rim at night and I enjoyed it immensely.  This time around my wife and I were invited by some fellow hikers to climb up to the top of the well known stairway to heaven via the middle ridge of Moanalua valley.  On this full moon night there would be eight of us participating in this adventure.  A few people drove to Kaneohe ahead of time to station a car near the haiku stairs so we would all have a ride back to Moanalua valley and our cars after the hike.  In the meantime I was at school and starting to worry that I would be late for the hike since I did not get out of school until after 6:15 and the hike was scheduled for a 6:30 start.  I ended up leaving class a little bit early and actually arrived at moanalua valley park first, giving me some time to prepare my supplies and to get ready for the hike that was ahead of me.  Shortly after I arrived everyone else showed up as well and we all put our headlamps on and set off down the valley road for what we expected to be a somewhat boring first leg of the trail.

The trail starts by following an old gravel road that goes on for a few miles with numerous stream crossings.  After a few miles we reached a sign stating that this was the end of the maintained state trail.  At this point we began to look for our junction with the middle ridge.  There is a trail directly to the left of the sign but this was the trailhead for the highly dangerous Moanalua saddle, which no one in their right mind would attempt at night.  The middle ridge trailhead was about ten yards past the sign on the same side.  At this spot we crossed the stream and found a trail heading up through a wooded area that was well marked with ribbons.

From here on out the trail was well worn and simple to follow.  We climbed further and further ahead and finally reached the portion of the middle ridge that became narrow.  The ridge being narrow was not what presented us problems on this night.  The problem was that the wind was howling at 30 plus mph.  I have heard a lot of people say they will not do hikes such as this one in the dark, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it easier mentally at night than during the day.  While hiking during the day the crazy drops beneath me are very apparent but at night I do not tend to notice them and can solely focus on the trail that my headlamp is shining down on in front of me.  As everyone in the group negotiated the narrow sections with ease, the ridge began to steepen and the damp ground became tougher to gain traction on.  One positive thing we had going for us was that there were plenty of ropes in place to help us proceed upward on the steepest parts.  While the trail was getting steeper and steeper the narrowness was still ever so present.  I looked up and noticed that the middle ridge summit was just ahead of me now.  Since it was getting windier and starting to rain I decided to go ahead of the rest of the group and get to the middle ridge summit and then wait for them there. 

As I hastily made my way up to the middle ridge summit I looked behind me and realized that I had ended up putting a lot more distance between me and the rest of the group than I had anticipated.  As I arrived at the middle ridge summit I decided to just go ahead and make the left hand turn and head for the Haiku stairs by myself.  Having been on this section of the KST before, I knew that the haiku stairs were no more than ten minutes away now.  The wind picked up exceedingly as I got closer and closer to the omega station at the top of the haiku stairs.  The views were non existent as I looked down and saw nothing but clouds beneath me.  A few more turns along the summit ridge and a couple more steps through the mud and I had finally reached the top of the Haiku stairs where I was greeted by another hiker who had hiked up the stairs earlier in the night to meet our group.  I jumped over the railing and had officially arrived at the omega station at around 10:20 pm.  The entire group would arrive to the omega station no later than 11:00 pm.  As we all reached the omega station one by one, the skies began to slowly clear.  Before we knew it the entire sky had cleared up and presented us with incredible views of all of Kaneohe bay in front of us and of haiku valley to our left.  A few of us tried to pull out our tripods to get better pictures but the wind just would not allow the tripods to sit still, so we just settled for the pictures that we could get and then we began our decent down the stairs. 

Everyone else in the group began down the stairs first as me and another hiker took our sweet time, stopping frequently for pictures and just talking story.  As we casually made our way down the stairs, the full moon was in plain sight in the now incredibly clear night sky.  As we got further down the stairs I began to feel a little bad that the rest of the group was waiting on us at the bottom.  As we neared the bottom of the stairs the sky opened up and heavy rains started to drop down on us, seemingly trying tell us to hurry up because the others were at the bottom and were ready to go.  We picked up our pace a little and shortly afterwards we were understandably greeted with glares from the rest of our group as we reached the bottom of the stairs.  Once at the bottom everyone forgave us for our slow pace as we took a quick group photo and then began our short trip back to civilization.  Once on the street we successfully attempted to cram eight people into the car which would shuttle us back to moanalua valley where the rest of our cars were still parked.  Me and my wife would finally arrive home at around 2:30 am, ready for bed and not very eager for the next morning to arrive.  For now the night hiking craze is still going strong and I am excited to see what the following weeks will bring for me and the fellow night marchers.