Tripler Ridge to Haiku Stairs

A few months back I was sitting at home an was becoming exceedingly antsy to get out of the house and do something.  Being that my wife was at work and had the car for the day, I elected to walk the two or so miles from my house to Moanalua Valley Park, and head up Tripler Ridge.  Sometime around 11pm or so, I gathered my stuff and made my way to the park, arriving right at 12pm.  Once I had entered the park I made my way to the back where there was a gate positioned.  I crawled through the gate and quickly set off down the gravel road.  The Tripler junction appeared in an absolute hurry as I was setting a pretty good pace.  There was a very obvious junction on the right hand side with banyan roots covering the floor.  I took this junction seeing that it was going up, and within a few minutes I arrived at a little valley overlook in front of me with a bench and powerlines behind me.  From here the trail really started to gain some elevation and a few minor climbs came in to play.  The trail was not in nearly as good of shape as I had expected it to be.  It wasn't neccessarily hard to follow but there were a few spots where I could see someone getting led astray if they weren't familiar with the trail.

After some tiring uphill climbing, I finally reached the junction with Tripler Ridge trail that starts from the back of the Tripler military hospital.  I took the left junction and briefly and slightlly descended through some strawberry guava trees.  Once I had emerged from the trees, I was greeted by views of Moanalua valley and Pearl Harbor in back of me.  Directly in front of me I could clearly see the summits of Tripler and Puu Keahi a Kahoe.  Even the stairway summit was clear, but I knew that this probably wouldn't last.  I was just happy to have finally reached the actual ridge portion of the hike.  As I set off on the ridge section, I was again a little surprised.  I kept expecting more exposure but it just never came.  I guess the ridge had it's points where it was a little exposed but for the most part I found it incredibly safe and very easy to set a fast pace.  The ridge had a surprisingly nice grade to it as well and I didn't find it to be nearly as steep as the valley portion was, until just before the summit.  With that said, as I was getting ever so close to the summit, I finally encountered a few rope sections and some decently steep climbs.  One steep climb and then another and then at last I had reached a huge open grassy knoll area and I knew I was finally at the Tripler Ridge summit.  By this point the clouds had crept in and were obscuring most of my views and being that it was closing in on 2pm and I had been on the trail for about two hours now, I decided to waste little time and almost immediately up reaching the summit I made the left hand turn and started across the Koolau Summit towards the middle ridge junction and the Haiku Stairs.

As I made my way across this short section of the Koolau Summit Trail, I kept hopeing for the skies to clear and give me just a few views.  Within just a couple of minutes that is exactly what happened and I was incredibly thankful to the weather gods for opening up a splendid view of the windward side for me.  I quickly made my way across the KST.  I hate to complain about hikes but outside of the KST portion, this hike just is not one that I care for at all.  As I walked the KST, all was forgiven and right in life though.  There was some exposure now, at least in comparison to the Tripler Ridge portion, but still nothing really scary or dangerous or at all hard to manage.  I passed by a few electric towers and then made one steep climb and reached the little peak in between middle ridge and Tripler.  From here I scurried to the Middle Ridge junction and then just a few minutes later I reached the Omega Station and summit of the Stairway to Heaven.  It was now 2:30 and knowing that I was nearing the end of my hike, I took a short break to take some pictures and get some water.  The weather was surprisingly nice at the stairway summit.  After a little breather I grabbed my camera and my pack and set off down the Haiku Stairs, taking pictures every so often on my way down.  As I neared the bottom of the stairs I saw a welcomed sight.  My good buddy was waiting for me at the very bottom of the stairs.  I was happy to see him.  A little over 3 hours round trip and I had completed Tripler Ridge to the bottom of the Stairway to Heaven and was reminded why I had never set foot on this trail before.  I'm sure many people would enjoy it but to me there is just so many better trails here to ever warrant me hiking this ridge again.  I'm sure I will one day but it won't be anytime soon.  It is just way to long for what it offers, which is very little, all though the KST crossing is always enjoyable.  Once at the bottom of the stairs I was happy to be able to catch a ride back to Moanalua Valley, near my house.  I was a little bummed that I was unable to stop and get a slurpee, but, oh well.  Waiting until 9pm for my wife to pick me up would have sucked so I was incredibly thankful for the lift back to my side of the island.  Even though I am not a big fan of this trail, I still had a fun time and a great day on the trails by myself.  In Hawaii, even crappy trails are still awesome.

Directions:  Will be up in the next week, but are easy to find if you just google tripler ridge.

Moiliili Karst

Last month as my wife and I were preparing to head off on a trip to California, we decided to get one last small adventure in before leaving.  Due to the fact that we were both working long hours and that our time was limited, we decided to wake up around 4am and head over to Manoa to explore an underground cave, better known as, Moiliili Karst.  Around 4am that morning we were met at our house by two of our good friends who would be joining us.  We grabbed our bags and headlamps and half asleep, set off on our drive to Manoa.  Our destination would be a street named Varsity Place, just off of the main highway.  We parked on the side of the road where a long fence was situated.  The key to finding the cave is to walk along the fenceline until a second fence appears, directly behind the first one.  Directly in between the two fences is where the entrance to the cave can be found.  Upon going around the first fence we saw a huge sewer grate, backed by a second fence.  My two friends lifted up the sewer grate and one by one we all climbed down into the sewer.  There was some trash that was present and while it seemed a little dirty, it didn't bother any of us enough to keep us from pushing forward.  We were forced to low and at points crawl, but in just a few short minutes we had reached the cave system. 

The water was very clear and the cave, in and of itself, was a very pleasing sight.  As we began to make our way further into the cave, the water was about chest high.  The water that was incredibly clear was now becoming murky due to those in front of me stirring up the silt as they trudged along.  At points I felt like we were walking in quick sand, but only a few parts were really bad.  Every time one of us grabbed the celiing of the cave, a ton of rocks would fall.  At one point, shortly after we had entered the cave system, I propped myself  up onto a rock.  As everyone was talking, the rock I was standing on, suddenly gave way and I went tumbling.  My first instinct was to save my DSLR camera (which I did).  A few moments later I realized that I had sliced my right leg open in numerous of spots and was bleeding extremely well.  My left leg was cut pretty good as well but being that I was already in the water now, I figured there was no reason to turn around.  In the coing days I made sure keep cleaning the cuts and despite a little swelling, within a few days my leg was back to normal.  I definetly would not recommend going in the cave water with an open cut, but if it happens, my guess is that you'll be fine.

As we made our way further and further into the cave, the water gegan to get a little deeper.  At a few points it became deep enough that we had to swim.  At time time, one of my friends informed us that he couldn't swim very well.  I assumed that he was jokin, but he wasn't.  As we went, he followed and managed to stay right with us.  Shortly after this comical strecth, we reached a spot in the cave where we could some trash build up a good ways in front of us.  We had seen just one floating plastic bottle before this point.  None the less, we figured that this was a good spot in which to turn around.  I thought the cave was spectacular, but had no griped about turning around.  We all had a lot of fun on our way back to the entrance but as we got closer to exiting my friend noticed a set of eyes in the distance, stareing at us.  My wife hid behind a pilar as my friend tried to duck behind her.  After a few minutes of being slightly scared, and extremely paranoid, my other buddy caught up to us and informed us that the eyes were merely the tunnel entrance in the distance, with light shinning through now that it was daylight out.  It's funny how ones mind can play tricks on itself in dark places such as these.  We made our final crawl through the cave and sewer system and appeared back on the street around 7am.  By this time there were a few people walking around.  The looks we got as we exited were pretty comical.  I really enjoyed seeing the cave system and the time spent with my friends on this day.  While the adventure was fairly short, it was filled with laughs and good times with good friends.  I am not gonna make a habit of visiting this cave, but I will definetly go back sooner rather than later.

Diamond Head Rim

For last months full moon, three of us decided to head over to the notorious tourist hike that is Diamond Head.  On this night we would park just down the street from Kapiolani Community College and make our way to the parking lot adjascent from the school.  After heading into the parking lot we found a trail heading up the side of the crater rim.  There is more than just one trail up in this vicinity but we just followed the most obvious trail that we saw.  As we were making our way up to the rim, we did see lights in the parking lot that appeared to possibly be guards on segways.  Whether they were looking for us or not, I have no idea.  We wasted little time though and quickly made our way to the crest of the crater rim.  With the full moon shining brightly there was really no need to use our headlamps.  I had a little bit of a tough time seeing but we figured using our headlamps we be kind of silly and draw undue attention to us and the rim.  At the top of the rim we turned right and headed for the summit.

As we began making our way to the Diamond Head summit and viewing area, the rim began to narrow and there were a few tiny rock climbing sections.  I was really awed but how amazing the rim was.  It was by far the best crater rim hike on the island, in my opinion.  I couldn't help but think that one day I might risk hiking it during the day time.  I was a little surprised by how narrow the rim got at points but it was nothing unmanageable.  I think it just caught me off guard more than anything else.  The rock climbing sections were incredibly easy but very enjoyable at the same time and the views of downtown Honolulu were stunning.  I was shocked by how beautiful the city was from this vantage point at night.  Being on Diamond Head during the day doesn't even begin to compare to being there at night.

I found myself way behind the other two people with me.  I was taking it very slow on some of the narrower sections and I was trying to get pictures but unfortunately only a few that I took on the rim section turned out.  Before I knew it though, we had reached the pillbox just in front of the diamond head lookout.  We jumped down and made our way to the actual summit of Diamond Head.  We stayed on top of the lookout for some time, talking and taking pictures and just admiring the sensational night time views of Honolulu.  After quite awhile spent at the summit, we decided to finally get moving.

This is where things took a bit of a weird turn.  I have no problem taking the blame for what happened next.  It was getting cold and starting to rain a little bit and the sky looked as though it might really open up on us.  I suggested that we just go down the regular Diamond Head trail that all the tourists take.  It was almost 1 a.m. or so and I couldn't imagine that anyone would be at the bottom.  Our friend had already told us that the other side of the rim was not nearly as fun and he said he didn't mind going down the state trail.  My wife was the only one who I think was against it, but of course she didn't say that until we got home that night.  The trip down the state trail was quick and fun as we joked and messed around on the way to the bottom.

When we reached the parking lot area, it became incredibly apparent that there were plenty of workers down there.  We attempted to sneak around through the woods but came to a spot where we had no choice but to run through an open field.  We were surely spotted and as we darted back into the woods, we could hear phones and some voices.  As we peaked out we could see someone looking out of the kiosk in our general direction, but we figured that we were pretty well hidden.  We were now just feet from the tunnel entrance to the park and made a decision to make a run for it through the tunnel.  We took off running and as we came to the end of the tunnel we were greeted by a huge gate blocking the tunnel entrance.  We all quickly climbed the tall fence and headed down the road to the entrance of the park.  We ran into two more people and hid in some brush shortly before making our way towards the college.  As we were exiting, we ran into the final heart thumping moment of the night.  A car pulled in and then reversed and began looking for us.  We hid in a little ditch area by the school as the car went by a few times and then we casually and discretely made our way to our car that was parked a few blocks down.

We obviously drew way more attention to ourselves on this night than we needed to or meant to.  All of that craziness over a few young adults just wanting to hike.  I couldn't help but laugh at the situation but I also knew that I was pretty much solely to blame for this episode.  My intention was never to break the law or cause a scene but it just kind of turned out that way for us on this night.  For all of the commotion that took place on this night, this hike was probably my favorite night hike that we've done so far.  As far as the views, it stands alone as far as night hiking on Oahu is concerned.  I learned a huge lesson on this hike and will definetly be more cautious in the future when it comes to not being seen.  As we reached our car that night we all breathed a huge sigh of relief.  The only regret that I have looking back on this hike is that I settled for mcdonalds on the way home instead of stopping and getting my post hike slurpee.  Besides that, the hike was a lot of fun and something that I would definetly consider doing again one day in the future, albeit, distant future.