Wa'ahila Ridge: Where fear, stupidity, and bravery meet

It was to be our last hike of the summer, so we had to pick something good. Something different. Something challenging that proved to be better than any of our other hikes. After all, it was to be our last. Several trails made it onto the short list, but who can resist the temptation of trying to climb Mt. Olympus? Of course there is no official trail that trudges on up to the peak, but it is certainly not an untraveled route.

The official trail is the Wa'ahila ridge trail. We started it from the park's parking lot at the top of St. Louis Heights. The trail started up slow on a wide path lined with well-combed strawberry guava bushes. The continuous upward climb triggered the burning question, would it only continue up?

Soon the answer came to us as the trail bounded down a rocky face. We skipped down the boulder face with only a few references to mountain goats. The rest of the trail rollercoastered up and down narrow at times, with great views of the surrouding valleys. For days to come I would dream about running that trail, tripping and rolling at full velocity down to my death at the bottom of the valley. Luckily, our adventure had no such traumatic end.

Strawberry guava freak that I am, I was happy to find the trail well-lined with this tangy fruit and not completely over-picked. So we snacked a bit along the way.

About half way toward the official end we reached a nice little spot ideal for camping out on the windy ridge and also a great place for taking a few pictures to prove that we did in fact climb that far. But it was still a fair distance from our goal, which we would never reach.

Of course, we did try to get there. We stopped at the official end drank some water, read the official sign, and continued on. For the first few minutes we scoffed at the warning and stumbled on down the trail, until we reached the wall of mud.

I call it the wall of mud because what there was of a trail wound up and over a myriad of exposed tree roots. We slipped our way up 40 feet or more of squishing, smacking mud in pools among them and did our best not to lose our balance. While climbing up, I somehow thought it would be easier going down, but learned better later. We continued on for a bit, still far from Mt. Olympus, hoping to make it once agin to the crest of the Ko'olau.

Twenty minutes later we were still far from our goal, having traveled up and down and up and down again. It seemed we had covered no distance at all expending all of our energy on changing elevation over and over. In the end we reach a bit where I was convince I would not be able to climb back up again. so we stopped took a picture and returned back. There was more slipping and sliding down the mud wall and more strawberry guavas plucked from along the trail. And it ended back in the parking lot with little time to spare on our time deadline. So, in the end, it was better to have turned around when we did than to press on to Mt. Olympus.

To the Crest of the Ko‘olau

My favorite hike so far...

We started in the grey-green Kuli‘ou‘ou Valley parking at a dead-end road. After a moment of indecision at the trailhead, deliberating between the easy trail to the dried up waterfall and the more challenging trail to the Ko‘olau crest, we headed up. The bottom portion of the trail zig-zagged up the side of the middle ridge, setting my insufficiently trained calves on fire.

A wider variety of flowers lined the path than I was used to from the Makiki Valley trails. Splashes of purple, pink, orange, and yellow brightened the overcast morning. Huffing and puffing we scrambled over a few rocky bumps, and side stepped the occasional protruding root structure. H complained that the trail was too dry, we needed more mud to paint racing stripes down our sides (as he had done a few weeks ago). Even though no oozing, smacking muck covered the way, we setting on continuing.

For about an hour we dizzied ourselves with shuffling back and forth up the path. Near the end of the switchbacks pine trees began to line the way, and discarded pine needles to carpet the trail. When we reached the ridgeline the temperature dropped from pleasantly warm to potentially chilly. A wind from the east whistled in the pines. I expected a thin ridgeline with death-inducing falls from either side, but what I encountered was a wide swath of land heavily dotted with grey-trunked pines sporting greyish-green needles. The overcast morning completed the effect of walking through a moody Impressionist’s dream.

As I resigned myself to the ridge slinking along hidden by towering giants we came to the “halfway point,” a set of covered picnic tables. The trail would proceed upward along the narrowing ridge, gaining an additional 900+ feet in elevation. So we rested at the picnic tables and discussed the process of crossing fruit species and flowers. Blame it on the nectarines.

The trail then began to head up more quickly. We changed tree varieties. The tall, skinny greyish-green drooping needle pines meet at a front with a exuberant green, flamboyant Christmas tree-like evergreen. We scrambled up root structures, no longer bemoaning the lack of mud. The forest became thicker and darker.

Soon we cleared the pines and climbed out onto a finer section of the ridge. The large trees stayed behind, affording us spectacular views of the Kuli‘ou‘ou Valley and Hawai‘i Kai area. Blue sky hung in the distance, a grey cloud hovered above us, and mist raced over the emerald ridge on the other side of the valley.

Green and red ferns lined the trail, as did a few barren twisted trees. The trail climbed up, flattened out and climbed again. My heart pounded in my chest and I gave no thought to how exactly I would have to scramble back down. Despite the elevation the breeze was stifled at times, the mist in the air rising from the valley pressed in on us like the heat of a sauna. But then the oppressiveness would lift, and the breeze would ripple over us, only to race away again.

We finally reached the triangular patch of dirt with a sign marking the end of the trail two feet from falling off the edge. The panoramic view stretched from Kaneohe in the misty distance to the turquoise waters off of the white sands of Bellows and Waimanalo. The farm land around Wamanalo crept up to the base of the mountains, or at least as far as I was willing to peer over the edge.

Rabbit Island peaked out from behind the edge of the rippling mountain range. Another bump in the ridge prevented us from following the beach down the coast.




A turn brought Koko Head Crater into view, now shrunken below us. The sandy beach of Hanauma Bay and its light blue waters were hidden from view, it appeared a mere notch in the coastline. Hawaii Kai sprawled out between us and Koko Head.


Another turn and the valley flowed down from below us, dotted with houses, emptying into a deep blue abyss. Diamond Head Crater poked up from behind the other ridge of the valley. The valley itself was lush with greenery rising to summit behind the cloud lingering over us. One more turn and the sign came back into view.

The trek back down involved a bit of slipping, a lot of picture taking, and occasionally climbing down backwards. At one point back under the cover of the pines there was an attempt by one member of our hiking party to make a snow angel in the pine needle carpet. However, it became apparent that snow is a major requirement for the successful creation of the angelic figures. A warm unrelenting sun accompanied us down the remainder of the path making me glad we'd had shade on the way up.