Above Manoa Valley

The day before Katie and I took a short hike through the Old Pali road to a waterfall.  The next day we hiked again with Cory.  Dave suggested we do a short waterfall hike during the week, he was itching to get back on Hawaii trails for he had done the entire John Miur trail this past summer.  Aaron and Lynne also tagged along from waterfall to ridge trail. 

We started off around 9.  I had been having the hiking bug for weeks because of summer I didn't hike too much.  Plus surf was flat so there was nothing better to do than to go hike.  We blasted the valley trail to the waterfall where we chilled for a few minutes.  Then made our way ascending the waterfalls and eventually hopping onto a spur ridge to the summit. 

Slowly we made our way up the spur ridge chilling at every big Koa tree on the way to the summit.  From what I can remember it was a hot trade wind kind of day.  I was glad the trades were blowing because it wasn't overcast.  The sun was blazing down on us and we are trampling through the trail that hadn't been cut or cleared in a while.  When we reached the summit we had a quick bite and made our way left on the Ko'olau Ridge Trail. 

I was excited because right after the summit we had to make our way across some narrow rock sections.  I took out my Gopro and started shooting away.  It's not as bad as the Gopro portrays this part of the trail but it is still dangerous, one slip up could send you plummeting down the windward side of the mountain. 

After about 30 minutes on the ridge trail we found our ridge heading down.  We pretty much ran down this trail, or so it seemed like because we were talking about Dave's adventures on the John Miur trail.  One day I wouldn't mind doing that trail!  If only I had a month vacation!

We hit our cars around 2 ish.  The rest of the gang hit up a food spot while Katie and I had other plans that night.  We had to get ready for a Mysteries of Honolulu tour!  More on that in a late blog! 

Likeke Falls

Chillin under some Kalo

Adventurers!

Some Gopro action

Ridge walking.

Failed but connected a few days later...

On Sunday January 20th I decided to take advantage of the beautiful Hawaii weather and go hike with two of my buddies.  We decided to hike one of the ridges on East Oahu and find a trail that has been in disuse for quite some time.

We pushed off around nine and luckily one of the big well known groups had just cleared the trail and was hiking on the trail that day as well.  So there was plenty of company and plenty of conversation at the summit.  After a forty five minutes of conversing and eating lunch we decided to head back down and find that ridge and a way down to the valley floor.

The walk back was windy as the walk up to the summit but even more windy once we got onto the ridge heading down into the valley.  So windy that as I was filming I almost rolled off the edge of the ridge! 

We went on a two or more hour search for the right and safe route down.  Unfortunately we couldn't find a safe way down so we bush whacked it back to the ridge and headed down the way we came that day. 

But today on Monday January 23rd we decided to try and find out what we did wrong on the way down.  The idea was to connect the valley trail to where we last ribboned off from the top, and today, we did just that!  So hopefully in the near future we can do a loop where we start on the ridge and drop down to the valley floor with some dry waterfalls =)


Please enjoy the pics!

Framing the backside of Diamond Head with an Ohia Lehua tree!  

The awesome ocean view!  

Our view from the lunch spot!  Shot with Iphone Panorama... I must say pretty good!