Olomana - September 12th, 2012

Hike to the first peak (will update more later) already did once, but lost it /-: so annoying!

So long

No hiking has been done due to my foot surgery! Myfeetjourney.blogspot.com Hopefully more hikes to come starting end of August, once I get the all clear, which will probably result in needing my other foot done in September, so I'll have a short window of opening to do much !!

Lulumahu Falls - April 23rd, 2012

Valley!

This was my last hike before my foot surgery, I was thankful for Marcus for taking me and a couple friends on this hike, along with a few other people! It was a great hike, the falls were gorgeous, we then went to see another waterfall, but it was on private property so therefore directions to that hike I will not give, but lulumahu is definitely worth the risk, it is a Board of Water Supply hike, which means the water we drink is tapped from these different hikes, and they don't like random people just wondering on to these trails, since people suck and leave garbage or other rubbish along the trail, possibly compromising the water!

Lulumahu falls!

Lulumahu falls is located at the end of Nuuanu road, the trail head is at the end of the road near the Pali Lookout, it's a shortish hike only about 2 1/2 miles maybe round trip, there really isn't much danger to this hike, except the few rocks you need to get over and the stream crossings, but nothing crazy, no dangers of falling of cliffs! I really enjoyed this hike, the views are pretty, you can also get to the the Nuuanu reservoir, a area where people jump off this boardwalk looking thing, I wouldn't do it, people have died, but it is pretty to see, the moutain ranges and what nots!

Nuuanu Reservoir

We also saw King Kamehameha summer palace, which was pretty cool, it's located just down the road from our hike, less than a quarter of a mile on the left hand side there is a small opening in the woods that leads to a trail, I want to say the ruins are off to the left, I can't exactly remember, but there was a lot of bamboo, it was definitely very pretty!





Location: Wahiawa to Lulumahu falls trailhead

Lulumahu falls to King Kamehameha's summer palace

Distance: 2 miles in and out

King Kamehameha's summer palace!

Elevation: About 500 feet

Difficulty: Easy with a few stream crossings, maybe not kid friendly

Calorie Burn:

Ka'au Crater - November 10th, 2011

Ka'au Crater

November 10th, 2011

I did this hike awhile back in November, slacked and never blogged it :-/ So I just figured I'd upload some pictures :)

1st Waterfall

Laie Falls - September 3rd, 2011

Stay to the left LOL 

This is an attempt to back blog from almost 6 months ago! So hang with me here, while I TRY to remember what happened on this hike, I feel this was going to come, me just giving up on my blog, which also sucks that I haven't been hiking much!

We all gathered at our house, Jenna, Zach, Peter (Matt's friend who moved to the island in July), and of course Matt and I. Laie is a pretty decent drive from Wahiawa, taking us about 45 minutes to get there. Lets just say it was pretty hot that day too!

The trail was pretty boring actually, the guys of course jetted ahead of Jenna and I, which left us kind of in the dark on some of the trail splits, which in turn left us lost, and up a hill over near what looked to be a camp of some sort, it was ODD, it had a toilet and all, so weird. Finally, we did end up on the right trail thank god! The trail itself is about 3 miles each way, with some good views of the ocean. Some of the trail is a mountain bike trail so be careful for bikes flying down the hill! The trail in parts literally seem to never end, finally come to a junction that leads to the falls or can go on to the ridge hike. The hike that leads down to the trail is STEEP, for whatever reason it was scary! there were ropes to hang on to, and big rocks to jump off of, the guys came to help us down, Oh, how nice of them!

The waterfall was nice, it had a decent flow to it, which was great, since we sweat our butt off to get to it, and if it was just a trickle, I would of been mad! The hike back was just as boring as the way there, the guys literally ran off ahead, leaving a turn that almost sealed Matt's fate as he nearly took himself out around a corner, I'm also pretty sure Zach biffed it on a rock too, Oh boys, they never learn!

Location: Wahiawa to Laie falls

Distance: 6 miles round trip

Difficulty: Dry and long! not to difficult though

Ka'iwa Ridge aka Lanikai Pillboxes - June 10, 2011

Start of the hike!

Girls hike day!

I love hiking with Jenna, we pretty much have the best time ever, can stop and take as many pictures as we want, and just chill without having the guys waiting ahead for us!! We were deciding between a few different hikes, I mentioned this one, then was thinking it was going to be boring, not realizing the trail had actually gone past the pillboxes. 

Going up to the first pillboxes

The short, steep hike to the “pillboxes” offering views of the Mokolua Islands and Koolua Mountains. It is unclear how many were actually constructed, but it is known that both the Lanikai and Diamond Head pillboxes were part of the island’s defensive system. They reportedly were observation posts built between World Wars I and II, which could alert shore artillery batteries to any approaching enemy ships. Eventually they were stripped out and left abandoned by the military.

Small climb down some rocks

So, this hike is very popular, parking was pretty hard, but thankfully driving a VW Beetle allows for easier parking! We begin our trek, seeing a lot of people, tourists, locals, and families, I believe it was the second couple we saw, this older asian couple, they were friendly said hi, I turn around and look and all of a sudden the lady just took a HUGE digger, legs up in the air and all, I'm not going to lie I laughed (I am not a mean person HAHA), the initial climb to the pillboxes was pretty steep, making me realize that I need to 1. start hiking more and 2. frikin work out more! This will happen when I finally quit my job and can focus on things that are important to me, instead of always being TIRED!

Jenna @ the point where it loops back to the ocean

Just past the pillboxes start the Ka'iwa Ridge hike, which basically just leads down and around to the area south of the pillboxes, it wasn't a hard hike, but there were some up and down hills, and few rocks to be climbed down, and a MASSIVE hill at the end! We weren't sure how far we would actually go on this trail, just because we were not sure of what to expect.

Anyway, we were leading ahead of a few people who also decided to take the loop around, it was SO windy, like extremely, and there were parts that were just dead heat, which seemed to be when we were going up hill at the hardest parts! Overall, it wasn't hard, I'd say the hardest spot was the going down, which I'll explain in a few. The trail was pretty over grown, actually really over grown, watching your step was important a few steps were not on flat ground and falling would of put a rock in a place you did not want a rock to go, and the bees, I HATE BEES! we made it up and down, and around to the finally area, where in the beginning of the trail we saw a trail leading down from where the pillboxes were, and this is the trail we were finally at, lets just say it was STEEP!!

We began going down, and immediately I gave it and just slid on the the rocks trying to to get one in a place I did not want one placed! There were lots of cactus plants, which were picky, we got them in our legs, which wasn't exactly a pleasure. So we kept on slowly making our way down, when we saw what we thought was a bum, HAHA, but it was a lady who had a husky, the husky obviously NOT the best dog for this climate, was probably about 1 or 2 years old, and was over heating on the mountain, she asked us before I saw the dog if we had any water, I said no just my camelback, until she mentioned the dog and I couldn't get the water out fast enough for the poor dog! This might say something about which I care for more, and it will always be the animal, these people had no idea what they were doing, dog sitting and bringing up a dog a VERY rocky, steep, and dry hike, I could not believe it. We fed the dog water, and continued, just wanting to GET OUT, finally made it down, it was about 2 hours when we popped out of the trail in the residential area, and had about a 1/2 mile walk back to the car. Awesome hike as always! Hoping for a few more girl hikes soon! Or at least some more hikes in general!!

Elevation: 600 feet

Distance: 2 miles

Difficulty: Easy

Calorie burn: 1800

Directions: Trail Head

Kuliouou Ridge Trail - April 22, 2011

Koko Head from the trail

I was super excited to hear Jenna had the day off of work for her bosses birthday/good friday, so we decided why not go for a hike, the hike we both wanted to do for awhile, but our husbands have been pretty busy and not able or exactly wanting to do it when we did, not to mention they are way faster than us. Jenna got to my house around 10:45 A.M., since I had to work until 9:30, on a particular busy day, wait everyday is busy, what am I talking about. Well, we left had to go back because I had forgot my heart rate monitor or course, grabbed that, then we were on our way. We arrived at the trail i think around 11:30, the hike began in Hawaii Kai, a gorgeous area just outside of Honolulu, the area was residential and rather hard to park, as always Jenna's driving scared me, but we parked and packed up for the hike, P.S. my camelback WAS HELLA HEAVY, I guess Matt put more water in it then i knew...

Me on the top :)

On to the hike, we start along, seems OK, we get to a turning point, Kuliouou Ridge Trail, or Kuliouou Valley hike, there were some people chilling at the sign who mentioned that we wanted to go on the ridge hike, that, that was were the views were, and then we thought about it, yeah that was the one we wanted.

Starting up the ridge trail, they people said, Oh, the lady who told just went up said it's about 45 minutes up, we were excited, then started thinking, SERIOUSLY, no way! It took us 1 hour and 15 minutes to get up, it was pretty much straight up, in about 1.5 miles it's an elevation climb of 1,700 feet, including, some rocks, some of those awful cook pine needles, which Jenna took a digger on, I was kinda scared she was gonna take a digger of the side of the mountain, if she did thankfully she wouldn't of literally fallen to her death, but none the less it was scary, and those needles are no joke, they are SO slippery.

Love the trees :)

Less than a half a mile in you can get some awesome views of Hawaii kai, including the ocean, and the Koolau mountains, continuing up the mountains, about almost 1 mile you reach a little picnic table, which I gladly sat at, to empty some of my EXTREMELY, full camelback that was already hurting my shoulders. So we sat, emptied, and continued, up and around more pine needles, through some awesome trees, and also to a little sitting area, which was nice to sit at again, since I seem to sweat WAY more than normal. The trees we passed through were awesome, like little tree people or something, the trees in Hawaii are crazy, really weird roots that's for sure. Further up the trail to the right you start to see Haumana Bay and Koko head, we then started to see stairs, thinking there were only a couple stairs, no that was a lie, more than I'd like to have climbed after already being exhausted.

Jenna and I

SO, we finally made it to the top, we passed a few people along the way which felt pretty good, but the top was gorgeous, nice views, rather windy and we were freezing after sweating a good way of the hike. We sat up there for a bit took some pictures and headed down, where it was the same as up, although going down kind of sucked, most of the way actually we just wanted to be done, where we slipped up and tripped more than we'd like to of done, BUT we had gone to the cupcake place after, it was delish! Fun hike for sure, love doing girl hikes without having to deal with the guys waiting for us!!!

Elevation: 1,929 feet
Distance: 2.5 miles round trip
Difficulty: Intermediate
Calorie burn: 1600 Calories

Directions Kuliouou Ridge