Poamoho to Manana Trail

It was another deja vu camping hike for me this weekend. Thanks to Bill for taking Art, Katie, Tessa and myself up the Poamoho Jeep Road and for wishing us a dry day on the trail.

Starting off on the wet foot. Have rain jacket, will hike.

Stepping foot on the mostly graded trail that was peppered with small landslides and blowdowns. Photo by Art Young.

Sloshing through the muddy trail. Setting the tone for the weekend. Photo by Katie Bingham.

Art trying to figure out the mileage to our destination. Hint: It’s not listed. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

The views were noticeably absent on the wind blasted summit. Let’s take our photo anyway for posterity’s sake.

Making our way on the boardwalk, somebody probably wished the whole KST was laid out in this manner. Photo by Katie Bingham.

The reports of overcrowding were greatly exaggerated. Reservation place cards were on the four bunks. Honoring them was another question entirely.

Our bladders and bottles topped off, we pushed off from the cabin to resume our hike on the Leeward side. Photo by Art Young.

Art on the exposed trail and exposed views. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

Preparing to hike on a trail that was blasted and dug out of the mountains back in the 1930s. Photo by Art Young.

Tessa passing through one of many meadows on this side of the mountains. Photo by Art Young.

Art finally found his toothbrush fern in the wild after looking for many years. Now he just needed to find extremi longiores foris dentifricium to complete his search. Photo by Art Young.

Hiking with views. Not a bad way to spend the weekend. Photo by Art Young.

Looking down into Kahana and her surrounding valleys.

Traversing on the trail pitted with false holes and landslides. Photo by Art Young.

Wrap around views of the spectacular scenery. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

No feeding or petting of wild animals allowed. Some people are just born rebels. Photo by Art Young.

At least we got views at this summit stop.

Heading towards the fork in the trail. Photo by Katie Bingham.

Tessa mistaking the marker for a resting pole. A common occurrence in the mountains. Photo by Art Young.

Going uphill. Photo by Art Young.

Katie traversing the well trodden landslide.

The trail interrupting a line of native loulu palm trees running down the mountain. Photo by Art Young.

If you look closely, you will find a couple gold earrings that was surrendered to the uluhell overgrowth. Finders keepers.

Meandering our way through the contour trails. Photo by Art Young.

One of many fence crossings that we went over on the trail. Photo by Art Young.

Somebody was asking why can’t the entire trail be like this section. You can ask. Just don’t expect an answer.

Dropping down towards the wind blasted meadows. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

To camp or not to camp? Photo by Tessa Bugay.

Group photo with the horizontal leaning sugi pine tree. If we stayed any longer, we would be horizontal leaning as well.

We had no wish to camp here, so we picked up and pressed on.

Are we there yet?

We are home! Photo by Katie Bingham.

Is that somebody waving at us? Somebody that is 5’11” and orange?

Art demonstrating to Tessa that butane cans are our friends and not to be feared. What’s for dinner?

Our camp site for the night, nestled in the grove of sugi pine trees at the base of Waiahole. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

The audio has been deleted to protect the innocent. Claims of partially obstructed breathing from the male side of the camp were dubiously made.

Cinja’s group came down from the mountains to crash our camp site. Group photo left to right: Art, Tessa, Katie, Tess, Somphet, myself, Cinja and Leslie.

The group heading towards Poamoho and an unfortunate date with rolling. And not rolling with laughter either.

Back on the ridge line to see … well nothing.

Art trying to be one with the sign. Lean more to the left. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

The cloudy start to our constant climbing for the day. Photo by Art Young.

Why wait for the water, when the water comes to you? Photo by Tessa Bugay.

The group making their way down to another meadow and one of my old camp sites.

Passing through a landslide area that seems to be slowly being taken over by clumps of white lichen?

The spiderwebs on the trail were catching nothing but dewdrops and our faces.

Low clearance trees.

Smile for the camera. Photo by Art Young.

We quickly passed through the once bee infested ridge line to start our soggy hike up the hill. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

High clearance trees. Somebody lost their Garmin GPS in the general vicinity. Need another Garmin to locate the missing Garmin.

Time for some hot food and a hot belly. Both inside and outside. Photo by Katie Bingham.

Sorry, no free rides here. Photo by Katie Bingham

The ridge line keeping the clouds at bay on the Windward side.

Need a helping hand or just a good hand? Photo by Art Young.

Katie crossing another meadow to stay on the ridge line.

It appeared the ridge line was slowly breaking up and dissipating the clouds back into the atmosphere. Photo by Katie Bingham.

Only seen by the three of us, the person in the front just got to hear stories about it. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

Looking back at the mountainous terrain we had covered this past weekend. Photo by Katie Bingham.

Going through the tree tunnel. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

Leaving the ridge line for the meadow with the running creek. Running did you say? Photo by Tessa Bugay.

Seeking water in stagnant pools.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s our picture being taken!

Leaving the creek with our bags slightly heavier but content knowing we would not be dehydrated anytime soon.

Art on his throne of mossy ohia trees.

The group making their way around the tricky turn.

Going down the ridge line. And back up. We should be used to it by now. Photo by Art Young.

Reaching the summit of Manana. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

The group ascending the ridge to join me at the 2,660′ knob.

Katie tried to capture the steam coming off of Art’s overheated body, but only ended up photographing Tessa taking a selfie.

Our last group photo of the day.

Going up and down the 5.5 miles of roller coaster ridge line that can’t come to an end soon enough.

Enjoying the views from the helipad. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

A big shout out to Chris who met us at the picnic shelter with a bag of fried chicken and a cooler of cold carbonated Coke. Photo by Tessa Bugay.

Exiting the trail into the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and our ride home. Photo by Katie Bingham.

Our weekend camping hike covered 16.8 miles through rugged terrain and jaw dropping scenery when Mother Nature permitted them. Fun times with good friends. Thanks to Chris for taking us back to our cars. Post hike meal at Zippy’s. The nearby Popeyes was sorely tempting, but we just had chicken as our appetizer. Next stop was Zippy’s after all.

Note: I have been made aware that some hikers have been using my blog as a hiking guide and getting lost on the trails. Please note that this blog was made to document the hike for the crew(s) that did it. That is why some of my comments will seem to have no relevance or meaning to anybody outside of the crew(s) that hiked that trail. My blog was never meant as a hiking guide, so please do not treat it as such. If you find inspiration and entertainment from these hikes, that is more than enough. If you plan on replicating these hikes, do so in the knowledge that you should do your own research accordingly as trail conditions, access, legalities and so forth are constantly in flux. What was current today is most likely yesterdays news. Please be prepared to accept any risks and responsibilities on your own as you should know your own limitations, experience and abilities before you even set foot on a trail, as even the “simplest” or “easiest” of trails can present potential pitfalls for even the most “experienced” hikers.

Tagged as: kipapa summit, koolau summit ridge trail, koolau summit trail, ksrt, kst, manana summit, manana trail, pauao junction, poamoho cabin, poamoho summit, poamoho trail, schofield-waikane junction, waiawa gap, waikane-waiahole junction