Extreme Hiking Hawaii

I never thought I saw any windward ridges between Puu O Kona and Lanipo that looked climbable….but I WANTED there to be one. So to force the issue, Chenay, August, and I went on a scout trip to Waimanalo last weekend for some sight-seeing. Most of what we saw was utterly horrible, as evidenced below. Vertical ridges tightly packed together, with majorly rotten rock throughout. While hopefully observing each ridge, a group of church-goers stopped to talk with us. Upon learning why we were staring at the mountains, one of them mentioned that some “professionals” had tried unsuccessfully to climb some of those ridges in the past. Not sure what makes a “professional” but the challenge was definitely on. We agreed it would be another “dragon-slaying” adventure. (Back-story: dragons live in dangerous, remote areas like this and guard against intruders. Completing the adventure means slaying the dragon. Got it?) While almost all of these ridges were quickly dismissed as suicidal, one ...

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...