Koolau Summit Trail 8-day thru hike by Chase Norton--Chapter 4: The Trip, Day 5 Waimano to North Haiku

Day 5 (03/29/12) Waimano - N. Haiku, 8.5 hrs, 5.3 miles

Total Pack Weight: 26.6125 lb.

Get up early regardless. If you move fast enough you can reach N. Haiku Stairs. At the end of the day the feeling of how far we have truly gone will start to kick in. Water source at Waimalu Middle. There is camping at both Aiea and N. Haiku. If arrive at Aiea past 3:30 then camp there. I prefer under the power lines due to wind blockage. If the winds are gentle enough, the summit offers amazing camping and sunsets/rises. It will result in a push the next day from Aiea to South Haiku stairs and on to Bowman.

• Waimano - Waimalu Middle 2hr-2hr 30min
• Waimalu Middle - Aiea 4hr-4hr 30min
• Aiea to Hidden Haiku 2 hr
• Camp near in building to block wind
  

Bail: Waimalu Middle, Aiea

Pulling myself out of a deep sleep I woke up to clear skies and calm winds. This was the first comfortable and planned night sleeping without a tarp in just a bivy and I loved every minute of it. I felt very rested and ready to take on the day ahead of me. This section would involve a steep climb immediately and continual ups and downs until reaching Aiea and if not prepared can be similar to the previous day.

I did morning chores, made breakfast and hit the trail by 7:30 expecting a 3pm arrival in Aiea based on last experiences. Climbed out of the Waimano and passed the old remains of a hiker who spent the night unplanned out on the trail. Broken headlamp, water bottles and emergency blanket have all been here for over a year. So sad as whoever stayed at this spot was very close to the Waimano trail. Pressed on up and over two more peaks and towards Waimalu middle. Reached it by 8:30! Then dropped down to the wind swept area where there is a puddle I have collected water at in the past and seems to be fairly constant. After collecting and tableting, I crossed over to the side ridge that makes ascent easier and summited by 9 am.

Not a single cloud in the sky gave me views unlike any other time I’ve been up there. I could look out and see the power lines of Aiea in the distance. Anytime you can see your destination the going is somehow easier. Sat up there for some time before making the descent from Waimalu middle heading towards Aiea. The descent has some thin regions and I dropped down in elevation fairly quickly. I think the descent is easier on the body then ascending it. To be honest, this whole section just flew by without much thought.

I lifted my head and staring me in the face were the Aiea power lines. Without stopping I kept climbing until I laid upon the wide flat region of Aiea summit where I had camped at in November. Looking aver 3 hours. Unpacked and sat down to clear skies and a spam hot mustard wrap for lunch. I could look back on Kahana valley and see the route I came from and the route I would be going. Ahead of me were the saddles, challenges that I’d been trying to not think about to allow for good sleep and calm nerves. I decided that noon was far too soon to set up camp and while I absolutely love the camp at Aiea summit I knew I could find good camp in the N. Haiku shack or possibly descend half of the Moanalua saddle and camp by the creek.

Packed back up, said my good byes and continued on around 12:20 pm. There are two climbs one must do between Aiea and the N. Haiku shack and then a major descent next to a land slide. These were all negotiated and I appeared in the shack doorway by 1 pm! This is where I made one of a few mistakes of the trek. Hard to look back on a successful trip and find mistakes but this is one. I decided to wait and spend the night in the shack instead of pushing on to descend half of the saddle to creek camping. Next time, creek camping will be had! 

I arrived at the shack and dropped my gear off. First thing was to make sure I could sleep here. Had to brush the rusty metal into one corner. Moved a concrete block over a hole where possible rodents seemed to be entering from. Cleared the millions of spiders that have come to call the shack home. Set up my sleep system and tied out guy lines to make an almost torture looking device (which I would find later it was). After making it livable, I tried to find good spots for relaxing and immediately started to notice my problem. No where to sit that was sheltered from the elements and did not have rust every where. Finally I found a spot on the steps in front of the shack and brought my sitting pad over to it with my Kindle. 

Unable to focus because of how early it was I looked at the cloud free S. Haiku and the saddle for probably around two hours playing a mind game of continuing onwards but deciding I would tackle each saddle on a fresh night of sleep and I wanted to sort through all my gear and discard every bit of unnecessary item.

North of the shack in a small valley is what looks like the remains of a crashed plane. I stared at it for a while and sent some messages to people I thought might know of it but no one had any information. It is clearly unnatural and unlike anything I’ve seen before. I still have no information on it but will do a scouting mission to see if I can get over there. It looked like one could contour to it.

I shuffled around “camp” as the saddle sat under perfect weather laughing at me and I felt very restless. It was not until the sun started to set that I could convince myself going further was not an option and I had to accept my decision. Pulled out the cooking gear and heated up some spam while I went through all of my gear and food pulling out what I had learned to live without over the past 5 days and putting it into a pile in the corner. The majority of my excess items came from food. Other UL backpackers have told me that often we pack our fears and it is clear from my pack reduction that I fear being hungry. I dropped every piece of food that I had brought as snacks or comfort consisting mainly of trail mixes, candy and cliff bars. The gear dropped were my gaiters which had failed me miserably, my knee strap in case of knee injury, and an extra pair of injinji socks. Combined with the decreasing water, my pack was feeling really good for the saddles the following days.

I chowed down on dinner and wrote out an email before slipping into my bed of hell. I had been down for a few minutes when I realized my guy line setup restricted my movement and was tightening around my stomach making sleeping difficult. Of course, I did not fix the problem immediately but instead thought I would just fall asleep. I think stopping at 1pm also made for sleep being difficult as I had just sat on a step for 6 hours. I rolled around until about 10:30pm when I realized that my groundsheet protecting me from the metal underneath my bivy and inflatable pad had slipped out from under me. This left my pad exposed and with all my restless tossing and turning I was worried I could pop my pad and leave me in a worse situation. So I got out of bed and tried to fix everything but never could figure out the correct solution. Then the guy line attached to my bivy face netting broke and the netting fell on my face making things even more annoying. To add on to this my sunburn was making me burn up and the shack has zero air flow with a very hard ground. I ended up stripping down to nothing and laying on top of my sleeping bag on pad and rigged up a fix to get the netting off my face. By this point it was 1am and, of course, somehow I was 100% awake. I went through many periods of trying to sleep but failing however finally I was granted some slack and remember last looking at my watch around 3:27.