Star Trek to Puu Kalena to Hobb’s Ridge, Waianae Summit (Part II)

[Part 1] [Part 2]

With our recent lesson from Dr. Nori, several of us were motivated to do more snail surveying along the Waianae Summit. With the same group (Nate, J, Katie, Ryan, Jenelyn and I, and Aaron, who wasn’t able to make other trip) did a moderate traverse along the Waianae Summit from Star Trek to Puu Kalena to Hobb’s Ridge. With high clouds to shade us and moderate tradewinds, it was a perfect day for this type of activity…

Similar to when we ascended Hobb’s to go to Mt. Kaala, we started at the end of Waianae Valley Road.

Following the color coded trail system in the valley, we ended up taking the green marked route, to ascend the steep switchbacking contours of star trek.

Several of the sections had pre-installed rope and webbing. Most of which were very useful crutches for us along the way. NOTE: Please exercise caution when using ropes / webbing left on trails. When ascending, it can be difficult to determine how secure the anchors are, in addition to verifying how much weight it can retain after being weathered for extended periods of time. I don’t usually mention this type of thing, but a reader recently complained that the site content didn’t adequately prepare him for a hike I had documented… Although I occasionally provide general tips or detail how we navigate obstacles, please read the website disclaimer and remember that the site content is not intended to be used as a guide to successfully complete trails.

After zig-zagging back and forth, and ascending some steep scrambling sections,

…we intersected the Waianae Summit in about an hour and a half, note Jenelyn touching the fenceline.

After taking a short break from all the climbing, we made our way toward Puu Kalena. Part of Mt. Kaala can be seen, socked in by clouds in the background.

This section brought back memories for me. I haven’t been here for probably almost 5 years, and it was one of the earlier advanced, unsanctioned ridge hikes that I had done. I remember reading about it on Kaleo’s Island Trails website, thinking how cool he was. So honored to have met and hiked with the guy.

Once reaching the summit of Kalena, we started looking on some of the native plants for snails. Since the air was cool and moist, we expected the snails to be out and about. Note the Kanawao, Ohia and Ie ie in the above photos, as well as several other species of native plants.

We quickly encountered Philonesia sp.

Auriculella sp.

and several succineids.

We took photographed several individuals, noted their GPS locations and the plants we found them on before moving on.

Continuing along the Waianae summit, we were able to occasionally received views of Waianae Valley,

…and even Mt. Kaala opened up from it’s thick cloud cover.

Here’s some of the scrambling sections between Puu Kalena,

and the Hobb’s Ridge terminus.

Some clouds started rolling in,

and the light rain was welcomed, as it made the last section of our traverse refreshing and cool.

Here, the crew scrambles up one more section before descending down Hobb’s.

The descent down the ridge was steeply graded, but we were glad that all of the more vertical obstacles had pre-installed webbing on them.

As we got lower on the ridge line, near the floor of Waianae Valley, we once encountered orange colored bottle caps,

which indicates the route back to Waianae Valley Road.

Once out of the trail, we immediately went to find some grub at “Tacos and More,” and had some beers on the beach to watch the sunset afterwards in Makaha.

Mahalo nui to Norine Yeung for sharing your manao and passion for native land snails on our recent excursion to Mt. Kaala. Glad we could be of assistance in your snail surveying in Hawaii. As with the first installment of this two-part series, Dr. Nori would also like to inform the general public and hiking community that collecting native snails is illegal. There are 1461 “described” land snail species, but more extensive surveying in remote areas could result verifying this number, as most have not been studied for over 70 years. Most of the current research on land snails focuses on the subfamily Achatinellinae (photos of one of it’s members shown above), which makes up for ~13% of Hawaiian land snail fauna. Virtually all of the described species are endemic, except for a handful so therefore 99.9% of them are found here and no where else in the world. Some of the biggest threats to native land snails are habitat destruction, impacts of invasive species (e.g., predation, competition for resources, disease, etc.) and climate change (this topic deserves a more detailed explanation, but I’ll save it for a more another write up). For hikers in particular, trampling may be a big threat to land snails, as several inconspicuous species live in the leave litter and moss found on the ground along hiking trails in upper elevations. Please do not intentionally disturb any native land snails, especially during dry weather. If in the case that you find a native snail on your clothing or gear, please place in back on a native plant (e.g. ohia) near you, off of the main trail.

More questions about the hike or snail survey?? Just ask!!! Dr. Nori and her land snail colleagues can be reached here:
facebook.com/Hawaiian.Land.Snails

Aloha and mahalo nui for visiting… Come back again soon!