We visited Schofield Barracks to climb the 2,883 foot mountain of Pu’u Hapapa, a trail that is reportedly rarely hiked and maintained. The last time we were here, we had hiked Pu’u Kalena, which ended with us on top of Oahu’s second highest mountain.
Kolekole Pass Rock
The trailhead is clearly marked by signs that say “Warning Dangerous Trails Ahead.” We went down the dirt path which led us up wooden steps and arrived at the Kolekole Pass Rock or Pohaku Hupeloa, which was supposedly used as a chopping block for some unfortunate Hawaiians. After one of our hiking group, Lianne, demonstrated how the rock was used, we continued around a communications tower and took the next two left forks.
The notched ridge
We came to this open meadow, where views of Lualualei valley awaited us at the edge and then we saw the ridge that we had to climb in order to get to the top, we would start from the left going to the right, until we made the summit of Pu’u Hapapa.
Paper bark trees
We walked past more danger signs on the far left of the meadow to get back on the trail which soon entered a grove of paper bark trees, that we followed to get to the top of the ridge.
First notch
We used the dirt and grass trail that is on the left hand side of the first notch to make the climb. To mix things up, when we came back down, we climbed down the rockface of the first notch which made it a tad more challenging.
Looking back
Looking back, we saw the rock formation that juts out right before the first notch.
Second notch
When we started going up the second notch, the wind really started gusting and we actually started to feel a little chilly.
Ridge
After we climbed the two notches, it was pretty much straight forward ridge hiking to the top of Pu’u Hapapa. You know you are almost to the summit, when you come across the fence that is supposed to keep the goats and pigs out.
Top of Pu'u Hapapa
It took us about two hours to reach the top of Pu’u Hapapa, with great views of Lualualei valley and the Waianae coast below us.
Mount Ka'ala and Pu'u Kalena
Looking to our right, we saw Kolekole Pass and the Waianae mountain range. We also noticed that some hikers had stapled toy soldiers to the slats that marked the top of the mountain.
Central Oahu
A view of Schofield Barracks, which is where the toy soldiers came from real soldiers?
That's the ridge we're supposed to be on!
On our way down, we took a right turn by mistake, which would have made our hike into a loop except we didn’t know how far off we would end up at. So we ended up backtracking up the ridge to go back down the correct ridge. Nothing like a little extra cardio exercise to spice up one’s hike!
Bunny ears
Going back down the trail, we noticed that the Easter Bunny had left his/her ears on one of the trees. We didn’t find any Easter eggs waiting for us at our cars after 4 1/2 hours hiking, so we had lunch at Dot’s in Wahiawa and called it a day.
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