Last day on Maui

The night before the last day on Maui we came back to our home stay and ate some hotdogs.  We were beat from that days activities that most of us were really tired. 

In the morning I woke up so sore.  I woke up before the sun so I decided to head down to a secret brackish water pool to take some sun rise shots.  As I was getting ready the rest of the group over heard me talking to Katie that I was going to take some pictures so they got ready quickly.  The plan was to beat the sun and try to take some pictures with the sky bright and orange.  Here's how it turned out...

Secret swim hole at sunrise

A little further out waves were crashing on some rocks.

 Unreal view of the sunrise

They should have a HRS for hiking and not only for ocean places.

After watching the sunrise from the pond we checked out early from our home stay and slowly made our way back to Kahului via Hana Highway.  Our next stop was Hamoa beach to get some waves in.  Hamoa beach is a nice black sand beach in Hana town.  I jumped into the shore break with my Gopro and snapped some pictures.

 

There aren't any showers here but the waves are nice.

I was sitting on a sand bar and waves just kept coming!


Look at the clarity of the water.



Behind the barrel shot

Of course waves closed down on me. 

After spending an hour in some good waves we left the beach en route to find Kaihalulu beach.  We couldn't find this illusive beach but we did find another red sand beach.  The beach was small but the peninsula where it was located was also where Queen Ka'ahumanu was born. 

There was a super small strip of red sand next to Hana Bay.


Katie and I stumbled upon Queen Ka'ahumanu's plaque.

After driving around trying to look for the red sand beach we couldn't find we decided to try the Hana banana bread.  We stopped on the side of the road and picked up banana bread.  It's a must try in Hana.  After the banana bread stand the Katie wanted to check out the largest Heiau in the Hawaiian Islands.  We stopped at Pi'ilanihale. 

 This is the banana bread stand we stopped at.  

 This shop had six different variations of banana bread

 As seen from the road. 

 The admission is $5.00 Kama'aina rate.

We cannot set foot on the structures so we looked at it from afar.  Haleakala in the distance.

Some Kalo.

Some sweet potato. 

They had a canoe hale.

Of course a canoe was in it. 

 On the slopes of Haleakala.

After spending an hour at the Heiau we had two more stops in Hana.  Two falls on the side of Hana Highway. 

One of the falls you have to hike 10 minutes to get to. 

Group picture at Three Bears waterfalls.  Waikani Falls

Kissy picture

A spur of the moment decision came when I wanted to go to Haleakala.  We had a few hours to kill but we still had to grab dinner and check in at the airport.  We got to the top in less than an hour with my awesome driving skills! 

We talked about doing Holua Cabin one day soon.  

Rounding out our trip on top Haleakala

I've always had a special place for Maui in my heart.  It is my favorite island out of all the islands I've visited.  I hope to come back soon and explore more of these waterfalls!

Trails and waves

I've always loved Maui.  It is probably my most favorite island just because it's so damn beautiful.  My girlfriend knew she had to fly to Maui for a meeting on the weekend of Labor Day.  I decided to spend the weekend there and take her and a few friends to go explore the island.  I had it all planned out.  Katie has never really gone in depth with exploring East Maui so I decided that we should go there.  Careful planning had to be done because we didn't want to waste anytime not knowing what to do.  We had a plan.  Our first day we'd just relax, do an easy hike go the beach and get our food for over the weekend. 

Our first stop after our early morning flight was to grab breakfast at The Tasty Crust.  It's a diner located in Wailuku and that place has some really good banana pancakes.  I had their breakfast special and shared a short stack banana pancake with Katie.  After breakfast I suggested going on a hike with "Dramatic Scenery" as the magazine described it.  The hike was a state trail up Waihe'e Ridge. 

Along with us for the first day was Jody.  We headed out and started a steady incline on the trail.  Immediately looking back the way we came we were pretty high up and had superb views of the ocean and part of Kahului.  We made our way up and on our left side we had the Waihe'e gorge and the right we could see Makamakaole.  Places I NEED to see on our next visit.  It took us a little over and hour to reach the summit.  Unfortunately we were socked in and was unable to see the West Maui Mountains.  There is a little picnic bench to rest on when you get to the top. 

After hiking we got to go relax on a beach.  While the women sunbathed and relaxed I went into the water to shoot some waves.  We headed down south for that.  3 years ago I visited Maui with some friends and remembered some mean shore break at Mckenna beach park, otherwise known as Big Beach.  When we got there I saw some good size sets rolling in.  I was all amping to get in the water, I quickly put sunscreen on with fins and my gopro hopped in the water and sat at an empty part of the beach with a sandbar.  The waves came and went and I hoped to get a few good ones.  Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to see what I got until I got to the car because the Gopro doesn't have an LCD screen.  After a good hour in the waves we decided to finally run our errands. 

Part of the planning was to buy food for our group flying in so that we didn't always have to eat out.  For the food we decided to cook home meals to cut down on cost for everyone.  We went to Costco in town to get the food.

Our first night would be spent camping instead of staying in a hotel room to cut some cost, lemme tell you that it was not worth it.  I barely slept.  It is a good camp but not if you don't like being hot and seeing gigantic bugs.  When we arrived it was already dark and we had to set up camp take a shower and go to sleep.  Boy was it a chore.  For some reason the wind wasn't blowing at all, which made for some hot muggy conditions in the tent.  For some reason I thought we were camping on the sand so I didn't bring a sleeping pad either and it was pretty darn uncomfortable.  By 4:45 am I had enough and told Katie let's pack up and head out to pick up our friends. 

Go around this fence to start the trail.

Hiking quickly through a lush forest to get to views.

Waihe'e Valley below us with Kahului in the back.  Oh and Haleakala! 

If it weren't cloudy you would be able to see the summits of the West Maui mountains.  

It's a good place to take a break and relax to soak in this view. 

Jody getting distracted while hiking. 



The trail keeps going for 2.5 miles to a picnic bench. 



Group pic!


First wave of the day. 


Some people say that it looks like Sandy Beach park but its not. 

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!