Waikane Trail to the Koolau Summit to Waiahole Uka – June 3, 2012

Another section of the Koolau Summit Trail (KST) that I haven’t explored yet, the segment between the Waikane Trail and Waiahole Uka Trail summits, was soon to be completed after a recent invite from Pete Clines. I recently heard that the view from the summit of the Waikane Trail (Puu Kaaumakua) is one of the best views on the island, and was more than excited to hike a section of the KST. After staging a car in Waiahole, we shuttled the crew over to Waikane Valley Road, where we began the long contour trail to the Puu Kaaumakua.

The beginning of the Waikane trail was a long 3 mile dirt road…

Where the actual trailhead is located further in, shortly after we crossed Waikane Stream.

Once we were off the road on the actual trail, we started to gain elevation more quickly.

The lower sections were wide and somewhat kept, but as we got further up, ginger and clidemia seemed to have taken over much of the trail. There were some natives along the trail though, the most noticeable being a Lobelia sp. (in first photo) and Mamaki (top of photo above)…

As we got closer to the top, the taller trail-side vegetation became much shorter…

Opening up panoramic views to Kahana and Punaluu Valleys, as well as a large stretch of the Koolau Summit.

We took a sharp left (almost a switchback) at the junction with the Koolau Summit Trail and headed southeast towards Waiahole.

A short while later, we detoured from the KST to take our first lunch break on Puu Kaaumakua…

to which the rumors were true, where it had one of the best views on the northern KST.

We could even see the entire Waianae Mountain Range, which also unfortunately had a brush fire going on in the mauka area above Kunia.

No one wanted to leave the grassy plateau, but we still had a long journey ahead of us.

Continuing further along the KST, we came to several scenic points of both the windward,

… and leeward sides of Oahu.

Some of the contour trail were easily passable,

…whereas other areas needed to be opened up more, particularly from overgrowth of Uluhe ferns.

One of the more memorable stretches along this section of the KST was a pass near the midpoint of our journey. The short section similar to a wind tunnel, where the gusts were virtually strong enough to knock you down if you weren’t paying attention…

Which made it an excellent time to maniacally run around, with swinging machetes over our heads and chopping at the wind. Okay, realistically it wasn’t… so don’t do it if you ever hike here. However, I’d have to say it was probably the most silly (yet entertaining) activity I’ve seen on the KST to date… right next to Laredo’s facial expression while having nocturnal-drunken-light-saber-battle with Darth Vader, lol. Really though, we had to throw our full body weight into the wind to climb the hill.

We took shelter and had a nice break looking over the wind swept meadow on the pass before pushing on.

After almost 8 hours of hiking later, and looking back on the KST, I was in admiration of all the pioneers who built the contour trail in the early 1900s.

Looking forwards, it was nice to see Kipapa Ridge off in the distance, which was the ridge summit just after Waiahole Uka.

and short while later, we approached terminus of Waiahole Uka…

Apparently, the notch in the contour trail (left) and small grove of Sugi pine trees (right) are small geographical markers that you are close.

We took a sharp left off of the KST to reach the grassy plateau and Waiahole Uka terminus,

Where we had a nice break from the wind and cloud bank that had rolled minutes earlier.

The view from here would have been just as gorgeous as the one we saw at Puu Kaaumakua, but the heavy cloud cover made it slightly less appealing today. On the other hand, it was still probably better than the typical day on section of the Koolau Summit, which is receives substantial rain or usually is socked in the clouds.

Since it was already pretty late in the day, we soon descended from the Koolau Summit on the steep ridge trail. Unlike Waikane Trail, Waihole Uka does not contour and descends (or ascends) very quickly.

Most of the trail was in decent shape, but there was quite a bit of Uluhe overgrowth on the lower section of the ridge.

At the foot of the ridge, we intersected the Kuolani-Waianu Trail, and hiked along it until we passed a large man-made waterfall.

The waterfall is fed by the Waiahole ditch system that “used to” supply water to the agricultural field of leeward Oahu, which was re-diverted to the windward side of the island in the 1997.

Since we parked near South Waiahole Valley Road, we still had some distance to travel as we were only near the north road when the sun started to set… and although we were almost home-free, we still had to finish the last segment in the dark. Which we had anticipated and were prepared for with headlamps.

The Waikane Trail to Puu Kaaumakua to Waiahole Uka was a long route, estimated ~10 miles and ~11 hours of hiking on mostly unmaintained trails and some unpaved roads. I would not recommend this route to any hikers who are not familiar with this area of the Koolau Summit, navigating in completely socked-in conditions, as well as their knowing their way around Waikane and Waiahole Valleys. I was lucky enough to hike with a crew who were very knowledgeable about each leg of the hike, however anyone who attempts to do this hike will likely need to do extensive research and planning beforehand.

Mahalo nui loa to Pete Clines, August Smith and Nate Yuen for allowing Reanne and I to tag along on this epic adventure!!! The views were breathtaking!!

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!