I decided to hike Mariner’s Ridge Trail today. Scratch that. The trail is off-limits, do not hike that trail. I can rest easy now, as I have done my part. To see what I’m rambling about, click here. Instead, I met up with Donald, Marvin, Randy and Ryan at the end of Waimano Home Road at 5am. The plan was to hike from Waiahole Uka to Waimano Trail. Key word : plan. Events would dictate otherwise. Matt picked us up and deposited us at the start of the Waiahole Trail. Thanks Matt!

Sunrise

Walking in the dark valley, we got off track a bit until Randy regained the trail for us.

We meet again

Instead of going with the flow like we did last time, we went against gravity and made our way up the ridge which was thickly tangled with uluhe ferns. Not fun. Hiking tip: tall hikers out in front helps a bit to clear the path. Also wearing long sleeves and long pants helps to blunt the uluhe ferns clawing at you.

I should’ve had a V8

It was a relentless and steady climb up. There are ropes on the steeper sections of the ridge for assistance if needed, but to paraphrase the saying ” You never know where that rope’s been.”

We need the secondary photographer

During the climb up, Marvin didn’t feel well and decided to turn around and catch the bus back home. Now we were left without our KST guide. We decided to forge ahead anyway, as who wanted to go back through that uluhe fern mess again? Photo by Donald Truesdell.

Scenic shot

Click here for the larger image. Photo by Ryan Meyer.

Lunch spot

We topped out at Waiahole Uka on a clear day to soak in the views and take a load off our feet. Photo by Donald Truesdell.

On the KST…for now…

Stretching our legs out before they got too cold, we resumed our hike and made our way around the grove of Sugi pine trees as Randy scouted the hill ahead. Our feet soon trampled the remnants of the old Kipapa cabin as we made our way on what we thought was the KST trail.

Waiahole Uka

Looking back at Waiahole Uka sandwhiched in between Pu’u Ohulehule and Pu’u Manamana.

And we start going down…the wrong way…

We soon shredded any hope that we were on the KST trail as we started dropping elevation and the Koolau mountains became more distant in the background.

It comes out somewhere…

The die was cast already and we had made our choice, not the right one, but we figured the ridge had to come out somewhere. And we still had plenty of daylight left. But no clue as to what ridge we were hiking on.

Sleeps 8

Shortly after passing this un-named cabin that apparently was the property of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the trail soon looked like Mother Nature had reclaimed it lock, stock and barrel. The heavily overgrown trail lasted for several hours and significantly stalled our forward progress, until we got a break in the form of a trail clearing crew, that was clearing the last three miles until the trailhead. Thank you! The crew also told us that we were on the Kipapa or Koa Ridge. Mystery solved. Photo by Ryan Meyer.

Kipapa trailhead

We arrived at the Kipapa trailhead, somewhat scratched and poked at, but none the worse for wear.

Thanks for the beers!

The jeep road took us straight to a couple of friendly ranch hands that offered us ice cold Corona’s. Talk about Aloha! We needed that liquid nourishment to help us finish the last five miles of roads we needed to get back to civilization.

The long road out

On the way out, we passed horses put out to pasture, grazing cows and an assortment of farm vegetables.

H-2

After crossing over the H-2 freeway, we passed by the Waiahole Ditch System which was created in the early 1900’s to irrigate the Leeward side with water from the Windward side. We soon crossed Ka Uka Blvd and plopped down on the grass in front of Waipio Starbucks, until Ryan and Donald’s friend came and picked us up. Thanks C-Pot!

GPS Tracks

The hike was 13.7 miles or 16-17 miles, depending on whose GPS was reading correctly that day. All in all, it was still a grinder hike by any definition.