Ascent of Kawaikini (Waialeale)--Lou Hibbard (2017)

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I did this as part of family vacation- they stayed on Oahu. I dayhiked Kawaikini.

I drove to Mohihi Trailhead in fading light - gravel road all in the dark and an adventure. It was odd to have this marginal road with the fancy bridges and yield signs.

I slept in truck and started hiking at 5:19 AM. It was cool to have so much ridgetop hiking in early section. The river crossing involved a skip across boulders. I would have went later in trip but weather looked good now.

I had never bothered with using a GPS track before - this time I tried but data truncated. I have an old GPS. I only had data to near the creek crossing. I never had used Tracbac before except a neighborhood try 2 days before - that was interesting.

The trail was overgrown in places but still could be followed. I only lost it twice momentarily on the way back.

I hadn't memorized all the old trip reports I looked at as good as I thought so the fenceline was confusing. Ribbons ran out after cone so backtracked and took left fence variation. There were lots of options so I just kept going toward summit and it all worked out. The best tactic is to just keep the fence on the left the whole way (see pic below) even if ribbons run out.

pic credit: zoink
On the final ridgeline I saw 4 goats. The clouds were blowing in and out. The Summit was just a bump in the ridge.

But there was no rain all day, so I was very lucky. I did carry a very lightweight tent and pad for emergencies but no sleeping bag.

I was back to truck at 8:15 PM. What a cool adventure! I loved this hike. Maybe being in the jungle made it more unique.

Perhaps on this trip more than any other having read old trip reports was very important - although I still messed up the fence hiking on the way up. --Lou Hibbard

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 26, 2018 at 4:00 PM

    nice. lemme know if you wanna go again, i'm on kauai

    ReplyDelete

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