Extreme Hiking Hawaii

For years I have driven the Likelike Hwy and stared up at the jagged ridges on the windward side of the Wilson tunnel and wondered if they were climbable. Turns out (at least) one of them is. During a recent decent of “Bowman East” with August, Duc, and Laredo… I had time to study those windward ridges from above and later from more of a side angle. Coupled with observations made from Hoomaluhia below, I picked out a route that had potential. So on the last day of 2011 I set off with Chenay to check it out. We started from a neighborhood in Kaneohe around 9:30 – late start since the plan was only to “scout” it. With two major obstacles (H3 and Likelike) between us and the ridge, even the approach required some pre-planning. But a few looks at the topo maps and some common sense in regards to drainage meant we would avoid becoming roadkill. With obstacles 1 & 2 behind us, the task was to find the ridge I had in mind. Looking up, I was reminded of why it was important not