Lanikai Pillbox – SarahRuthSeeks

The short way to Lanikai Pillbox is right outside my door and takes all of 25 minutes, but includes a couple sections of rock scrambling. A friend, Jess, is past her due date and wanted to go for a hike to try to move things along. I was nervous about her doing the steep fast way, and have been wanting to do the back way, so we went for it.

To get to the back way, I can actually park on the other side of my complex and walk. (This comes in handy later).

The views from the back are incredible… dare I say better than the short way.

You’re set further back from the ocean, so you can see the bay a bit better. You also climb higher (maybe?) at some points… essentially we went over three-ish peaks to get to the ocean. You can see we’re kinda starting that section after doing a decent amount of climbing to get there in the first place.

You also get a really great view of Bellows and Waimanalo

And view after beautiful view of the mokes along the way.

If these pictures seem blurrier than normal… it’s because my lens stopped talking to my camera. I didn’t know that’s what was happening until I troubleshooted at home. I switched between manually focusing and trying to get the camera to do it. Oh well, good excuse to do it again. Here we are finally coming up to the first pillbox.

That took an hour to get there (It felt like two if I’m being honest), so we decided that we should go the “short” way home. It was actually the perfect amount of wet… it wasn’t super dry and slippery and it wasn’t muddy and slick. I’m really glad we picked that way. Then we walked through my complex back to the other side to get my car.

It’s kinda hard to get on the top of the pillbox… and by that I mean it’s hard for anyone scared of heights… but Jess did it so I figured out a way. It is actually kinda hard logistically to get up, takes a couple big steps. Anyway! This was my first time to the second pillbox and first time on it… lots of firsts for me this hike!

This is on our way back down.

And of course I had to get a selfie with the fantastic new signs on completion.

10/10 recommend doing the hike this way… if you have the in and can get into the fabulous community somehow. The views of the mokes just keep getting better and better… it feels more like a hike… you hit both pillboxes, it’s so much quieter (we saw two people until we got to the pillbox).

I live by arguable the most popular hike on Oahu called the Lanikai Pillbox hike. This causes all sorts of disturbances for our neighborhood. For one, the path used to start at a different point essentially up someone’s driveway, but it was moved to start right off the road instead. However, AllTrails (A popular trail mapping app) had outdated data. So I emailed them a few times to get it corrected, which thankfully it finally did. But, nonetheless, people must read old blog posts on the hike and still try going up the driveway. Hawaii is terrible at trail maintenance, which is kinda crazy, so there are no signs pointing to the start. OK, there was one, but it hardly counts and is now missing. On my sunrise walks people continuously try to walk up the driveway only to get yelled at, which isn’t pleasant for anyone. Or, they’re often asking for the starting point, and there’s not really a good landmark to tell them where. I have had it in my head I’d help correct this for a while, but the pieces didn’t fall into place until recently.

When Jess and I visited the Bishop Museum, they were hosting a pop up exhibit of sorts by Parley, a company working to repurpose microplastics found on the beach. They made these plastic slabs and weren’t sure what to do with them. Well, I didn’t think of it until later, but I realized they’d make GREAT signs. So I had Jess go grab a few on her way home from work one day. I don’t think I have the before pictures…but you’ll get the point.

Jess and I then borrowed a cricut from another officer spouse and cut out lettering to stick on to the signs. We also drilled holes and bought plastic zip ties. These are our results:

It was our first go around and I am proud with how they came out. However, with version 2.0, I think we’ll work a bit more strategically on color picks. (see a trend with my sign for my husband? Graphic design has never been my strong suit). I thought the bright blue would pop better. Oh well.

This is what they look like hung up, and the remnants to the frame of what was the other sign:

I tried to remind myself that this signage was better than no signage and it’s a great first go around. Again, you can tell we probably should’ve done better color pairing… it was deceiving though!

Anyway, we went in the cover of darkness to hang them. I am sure we will not get in trouble and they are very easily removed. However, our neighborhood is just uppity enough that something like this could cause a stir. I don’t know, I’m probably being dramatic, but with all the weirdness that is Hawaii I wouldn’t be surprised if someone complained to be honest. You’d understand this better if you lived here. I’ll just say Hawaiians are very protective of their lands, as they should be!

Well, we’re a few days in and they’re still there. That’s encouraging!

I’m happy with this little community improvement project and hope it lasts.

I also invested in my own cricut after pleading with Brian for a bit. We’ll see what projects I get my hands dirty with next…

Lanikai Pillbox the backway

Community Improvement