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!

Multiple choices... Hope I picked the right one.

On Sunday night I still wasn't sure what hike I wanted to do on the holiday Martin Luther King day.  There were so many options of ridge trails because the sky was so clear!  So I told my friend let's keep our options open and see what Monday brings us!

When I woke up the skies seemed gray.  I was quite disappointed but as I started to drive to meet up with them the summits were clear of clouds.  It was a perfect day because the sun wouldn't be beating down on us as we would climb the ridge to the tallest peak on the Ko'olaus.

When I arrived at our meet spot I suggested we do the hike to the tallest peak and told them how long it'll take, they were hesitant at first but they agreed.  We piled into one car and made our way to the trail head.  In order to do this hike you have to connect multiple trails to get to the trail head of the main trail we needed to take.  We raced through the forest and got there in less than an hour!  When we got there I was ecstatic because the weather at the top seemed to be clear!  Since we hiked so fast through the forest we slowed down the pace to a more moderate pace and took breaks as we climbed our way to the top.  We took in all the town side views as we made our way up too!

After three hours of hiking we took a long break at the summit.  When we reached it the clouds started to sock us in but soon cleared because the trades were blowing at a moderate pace.  We saw all the windward ridges and the main trail along the summit.  We were supposed to hike out the same way but I threw in that we should at least cross over to another ridge and make our way down a different way.

We hit another trail to cross over to Manoa Valley.  It took us a little over an hour to cross over but we still had amazing views of the windward side.  We made our way down to Manoa Valley and took a quick swim in one of the stream holes and made our way out.  Our friend Kyle had managed to get us a ride from her friend back to our car.

Enjoy the pics

-Ryan

 Group Go Pro Photo at the summit!

Looking up at clear summits but soon got overcast!

 Town side shot!

 Honolulu International Airport

 Ugly guy ruining the pic! 

Summit Trek to Manoa from Ryan Chang on Vimeo.

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!