The Haiku Stairs - "The Stairway to Heaven" - January 16th, 2011

Looking down on H-3

One word, AMAZING! We have been wanting to do this hike for awhile, actually since I've heard about it probably around last July, since we had just gotten to the island in May. This is an absolutely amazing hike, there are no words to explain the 3,922 stair hike to the top of the Ko'olau mountains, upon further studying of how these stairs and the naval radio tour were formed is absolutely amazing, two men and a handful of volunteers, who were called "high scalers of haiku", literally climbed up this mountain using stakes and ropes, falling multiple times to which should of led to their death, but after 20+ days, they had finally reached the top. The stairs which were originally built for maintaining radio communications with other countries, after communications were no longer needed from this radio tour, the stairs became unmaintained and terribly dangerous, and were closed to the public in 1987, when vandals dismantled a large section of the stairs, and in 2002 the stairs were completely repaired, costing the city an estimated $875,000. Although they were repaired, they still remain closed to public access, not that this stops hikers from doing this hike, especially today with the 30+ people who were on this trail, which is way more than is normally seen on a Sunday, they started but by the time we reached the first stop most had turned back.

View of Kaneohe at night

Me and Matthew at the top

To start, we woke up today at 3:30 A.M., Matt's brother is still in town and I wanted to take him on this hike, to show him the best of what Oahu has to offer, our other hiking pals of course included Zach and Jenna, they met us here at our place around 4:20 A.M., we then packed up the truck and headed on out to Haiku Valley, I drove, of course, haha, we found a parking spot which happens to be in a residential area, so if you do this hike, just try to be respectful, it wasn't hard to find the beginning of the trail since there were SO many other people there! We walked down a old road, which I'm going to guess had something to do with the Old Pali Highway, but I'm not sure, so it was about 5:10 A.M., (you have to beat the gate guard who gets there around 6 A.M. if you want to attempt this hike), so anyway we actually started our climb on the stairs, it was still pitch dark out, so I didn't really notice the incline we made on the first section of these stairs, it was rough, I'm not even going to candy coat that one, I did stop a few times, met some SUPER awesome people on the way, after I made it to the first platform, I was told it got better, which it did, there were still some steep inclines but NOTHING like the first section.

Second platform was reached, it was a old building that housed a crank that was used as a sort of ski lift to lift the military personnel up to the top, how these people built these stairs or lift is beyond me, just reading how they made it up to the top using what they did, makes my stomach drop into my bum! We sat around for a couple, took some pictures and continued up, I still was behind everyone, again not bothering me, as I made some friends on the way up and we joked, after the third platform it was only about 15 minutes to the top, and that included waiting for people to come down, which was annoying, as the stairs are only wide enough to house 1 person at a time, and pushing people faster than they are willing to go, is stressful, so I waited, finally made it to the top, where the view wasn't what I was hoping for, but still gorgeous, the clouds separated for a while we got some good pictures of the H-3, and the city of Kaneohe, along with the Ko'olau mountains, this was a big feat for me, my endurance compared to most isn't the best, so finishing and getting to the top was awesome, but that didn't compare to the scary situation of going BACK DOWN!

Ko'olau mountains and H-3

So going down went pretty fast, BUT if you try to go to fast, which I tried to do, to keep up with the guys, proved to not work, I slipped and THANK GOD, I caught myself on the railing, it hurt my arm, but better than hurting god knows what! It was starting to mist out on the way back to which made everything slippery, and the stairs that turned into a ladder didn't help with making things easier in the rain, Jenna kicked me in the head on accident,which caused me to roar in laughter, thinking this is not the best time to be laughing, I tried to compose myself!!! We were having problem catching our grip, Matt nearly took himself out on a stair, and over all it was just sucky, but we made it down, it only took us a total of 3 hours hiking time and about 1 hour of sight seeing and chilling out on top, the guards were cool, which made it awesome, they asked us if were the last ones, and we said no, there were at least 20 more people up there, which definitely seemed to shock them, as they also didn't expect to see that many people out that day either, they then said "hmm, maybe we should turn on the escalator!" HAHAHA

Totally exhausted, and legs weak, we drove back home, and got back around 10 A.M. overall an awesome day, and and awesome hike, I love Hawaii!!!

A few pointers!
-Always have extra water
-Bring a flash light
-Never trust any of the stairs or railings
-VERY slippery with even the smallest amount of moisture
-Do NOT draw attention to yourself!



Elevation: 2,120 Feet
Distance: 4 Miles in and out
Difficulty: Experienced
Calorie Burn: 1800-2000 (I was rushed out of the truck and forgot part of my heart rate monitor! so I'm going off of Jenna's total)

Directions: Makena St and Kuneki Street through the gate where the two roads intersect!