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.

Laie 18 (Laie Falls)

This past Friday my wife and I found our schedules finally coinciding with each others.  We were so happy to have a whole day to hike by ourselves.  We had planned on hiking the Moanalua Saddle but we ended up sleeping in and somehow found ourselves heading to the North shore to hike some time, beginning after noon.  Wailele Falls was initially on our mind but we abruptly changed our plans and ended up settling on hiking to Laie Falls and trying to hike to the 18 or so waterfalls beneath the popular "Laie Falls" destination.  I had been here before and knew that starting at 2pm was a horrible idea but for some reason we went ahead with our plan.  The last time I hiked this trail it took us an obscene amount of time (8-10 hours) but we knew we would be moving a little faster on this day and so we decided to give it a go, with our headlamps on standby in our bags, just in case we didn't make it out before dark, we parked in our usual spot and started off on our journey for this afternoon.

We parked just before the main gate on the gravel road to the left.  The main gate is locked every night, so parking beyond this point is obviously not a good idea if you want to drive your car home that night.  My wife and I grabbed about a hundred feet of rope and took off down the gravel road, attempting to set the fastest pace possible without exerting to much energy in the early going.  Just a few minutes down the road and we reached a sign and a gate marking the Laie Falls trail.  We took a left and were now officially on our way up the trail.  There's really no need for trailhead directions on this trail.  Just stick to the most obvious trail that almost continuously heads straight up the ridge line.  As we continued further and further, we started to feel the exertion that was only inevitable.  I kept telling my wife, "we're almost there, only a few more minutes", knowing it wasn't quite as close as I was making it seem.  However, within just a little over hour, we reached the wooden sign that says "Laie Falls" and points left.  I'm not sure how, but years ago, on my first time here, I missed this junction.  There was no sign back then, and I am appreciative there's one now, all though the junction is pretty obvious if you are looking for it.  We took the right hand turn and headed down the somewhat steep and muddy trail with the aid of some ropes (which aren't needed at all) and within just a few minutes reached the beautiful Laie Falls.

We could not have picked a better day.  The flow was just perfect.  Not to much water gushing but just enough to look good and guarantee that the lower falls were flowing as well.  The water was a greenish clear color, making it look very clear and clean, which always makes me feel better about jumping into the water.  I hiked up to the top of the falls for a few pictures and then made my way back down to the base of the falls to sit with my wife for awhile and revel in the moment.  Without to much of a delay, we packed our dry bag and headed down the side trail to the next waterfall.  I'm not gonna give to much details on this part because if you go, it will be pretty obvious what you need to do.  There is a lot of climbing and you more or less just follow the stream down and climb down the waterfalls or the side of them or contour to the bottom of the falls when possible (which is only about once if I remember correctly).  There are ropes in place in a few spots, but having at least a hundred feet of some good lightweight chord or rope, will greatly improve your experience on this trail.  Having read a lot of stuff on this trail, my wife quickly commented on how easy she thought it was and wondered why other people had ranked it as an advanced hike.  I completely agree with her, but in saying that, one does need to be careful here.  If you are even slightly experienced with the trails here on Oahu, you should have no problem though.

We continued down one waterfall after the next and laughed and enjoyed experience more and more the further we went.  We reached the spiral staircase waterfall, where I installed a rope and we climbed down.  We hung out at the bottom for a bit and then decided to turn around since it was gonna be getting dark soon.  I was a little bummed out but I knew that I wanted to keep going and so did my wife.  She really didn't want to hike out in the dark on this day and she could sense my eagerness to keep going, so she definetly made the right call by having us turn around and hike out when we did.  We climbed back up all the waterfalls we had just come down and then ran back down the Laie Falls trail, making it to our car just as the sun was setting.  Perfect timing.  As we drove home we stopped on the North Shore for a beautiful sunset and a great capping off of the day.  Just when I started thinking that the best part of the day was over, I realized we were yet to get our slurpees.  In spite of being wet and cold, and being the slurpee aficianados that we are, there was no way that we weren't making a pit stop at 7-eleven.  With a slurpee in hand and a great day of hiking behind us, we set off for home, reminiscing on a day of hiking that was never meant to happen, but yet, was so meant to be.