True Manamana – May 13, 2012

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 and without much views.

It’s also muddy and overgrown in many areas. However, at a few points the trees open up, where we could either see Kahana Valley…

…or True Manamana, Puu Ohulehule and the Koolaus.

Once intersecting the ridge trail and the turnover, we continued through the overgrowth towards True Manamana.

The trail was in moderate condition, with some overgrowth and a lot of narrow, loose and crumbly areas… though far better than I’ve heard in recent years.

For most of the ridgeline, the view was spectacular.

Since it was so clear today, we were able to see all the way to Waimanalo from Kahana… which is impressive if you’ve done a lot of hiking in the Koolaus.

Just gorgeous…

But anyhoo, continuing further along the ridge…

Here, instead of going over the top of the ridge like Troy (left), I contoured below to get a view of the “puka” or hole in the rock (right).

We ran into some other “interesting” geographic features/obstacles… but definitely nothing impassable. The large rock shown forces Troy to crouch down and veer to the steep drop-off on his left.

Just before the summit, the trail gets narrow, extremely crumbly,

and steep…

An arduous journey, mostly because of the lack of tradewinds and cloud cover today… But the view back towards the turnover was awesome enough to make me forget about the heat for a few minutes.

And a cool (not cold, lol) boddingtons helped as well…

As it was getting late, we headed back towards the turnover. We removed one of the severely deteriorating ropes along the trail, as it obviously could hold no weight. One of the few instances when “not using the rope” is encouraged. It basically fell apart in my hands.

Though the graveyard trail would have been shorter, we knew the views going down the frequently traveled Puu Manamana Trail would be worth the extra length…

The sky was stained with all types of the pastel colors,

…just before the sun set.

As mentioned earlier, True Manamana is an advanced/extreme trail. It is dangerous and not for inexperienced hikers looking for a thrill. The trail can be hot and grinding, as it was for us on an irregular tradewind-less day. If you are not up for a crazy hike, but still want a work out and amazing views, I highly recommend either doing the conventional Puu Manamana Trail or Puu Kahekili to Puu Manamana Trail… I do not recommend the graveyard trail. It’s boring *yawn*,and steep. Either way, be prepared with sufficient water and appropriate hiking gear. You may want wear long pants as a lot of the uluhe ferns and other brush can scar up your legs, for any combination of the above trails.

The map above loosely denotes where “True” Puu Manamana is, relative to other peaks in the area… the proper peak is at a lower elevation, and more towards the Koolaus than the majority of the Puu Manamana Trail. Note “Puu Manamana” is noted twice.

Questions??? Just ask!!!

To view the photo gallery for this adventure, Click Here.To view this location on a Google Map also known as my “Adventure Map“, Click Here. For more adventures of the Lost Trailblazers, either look at my other blogposts and “Adventures with the Lost Trailblazers” photo gallery. Thanks for visiting and come back again soon!