Brian and I had a morning to go adventuring and our plan was to tackle the Koko head stairs together. However it’s been rainy so we decided it wasn’t the best idea. It occurred to me the night before that I haven’t brought him to the Old Pali Rd. hike and I haven’t done the part I set out to do with KOSC; take it all the way to the Pali Lookout.
The parking doesn’t open until 8 am anyway, so we had a leisurely morning and got breakfast and headed out around 9am. The parking attendant told us he wasn’t accepting CCs…. whoops… thankfully Brian had cash and we managed to scrounge together $5, which he accepted even though it cost $10. Yay!
Anyway, we set out and Brian was in awe, just as I was the first time, although I was way more appreciative this time without having to worry about so many people. We meandered our way up the winding “road”. It is really an abandoned highway being taken over by a jungle and is as cool as you’d expect.
We got to the real pali highway, where you have to duck under it, and then continued on up toward the lookout.
Almost the entire way is paved, which was a significant difference to my last experience going to the other lookout which was very muddy and slippery. This made for a much more enjoyable experience! And much better views!
We found these giant yellow flowers and Brian humored me when a second one fell serendipitously in front of us and I put it in his hat.
It took us an hour and a half, 3.3 miles and 850ft elevation in total. It was awesome! I’m so glad I remembered to introduce this hike to Brian and that we had a very pleasurable experience this time.
Hiking in Hawaii is a very unique experience. I suppose it could be compared to somewhere like Fiji if I had to guess… but it’s very different from hiking in New England and I’d go as far as to say most of CONUS. You can never be too sure about the “officialness” of a hike, or to put it plainly “am I allowed on this part of land”. I’m not fully clear on why this is, but I think it has a lot to do with the history of Hawaiians and the respect of ‘aina (land). There seems to be this back and forth between the cultural “everyone has access to all land” and “yes that’s true but we started this thing called private property” and “there are certain ancient places that shouldn’t be disturbed”. Then you throw in money and politics and it’s one big pot of “Is this hike allowed or no?” So it’s all just kinda weird. The best example of this is the controversial stairway to heaven hike.
I have done hikes that are labeled “private” on All Trails. It’s labeled Private because it’s inside the military base. So, really, is it all that private?
All this to give me justification for trying another “Private” hike called Deadman’s catwalk. It’s at the top of a ridge accessible by an access road. I’ve had a lot of requests to do this hike for KOSC, but I had real reservations about it. So I thought I’d ask Jess to go check it out with me first.
Well, when we get there, there’s a HUGE sign saying NO TRESPASSING and HIKING NOT ALLOWED and a big locked gate. This is different than other “private hikes” that have a dingy fence and small do not enter sign. It makes Jess and I uncomfortable, but friends of ours have done it so… we try. As we get closer, a car enters, and we kinda stay back on the sidewalk for a bit.
After getting over the fence, we start walking up, to see a sign that says HIKERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. Gulp. We try to ignore it. Then we get higher and a truck drives by. Jess kinda runs to hide, I think to myself there’s no way I’m not being seen… and the truck drives by without saying anything.
Finally, we get to another gate, and it has huge signs again. It was just the final straw… I wasn’t comfortable continuing. I kept thinking to myself that it’s a bit hypocritical of me, who has started to loathe the damage hiking tourists do to our neighborhood, to be doing something similar to someone’s property who clearly does not want hikers. It’s not like it was some jungle hike with signs saying “stay out”. It had multiple gates and multiple huge signs. Jess was with me, so we left and went to tackle a back up hike, Koko crater arch.
Koko crater arch is on the ocean side of koko crater (the crater hike with the famous railway “stairs” I attempted). You park at the Halona blow hole parking lot, walk the shoulder of a decently busy road, and then veer to the right up the crater. This is looking back at the path we just took.
Just beautiful coastal scenery looking up toward Haunama Bay.
It has been pretty windy lately, so I didn’t make it much further than this to the arch. That face gets really steep. I’d do it on a less windy day, but really I got a picture of the arch and some scenery so I didn’t feel I needed to. People like to get pictures under and on top of the arch.
To the left of Jess you can see a rope people use to get on top. She investigated inside a bit and said there was a steep drop.
I don’t think you could see this arch from the road, so it was pretty cool to “discover” it even if it was a short hike. Altogether it was a mile and 326ft elevation.
Here’s one image from our trespassing hike. This is looking back toward koko and Hawaii Kai… the goal was to get to a platform to look over toward Waimanalo, our side of the island. Oh well.
I had a chance to take a hula lesson! I think I found my new calling!
We had an awesome time learning about the culture of Hula Dancing. There’s a competition called Merrie Monarch coming up in a couple weeks on Big Island that will be streamed on YouTube if you want to watch!
She taught us a lot of Hawaiian language and about a few “props” she made by hand out of gourds (drums) and bamboo. The feathers on one of the props were plucked one by one from birds to make. It was a rule not to pick more than one from the bird out of respect.
Shave Ice is a big thing in Hawaii and in my head it was essentially a snow cone… and so I’ve never been super ambitious about trying it. However, a few friends have hyped it up recently and so Brian and I went to give it a try. WoW Wow!! We’ve been missing out! I don’t know why it’s so much better than a snow cone but it is. The flavor is so much better and… authentic? maybe? To top it off (or, rather, bottom it out?) there’s a scoop of macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom. This is not normal for Shave Ice, I don’t think, but the place we went called Island Snow is known for this. Brian and I shared an adult one. For our shave ice flavors we picked snawzberry and big island guava. 10/10 recommend trying!
On Saturday I did another KOSC hike. Only one person showed with her husband… I’m getting a little frustrated by lack of attendance. All the same, I LOVED the hike! It’s paved the first mile or so and decently steep. You work your way through a thick tree mangrove and get to the swing about 1.8 miles in.
After climbing and another three tenths of a mile or so there’s a clearing with a view into a beautiful valley.
This hike is only accessible through a small base that has a military hospital called Tripler. This means less hikers and plenty of parking without worry of being broken into. Here’s a photo of the pink hospital.
We went just over two miles in, but the elevation was 950ft. It made for a short and sweet climb. The wind was nice but borderline gusty at times and I wouldn’t have wanted to do any ridge walking (thankfully we didn’t need to)
This hike has been on my list for a while but it’s a bit intimidating… it’s 1000ft climb up an abandoned tramway on the side of a crater. I was nervous for a lot of reasons, heights are not my strong suit to begin with and then you add the issues I’ve had with long COVID… anyway, I finally at least felt confident enough to try.
And try we did! I say we got 90% of the way there. I almost turned around twice before that… so I did push through a couple mental blocks. However, this time I started to really get worked up thinking about how I might get down with wobbly legs. I did end up sitting my way down for a bit of the steepest parts.
This next picture might give a glimpse as to why I might’ve felt a little nervous, ha.
We did still manage a great view!
You can see just how close we got… I am slightly disappointed, but again I’m so happy we ended on a positive note, and that I listened to my intuition. Now I’m at least more familiar with the intensity.
Surprisingly I’m not nearly as sore as I thought I might be today. Grateful to have friends in support of adventures!
I don’t have any evidence of the deliciousness of the food to share, but I went to dinner with a couple friends (Caitlyn and Mindy) to GOEN and thought it was DELICIOUS. I loved the eggplant appetizer and the shrimp scampi I ordered. Both very delicious and had great company!
Here’s a post purely to document waterfalls created by a rain shower over Kaneohe! These are a sight to see and so unique to our side of Oahu. It was still raining when I was taking the pictures so it was a big hazy, but it’s the best you can get!
I captured these when taking Jess’ family to see the gardens. It was a bit disappointing it was raining, but they wouldn’t have seen this if it wasn’t! Hawaii is so different all the time, you can go back to the same place multiple times and get very different experiences, it’s amazing.
I’ve talked about Uncle Joe’s ice cream sandwiches before and how delicious they are so when KOSC planned a trip to the factory to tour I jumped at the chance to skip out on work and go visit. The owners were so generous and humble. They started 9 years ago selling at one of the many markets in Hawaii and they went wholesale and make 5k sandwiches a week out of a small space on the North Shore. They are expanding to Las Vegas, so you may have a chance to try them in the states, but for now they are exclusive to Oahu. You can imagine shipping ice cream from Hawaii is very, very logistically difficult.
We were offered their mini ice cream sandwiches to try (which aren’t available widespread yet!) and some water; we didn’t even pay for the tour. It was pretty amazing to watch nearly everything be done by hand! The tours are done off-the-record; you can give them a call to set one up. The commissary (base grocery shopping) offers their sandwiches, so we are lucky! They said their best selling is cookies and cream, but their lilikoi (passion fruit) is the one most asked about.
This little plaza is a conglomerate of eclectic shops and includes the North Shore Soap factory. A few of us hopped in to check it out and the soaps smell SO good. I didn’t buy any.
Finally the food truck, Banyan’s, was there and I tried the chicken sandwich with grilled pineapple and onions on a taro bun… it was AMAZING. If I haven’t said this already, Hawaii is pretty famous for its food trucks because land/rent is so expensive. Taro is a very popular potato-esque vegetable that turns everything purple.
It was about an hour drive from my apartment, so it was an adventure that I made the most of. Will have to figure out a way to stock my freezer for when my family comes.
After our ATV adventure we visited a macademia nut farm outlet…? I am unsure where the macnuts were actually harvested… if on this land or…? However I took home a couple bags of macnuts that I haven’t seen at target. Honey roasted and cinnamon coated… both so delicious.
Next we went to Waiahole Poi Factory to grab lunch. This has been on my bucket list because it’s authentic Hawaiian food. It’s VERY hole in the wall, as are most of the best places in Hawaii.
I got a beef luau and kalua pork plate. The beef luau is made out of taro leaves and beef, it looks like spinach soup but it’s actually very flavorful and it was my favorite. I thought the kalua pork was good and more Hawaiian than the usual style you’ll get. The poi was just meh, I’m not a huge fan, but had to try because, well, it’s a poi factory. There was haupia (coconut flan essentially) and a tomato salsa.
I’m not sure I’d go here again for food, but I will certainly be returning to try their desserts, which seemed to be the more popular order by everyone there. Great for an authentic Hawaiian food experience!
