Kalahaku Teeth to Waimano Trail

I had read that HTMC legendary hiker Al Miller stated that Kalahaku Ridge could not be done. End of story. Time and other hikes passed, I then stumbled upon Cory Yap’s blog about his group summiting said ridge. My interest was renewed. Photo by Thessa Bugay.

David, Jose, Ryan and Thessa rounded out the crew today. It was decided that we would do a camp over on the mountain so as not to come down at night. That is why we carried bulky and heavy overnight packs. Something we would regret later in the hike. But it seemed and sounded like a good plan. Ryan passed out MREs or military rations to us. Somebody forgot to grab one. Photo by Thessa Bugay.

My friend, Glenn was nice enough to drop us off at the trailhead on the Windward side of the island.

We followed a clearly used jeep trail that lead to somewhere. But somewhere was not our destination.

Ten minutes later, we veered off the trail and scrambled up an exposed area of red dirt that lead to the ridge. Pieces of a crashed RC plane lay strewn at the bottom. This was somebody’s playground.

Looking back at what we were leaving behind for the weekend. Photo by David Concepcion.

It helps to be a contortionist on these overgrown ridges. Photo by David Concepcion.

We rounded this small hill that we thought was the first tooth. How wrong we were.

Hikers that are exposed and eat too much lillikoi on trails are prone to developing passion boobs. After Ryan came to terms with his newfound swelling, we climbed up a steeply pitched hill to be confronted with a rock face. Welcome to the first tooth. Ryan had the best seat in the house. Literally. He was sitting on the only section that allowed one to sit. The rest of us had to stand and hold onto the rock face. Not comfortable with a heavy pack on your back. Jose contoured around to find another route. The rest of us contemplated climbing up, but heavy packs and shaky handholds dissuaded us from trying. Jose eventually found a way to the top and dropped webbing to haul our backpacks and ourselves up.

Where is the trail? These teeth had a severe case of plaque called overgrowth. Photo by David Concepcion.

We soon found traces from the last group that had done this ridge. Such ropes were handled with kid gloves if any, as most were rotted and one actually snapped while climbing up.

This rock formation on the right bore a passing resemblance to the pimple on the Lanihuli side of Kalihi Saddle.

Ryan climbing down the fourth tooth? A nearby tree made the descent easier.

Looking back to see how little ground we had covered. Overgrowth was insane.

Jose climbing up the fifth tooth?

Going down the backside of the fifth tooth? Overgrowth masked the ridge to the point where we couldn’t tell if it was a steep drop off or a gradual drop. In this case, it looked like a steep drop but once we started going down, the descent wasn’t that bad.

David peering down the backside of the sixth tooth? As he was coming down, we heard a huge crashing sound as Jose had dislodged a good sized rock and sent it bouncing down to the valley floor. Got our blood flowing as we thought somebody had fallen off the ridge. Lucky it was just a rock.

We saw tattered webbing attached to a tree that could have been the bailout ridge that Cory Yap’s group went down on their first try.

Click here for the larger image.

Looking at our last major obstacle to finishing the teeth. The seventh and final tooth!

Heavy packs and crazy overgrowth had sapped our energy at this point. David and Ryan struggled to get over the first rock obstacle. Jose shed his pack and went down to help them with their packs. What a sherpa. Photo by Thessa Bugay.

After all of us made it over the exposed rock face, we dropped down and crossed a narrow dike. All that was left was a steep climb up through more overgrowth. Joy. We were pretty much spent. Daylight was rapidly fading.

Ryan making the final push to the top of the tooth. David had run out of gas at the bottom. All of us were totally exhausted. David and Thessa ended up roommates again and enjoyed the live music drifting up from the valley. Several furry friends paid them a visit. Not the cute ones. During the course of traversing over the teeth, the thick overgrowth had claimed our water bottles, Thessa’s flashlight and Ryan’s GPS Garmin. Price of admission to the teeth.

Jose making his way through more overgrowth at the top.

Under the cover of darkness, we set up camp. Ryan cleared a suitable area for our tents. Trees provided a wind break and we munched on our MREs, that were surprisingly tasty and retired to an early night. This was my first camping experience since hanabata days! Thanks to Thomas Engle for letting me borrow his tent. We lucked out as it only rained briefly around midnight. That luck would not hold.

David and Thessa saw this sunrise. Ours was somewhat filtered by trees. Photo by David Concepcion.

We broke down our tents in the morning and ate leftover MREs. Took stock of our water supply. Almost gone.

David and Thessa soon joined us on the top. Our first group photo of the hike left to right: Jose, David, Thessa, myself and Ryan.

We resumed our hike by plunging back into the overgrowth. It was crazy. Jose and Ryan took the lead and cleared the path with a machete. Photo by David Concepcion.

Several more hours of bushwhacking were still in store for us. Couldn’t get any worse. Then the rain started. Photo by David Concepcion.

Some of us ran out of water. In the middle of pouring rain. Irony.

Click here for the larger image. Photo by David Concepcion.

As we neared the top of the ridge, the overgrowth became more manageable.

The mythical meadows were completely socked in. We were just glad to be off the ridge, we could live without the views. Sitting on spongy ground never felt so good. Photo by David Concepcion.

Jose went poking around and found us a water hole. He even had a LifeStraw, which is a portable water filter. However, it does not filter out against leptospirosis, which is common in most streams. We did not see signs of pigs or goats and besides we were pretty thirsty.

This is what happens when you run out of water. You have to suck it out of a hole in the ground. Others drank from a bottle. Photo by Ryan Meyer.

Happiest group photo of the hike. Photo by Thessa Bugay.

We had decided against going down the grueling and endless Waimalu Middle Ridge. Instead we opted to take the longer but easier Waimano Trail back down.

Going down the Ko’olau Summit Ridge Trail. Narrow at times but the windward winds kept us steady on the ridge.

Jose noticed water running off a branch. Ryan immediately assumed the horizontal drinking position.

Group photo at the end of the Waimano Trail, which was actually the beginning for us. Notice the spectacular scenery behind us.

We still had seven miles to walk back down to civilization. Ripe and abundant strawberry guava, guava and lillikoi lined the trail going down. We even had some mountain apples further down the stream. Tasty trail snacks.

When we came to the first major stream crossing, Ryan collected some awapuhi and took a bath in the once pristine waters. Jose soon followed. The rest of decided to wallow in our filth and grime.

Here we were at the picnic bench with no picnic. Part of the roof was flapping in the wind. Must sound spooky at night.

Jose collected some awapuhi or shampoo ginger plants on the trail, to be used in the privacy of his home.

Thessa pausing besides one of the water tunnels that once made up the irrigation system. No exploring today.

The scenic point afforded great views of the Waianae Mountains.

The trail soon lead us back to civilization. A chain link fence!

We followed the chain link fence until it dumped us on Waimano Home Road.

Drop dead tired. We dropped our packs and plopped down on solid concrete. It felt so good to take a load off our feet. Once in Jose’s car, we stopped at the nearest McDonald’s to gulp down carbonated sugar water. Then it was off to Outback for our post hike meal. My eye was bigger than my shrunken stomach because I could not polish off my herb encrusted wood fired slab of meat. Leftovers. Photo by Thessa Bugay.

The punishing hike lasted 9.57 miles spanning over two days. The heavy packs made the hike harder than it should have been and the overgrowth didn’t help matters. The first and seventh tooth were the hardest ones and they sandwhiched a heavily overgrown ridge. The section beyond the final tooth was just as overgrown, it petered out as the ridge approached the Ko’olau range. It was quite the weekend with an amazing group!

Tagged as: bushwhacking, kalahaku ridge, kalahaku teeth, koolau summit ridge trail, ksrt, kst, waimalu meadows, waimano trail, windward ridge