Summer 2013

It's been an amazing summer to say the least.  This summer has been one of the best for waves.  From beginning to end it seemed like there was non stop waves for the south shore.  I practiced this one right hand wave for the entire summer.  After work in the morning I would check the surf report and if there was waves I would go down to Ala moana and surf there everyday if I wasn't too busy or too tired from work.  Every so often I would take a trip to Sandy beach and shoot some shore break.  Enjoy a few pics and clips in the video below.

The hiking this summer has been spectacular, weather wise and just general hiking with people I usually don't hike with. I only took one trip at the beginning of summer to the island of Kauai to backpack the Na Pali coast.  In previous blog post found Kalalau Part 1, Kalalau Part 2, Kalalau Part 3 you can see the weather the waves and the great fun we had during this trip.  

Hiking on Oahu has been good too! I've been meaning to complete the KST in sections and have been intrigued with doing the Northern part of the KST.  One of the more enjoyable main hike this summer was up to the Waimalu.  The blog post on Waimalu can be found here.

The group that I hike with this summer was super interested in finding some of he upper falls in some of the valleys which are super hard to reach.  Some of the waterfalls we saw were some that not many people get to see so I'm thankful for them showing me such gems on Oahu.  

This summer has been great and still looking forward to hiking throughout the fall.  There's many more hikes I need to blog about so stay tuned for some mean waterfalls and some thin ridges I've been hiking these past few weeks!  Lastly thanks for all the people that follow this blog and watch all my videos on a regular basis... Couldn't do it without all of your support!

 This woman was by my side the whole time this summer! Thanks for sharing the good times with me.

Waves crashing on a secluded beach.

Seems like something out of another planet.

The famous rainbow kiss!

The only way to start out the summer... Trip to Kalalau beach.

Fluted mountains at sunset. 

Looking down into Kalalau Valley.  

Waimea Canyon.

Katie checking out another view from the side of the road.  

Short afternoon hike... will never forget this day! 

An empty summer day at Sandy Beach.

I didn't get good video footage of our cave diving but I got this shot of Mr. Turtle.

Sunset time.

Barrels at this place was fun!

Good finds and exercising the camera

This weekend was filled with work and lots of play.  Friday night I had to work a pool party with my kids at the Y.  But Saturday I had no plans to do anything until the night before.  Katie and I decided to try and find some waterfalls out in Kahalu'u.  When we got there we just saw a few trickles so we decided on a back up plan.

Not too far away we decided to hike in Waihe'e Valley and find two waterfalls.  It was her first time there so she was quite excited.  The weekend before I did the "Harlem Shake" youtube video there and it brought the most views to my Youtube channel ever in a weeks time.  We went to both falls and did a little exploring.  We climbed up three or four tiers at the second waterfall.  What was interesting was that after the third tier of the waterfall there wasn't as much water flowing above as below.  Meaning that there had to be a source of water coming from somewhere below or near where we were.  We looked around and found a few fresh water springs!  The water was coming straight from the rock filtered through the Earth.  Katie decided to look a little more and come back down... I asked "Any water up there?"  She replied, "Just a trickle."  So unlike most waterfalls where water comes straight from the top of the Ko'olau's and down and creates waterfalls this waterfall is spring fed!
That was the end of our adventure on Saturday, she had to be somewhere so I decided to check out the beach.  That day my kids and some of the advisors that work with me hit up the beach.  I met up with them at Waimanalo Bay otherwise known as Sherwoods.  I bodyboarded and enjoyed the waves for a few hours and called it a day.

Sunday I planned to hike with Josh, Baron, and a new person Janice.  We went exploring for some waterfalls.  What's amazing is that it's somewhere you would not expect... I'm not gonna delve into too much detail because it's probably one of the less frequented trails.  We were greeted by the bluest fresh water I had ever seen in pools on Oahu!  The hike took a little longer because we used the natural beauty of the area to TRY and capture it on our cameras.  If you know anything about shooting photos it's extremely difficult to shoot under a canopy because of the harsh contrast of sunlight and shade.  I did my best to capture our adventure on my Gopro and Canon camera.  If you ever do find this place please keep it the way it was found, it's really a true gem hidden on Oahu. 

Please enjoy the pics!

 It really difficult shooting under a canopy, the harsh contrast of the sun light coming in makes it difficult.  In the foreground there is a mini cascade and if you look close enough there is another small cascade in the back. 

 Josh and Janice shooting a small cascade and a really blue pool.  

 One of my favorite pics is this "Floating rock" picture.  

 Water flowing over the stream bed.

 The whole time it was pretty surreal because of this streams location.  

 There were a few flumes along the hike with water flowing through them.

 This picture was taken on top of the "Floating Rock" picture.  Check out the ants on the leaf!

 The tallest waterfall along our hike spilling into a blue pool.

 It was hard shooting what I wanted to capture because of the light along the way BUT the sun also gave us rainbows if you were in the right spot!  

 Here is Baron chillin in one of the final blue pools.  

Last shot is the low perspective shot of this tree. 

All of my shots were taken with my Canon T2i and kit lens.  A little editing of the photos were done but nothing drastic was changed with the photo.  

Shot on the Gopro Hero 3.  Sherwoods was a fun 2 ft windy sandbar. 

This video is from the Saturday hike above the waterfalls... looking where our water comes from!

Blue Water Gulch from Ryan Chang on Vimeo.

Climbing into the 2013

I've been on a 5-6 month hiatus from the climbing gym I used to frequent.  The reason was that the surf was good and I was spending LOTS of time in the water either shooting or bodyboarding some pretty sizeable waves.  But finally I got back into Volcanic Rock Gym and got to climb again.  I thought it'd be an easy task to just start off where I left off; I was wrong.  When I got back I flashed a few V3's and some V2's but as soon as I was done with those few problems I really started to struggle.  Even with V1's!!!  So I definitely have some catching up to do!  They also added a whole new room that I had never even seen before so I'm really excited to get back into the game.  Anyone else want to join?

5-6 months of this has been keeping me away from the gym.

Struggling with a problem.

Some encouragement and spotting from Cory Yap

Defeat in the new cave.

Pictures in VRG were taken by Aprille Manzano, Thanks!