Working on Waipa Middle Ridge, North Kauai – May 17, 2012

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 there by helicopter. Apparently, no one had maintained the station due to difficult accessibility and costly flight time. No one has been able to get to it on foot either. That is, until today…

Data in the current network of weather and water quality stations (denoted in previous figure as 1-8), is transmitted by radio via line-of-site telemetry to a gateway based in Waipa Hale (7). Most stations in Waipa, e.g. the upper valley weather station above (1), cannot transmit directly to gateway and must hit the “ridge repeater” first (6), which can see all stations, before it can be uploaded to the internet. As a back up, data can also be transmitted across ridgelines to Limahuli Valley (8, 9 and 10), where another gateway is located. *Yellow lines represent data transmitted to the ridge repeater; green lines represent transmission of data to the gateway.

In the early AM, we (colleague Matt and myself) set out for the back of the valley on a 4×4 Kawasaki Mule. The mule saved us a ton of time to transport much of our needed equipment for our field work, as there is a network of dirt roads throughout the valley.

After driving as far back as we could, we packed up our gear and headed out on foot…

…towards the most prominent, perpendicular ridge which intersects Waipa Ridgeline. You can see the upper reaches of it in the top/center portion of the above photo. It is unnamed, but for the purposes of this write-up, I’m calling it “Waipa Middle Ridge.”

The most direct approach required us to cross Waipa Stream several times to get to the foot of the ridge.

One of the worst parts on the lower part of the ridge, was the ridiculously uneven ground under the mats of Uluhe. One second I’d see Matt pushing his way through the tangles of ferns, and then he’d abruptly disappear. Apparently, there were countless blind holes and deep rills that we’d fall into as we would gain elevation.

We took turns taking lead to save energy, but with no trail and endless “hip to overhead-high Uluhe” plaguing the ridge, it was going to be a long day before reaching the summit.

Several eroded and vertical sections impeded progress near the upper reaches of the ridge.

And after almost 6 hours of hiking/clearing, we made it to the summit at ~330PM. And with good timing too, as our agreed-upon “bail-out” time was 330PM if we weren’t near the top by then.

After a short break, it was time to work on refurbishing the repeater station. Note the direct line of site to Limahuli Ridge in the distance; where the next repeater station is to Limahuli Valley’s gateway. Lumahai Valley and Wainiha Valley in the foreground.

It took us ~45 minutes to get our work done, and it was time to head home. Amazingly, we had a special escort down the steep sections of the ridge… a huge Pueo (Native Hawaiian Owl), of which I’ve always though were shy of humans. This was a special treat to see one so close; it must have been hovering only 20 feet above my head at times.

Some people told me that the Pueo was a good omen for a safe return home…

And after safely completing a first “modern” ascent up a crazy ridgeline, I couldn’t agree with them more.

Mahalo for visiting and come back again soon!!!