Blustery weather had rained on our saddles parade. Chris, Glenn, Jose and myself decided to go with our backup hike. Go West hikers!

Good morning

Kolekole Pass was open to the public again. Early hikers get the trail all to themselves. Not a soul in sight.

Hello again

Returned to the forbidden mountain to complete some unfinished business.

The fun begins

Glenn going up the steep climb at the base.

Pop up hikers

Chris and Jose coming up from the base.

Greener pastures

Jose headed towards the saddle section.

Scrambling

One crumbly rock at a time. Photo by Jose Luis Delaki.

Rainbow

Where there are rainbows, there are rain. Not far behind.

Windy hill

Breezy winds kept us cool on the climb up, nothing like the gusty winds that were blowing us around last time.

Cacti hill

Watch your handholds.

Rock and a hard place

Jose climbing in between the rocks.

Zit rock

Chris and Glenn scrambling their way up. Well one is scrambling, the other is pausing.

Pu’u Ka’ilio

Group photo at the 1,940’summit left to right: Jose, Chris, myself and Glenn.

Waianae coast

Time to explore the backside of Pu’u Ka’ilio.

Gloves are on

Must be some serious hiking ahead.

Hiking interruptus

Hold on, I have to take this call.

Cooking with Jose

A tender paddle ready to be plucked, boiled and grilled.

Morning dew

Prickly pear flower. No fruits.

Lualualei Valley

The coastal valley used to be the center of volcanic activity millions of years ago.

Hikers incontinence

I was about to climb down this rock face when I felt wetness in my lower extremities. Had I peed myself? I checked and found that my camelbak bite piece had fallen off and water was pouring out of my tube. The other tube. Photo by Jose Luis Delaki.

Rock gym

Jose climbing his way down.

Checking it out

Hmmm, doesn’t look that bad. Famous last words. Photo by Jose Luis Delaki.

Careful contouring

We climbed down the side to avoid what looked like impassable steep rock faces.

Rock cathedral

Mountain inspiration.

Scenic point

The hill had panoramic views of the Waianae coastline and mountains. Stunning all around.

Seriously, again?

Call for Mister Toyama.

Hop, skip and jump

Jose showing his rock moves.

Hiking the shark

Glenn climbing up the rock fin. Banned in 27 countries. Photo by Chris Chun.

Perspectives

It just looks steep. Looks are deceiving. Photo by Jose Luis Delaki.

Praying

Dark clouds rolling our way. Start or stop praying? Photo by Jose Luise Delaki.

Rock dikes

Jose trying to levitate.

Crumbly ridge

Rock rubble made this mountain. Can you tell?

Looking back

Chris scooting his way down.

Steep drop ahead

Jose checking it out.

Does this reach?

Time to break out the webbing. Photo by Jose Luis Delaki.

Leap of faith

Chris making his way down the rock face whose base was severely eroded.

Rainy rocks

Rain, rain go away.

Finning the shark

An acquired climb. Tasty.

Looking back

All the crazy climbing sections behind us.

End of the hill

We found sheer cliffs at the end of the hill. Time to beat the bushes back to the road.

Going down

Going down the overgrown side of the hill.

Less traveled road

Walking back to the trailhead.

Guarding the mountains

Group photo in one of the abandoned guard shacks that dot the lonely road.

All pau

The crew walking back on the winding road and admiring the rock formations that we had just climbed over.

GPS Tracks

The fun rocky ride covered a scant 3.65 miles through rain and rainbows. Post hike meal at Thai Loa. Family style. Pass the Evil Jungle curry.

I got an excuse to break in my spanking brand new Costco backpack this weekend. Met up with Chris B, Chris C and Thessa to explore the rolling hills of Wahiawa.

Water tanks

We shouldered our 40 pound backpacks and disappeared into the hills.

The hills

The group making their way down the first hill through a stand of eucalyptus trees.

Dry stream

Passing through uprooted trees scattered like so many matchsticks.

Going down

We climbed up a hill, hit a switchback and followed the trail down to our first stream crossing.

North Fork Kaukonahua Stream

Took off our shoes and waded to the opposite bank in clear, cold waters.

Going up

The ample leaves surrounding us came in handy to dry our feet off. Climbing up another hill. Theme for the day.

Group photo

Cameras and monkeys fall out of trees. No monkeys around today. Photo by Chris Bautista.

Follow the ribbon

We followed this ribbon down into a thickly vegetated valley floor with false drops, so we turned around and headed back up again.

Let’s try this way

The trail looped back the way we had come from, so we found another side trail to explore.

Looks like a trail

Let’s see where this goes.

Poamoho stream

The trail dropped us down into another stream. Photo by Chris Chun.

Hills

Climbing up another hill peppered with paperbark trees.

Deja vu

Muttered curses filled the air as I topped the hill only to realize we had looped back again!

Ridge trail

Let’s find out where this ridge will take us.

Kaukonahua stream

We meet again. It the waters were higher, we might as well have gone tubing! Photo by Chris Chun.

Come on down

We crossed the stream and picked up a faint trail that soon disappeared as the uluhe got deeper and denser as we bushwhacked our way up another hill. Losing daylight. Time to turn around and set up camp. We didn’t lug these tents around for nothing.

Campsite

Group photo left to right: Chris B, Chris C, Thessa and myself.

What’s for dinner?

Cup of cramps. All night long. Photo by Thessa Bugay.

Sunset

The day was drawing to a close. No more exploring for today. Photo by Chris Bautista.

Good night

Snoring. Cheese Farts. Eating. Rain. Tree branches creaking. Sleep. Not necessarily in that order. Photo by Thessa Bugay.

Good morning

Wakey, wakey eggs and bakey. Or in our case, leftover MREs.

Back on the trail

We broke our campsite down, packed our bags and headed back out.

Uluhe forest

Nice to look at, not nice to be in it.

Rising waters

Runoff and rain had swollen and colored the muddy brown stream. Photo by Thessa Bugay.

Until we meet again

Recycled walking sticks.

Playtime

The looping hike covered roughly 6 miles of rolling hills, pig trails, hunter trails, hiking trails, ridges and streams. Real easy to get lost in these hills. Post hike meal at Zippys. The eye is bigger than the stomach.

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.