Ryan's Chang: Change of plans, volunteering, and meeting new people

I was pretty bummed because I was planning a camping trip in the mountains for a few weeks. Unfortunately weather had a different plan. Luckily we have NOAA to predict weather patterns and can make a judgment call on weather to stay indoors or have our camping trips go on. NOAA predicted 80% chance of thunderstorms on Thursday through the weekend. It dropped down to 60% on Friday but it was too high of a chance to be miserable and wet on the mountains in a tent. We decided to call it off and spend the weekend volunteering and chasing waterfalls.

On Saturday Katie and I made plans on to spend the day volunteering with Ko'olau Mountains Watershed Partnership. They are an organization that helps properly maintain the watersheds in the Ko'olau mountains. They do it by removing invasive species, out planting native plants, and educating people about why it is important to have a healthy watershed. We met them and other volunteers at the Manana trail head. They did a little safety briefing and what we were going to do today speech. We were planning to remove invasive paperbark trees and strawberry guava. We worked for two hours or so and took a break for lunch. After lunch we found a patch of big 'iliahi (sandalwood) being choked by some strawberry guava. I took the initiative and said, "let's free this 'iliahi". Malia our crew manager agreed it'd be a cool thing to do so we started clearing. After working for an hour or maybe longer the big 'iliahi got some breathing room. I felt good and I'm sure the tree felt better. For the rest of the trip we hiked back down to the cars and enjoyed some ice cold beverages. Thank you Malia and Seana for letting us tag along.

KMWP volunteer group.

Right after volunteering the rains started. We did a little errands and went home to relax for the next day. I was excited on what the rains were going to bring, tubing, waterfalls maybe? Sunday morning we were still figuring out what to do because it wasn't raining when we woke up. At first I told the group let's do a waterfall near PCC. We all met in the Temple Valley shopping center.

Along for the ride was Chris. We picked him up from his hostel in Waikiki, I didn't know him at all but, this is his story. Chris is from New York. This was his first time to Hawaii and he planned to visit Maui, Big Island, and Oahu. He was having a rough time back home and he needed a break from it all and just get away. What better place than Hawaii right? Unfortunately on the Big Island while surfing a break he came in and got confronted by drug dealers. The dealers asked him if he wanted to buy some dope, he didn't have his wallet so he tried to get them to go away. They got in his car and made him drive to his place where he was staying to get money for them. Luckily that's all they wanted and left him physically unharmed. The next day he went back to the place where he had rented his board, he was returning it early and the rental company knew something was up so they asked him. He told his story and just so happened that Katie's mom Carol, and her boyfriend Jim heard it too. Carol was kind enough to invite Chris to stay at their house the remainder of the time he was there on the Big Island. Chris took the opportunity and stayed because who would want to stay at a place where they were just robbed? I know I wouldn't. His last stop was Oahu and Katie heard from her mom that he was coming here. We took the opportunity to take him on a hike. Chris, I hope you come back to these islands and don't leave here thinking Hawaii is a crappy place!

Chris in Hawaii

On to the hike, we all piled in our car, Chris, Katie, Matt, Cat, and I drove up the windward coast. Passing by Ka'a'awa we saw that the hidden valley waterfall was flowing. The sun was out and it was a nice bright ribbon against the mountain wall. We had to go! We made our way upstream and hit the waterfall in less than an hour. There was another group of hikers there and I knew one of them. Keli'i was there, it was good running into him. We stayed at the falls for about an hour and made our way back to the car. Just in the nick of time because thunder started to roll and the rain picked up immediately after.

The next day I was hoping for more waterfalls but it didn't rain as hard as I thought it did. Cat and her friend Matt met up with us again to go look for waterfalls in Manoa valley. There are over a handful of waterfalls found in Manoa. This day we went to three waterfalls. These waterfalls rounded out our weekend. Now that it's the work week it's sunny and trades are blowing. Hopefully next weekend will be better weather for us!