One of the most adventurous moments of
the hike came early: finding the trail head. My friend Kalani was
navigating via “description from some guy's blog” and it took a
while to find the trail. We had to go down one trail, count off so
many telephone poles then take a left, look for some ribbons tied to
trees, find some trail that led to a bench (why there is a bench in
the middle of the jungle brush I have no idea), then find some small
trail through the brush that linked up with the actual hiking trail.
Got it? We ended up going back into Kahana Valley to double check the
map there and somebody at the information center helped us out with
directions. He told us pretty much the same thing. Big help...
The guy that helped us out had me a
little concerned about the hike because he kept warning us to be
careful. He told us the rains made the ground really slick and people
have been getting hurt on the trial. He even told us how to give
directions to the authorities in case we needed to be airlifted out.
They guy was legitimately concerned for us. It had me a little
worried. But on we went!
Eventually we found the hidden bench
and the trail. Going up wasn't all too bad. We climbed some rocks,
trucked it through some mud, and came across a few rope sections when
things got sketchy. Climbing up is usually the easy part. At one
point Kalani pointed out that we were actually on a ridge. He was
right, there was just so many trees and shrubs that we couldn't tell.
Mildly freaky but no big deal.
We reached the top of the trail and
took a break to eat some food and drink some water. I had me some
coconut water, good stuff! We discovered that the trail kept going a
bit further to the summit of the mountain so we followed it up and up
some more. We didn't make it to the summit though. The wind was
gusting, the ridge was getting narrower with every step, and there
were no more trees to hide the fall. Falling to the left would lead
to a painful death, falling to the right would lead to certain death.
Better safe than sorry. We took in the view for a bit, a gorgeous
panoramic of Kahana Valley and the bay, and then turned back.
Going down is always trickier than
getting up. At one point I was climbing down some rocks and I had to
hug the rock face. I was freaking out because I couldn't spot where
my feet were stepping. Just had to feel my way down and go slowly.
This was still at a point where certain death waited if I fell to
either side. It didn't help that my “hiking” shoes are actually a
pair of 3 year old running shoes that have been worn down smooth.
Absolutely no traction on those things. Even when we out of the
sketchy areas I was still slipping all over the place. Luckily I was
able to regain my balance each time and kept from falling. Note to
self, get some real hiking shoes.
When we were nearly at the bottom of
the trail I noticed that my legs stung. I checked them out and wasn't
all that surprised to find them bleeding a little and all cut up. Had
to be from all the lauhala leaves we walked through. The lauhala leaf
has spines all along its edge, it's the saw of the plant world.
Another note to self, get some hiking pants.
Instead of following the trail out the way we came, we took a shortcut. Well, more like we made a shortcut. The highway was less than 100 feet away so we bypassed the mosquito infested pathway back to Kahana Valley and just cut through the jungle and we were out. Good hike!
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