May 2012

No better way to celebrate both my 100th write-up and Aloha From 808's one-year anniversary; the notorious "Commando Hike" was one of the best hikes I have done on Maui. Mahalo nui loa for all your continued support and encouragement over the past year... Thinking that our trip to Maui could not get any better, great weather allowed us (Pete, Chase, Nate, August, Laredo, Nectar and myself) to take a drive to East Maui to hike commando style. Based on some intel and preliminary reconnaissance, we connected a series of different well known hikes to execute one "mega commando hike," which terminates...

[Part 1 - Olowalu Valley] [Part 2 - The Pass] [Part 3 - Iao Valley] [Gallery] Now that we were in Iao Valley, the final leg of our expedition was to follow our tributary to it's confluence with the main stream channel. With either our spiked or felt-bottomed footwear, we set out for the Iao needle Some of the historical documentation of other attempts we had read, stated that descending large waterfalls with rope was required once on the Iao side of the pass. Top-tier orienteering and topographical map analysis by Pete helped us avoid any of these sizable waterfalls, though we did have...

[Part 1 - Olowalu Valley] [Part 2 - The Pass] [Part 3 - Iao Valley] [Gallery] The Iao-Olowalu Pass was by far the most dangerous part of our journey, and from the following photos and documentation, it shouldn't be unreasonable to understand why. The ridgeline we were on steepened as we gained elevation. Now nearing 3000 feet, we were subjected to the northeast tradewinds that were being funneled through the saddle... And although the brush was now only hip to chest-high, it became much thicker than previously encountered lower on the ridge... which probably has to do with the strong...

[Part 1 - Olowalu Valley] [Part 2 - The Pass] [Part 3 - Iao Valley] [Gallery] Dwarfing the mountain ranges of Oahu in elevation, the West Maui Mountains summits at 5,788 feet on Puu Kukui. The largest valley on the windward side of the mountains, Iao watershed, borders another sizable valley on it's leeward side, Olowalu, by a 3200 foot saddle known as the Iao-Olowalu Pass. The pass was used as an ancient Hawaiian route to crossover the West Maui Mountains, which may have considerably shortened travel between the districts of Lahaina and Wailuku. The pass has particularly been known as the escape...

One local community on the North shore of Kauai, the Waipa Foundation (website above), focuses their efforts on restoration and sustainability in their watershed. They are using the monitoring stations and network to help them understand more about water resources and management. For example, they want to monitor the results of large scale wetland restoration through the removal of hau (plant) which is choking out the estuarine reach of Waipa Stream. I recently had the opportunity to service one of the malfunctioning stations located on a remote ridge (see 6), which was originally deployed...

True Manamana (Puu Manamana proper) is an advanced/extreme hike, which continues from the turnover/junction from the popular, shorter Puu Manamana or Kahekili Ridge Trail. Hiking on a cloudless day with the absence of the northeast tradewinds is a mistake I'll never make on this hike again. We (Troy Takara, Jenelyn Castillo and Jeremy Kreis) started at the steep graveyard trail in Kahana, hiking to True Manamana, and down the Puu Manamana Trail took us ~9 hours round trip. The graveyard trail starts just off of Trout Farm Rd in Kahana Valley. For most of the hike up, the trail is steep...

In addition to shorefishing, tide-pooling and reef walking have been one of my favorite outdoor recreational activities. Tide-pooling can either be done during the day or at night, as some fish and invertebrates are active at different times of the day. However, I find it easier to wrangle the day-time critters at night... since their vision is not adapted to being blinded by high-intensity headlamps while sleeping... and they can't shut their eyes either. lol. With the "super" full moon, comes extreme high and low tides throughout the day. For those of you who do not know, tides are natural...

Since the heavy Koolau rains forced us to abandon our original hike on Kalahaku; Jeremy, Reanne, Jenelyn and I opted for a drier hike on West Oahu. Puu Ohikilolo is located a little more than half-way up Ohikilolo Ridge, which terminates at the area of the Waianae Summit known as "Three corners." Already on late start coming from the windward side, we chose to ascend the steep cliffs near Makua Cave instead of starting at the foot of Ohikilolo Ridge (to more quickly access the more prominent part of the ridgeline), which by far was not best idea in recent history... The first two-thirds...