Extreme Hiking Hawaii

It's been years since the HTMC has hiked the Kahuku Trail. Perhaps some long-time members might know when the club last hiked Kahuku. My guess is that it's been at least 20 years. Access restrictions at the makai end of the trail might have led to its disuse, but recent exploratory jaunts into the area by club members have not only resulted in the re-opening of the route but also a solution to the access bugaboo. What does that spell? K-A-H-U-K-U. The club will be hiking it again. Today, a group of us gave the route a nice going over in preparation for the members-only club hike on Sunday 10/7/2001. The indubitable duo of Jay Feldman and Wil Kawano will coordinate the hike. Today's TM roll call: Mabel Kekina, Jay Feldman, Wil Kawano, Bill Gorst, Mike Algiers, Kay Lynch, Brandon Stone, Dick Cowan, Brenda Cowan, Gordon Muschek, Connie Muschek, Tom Yoza, Ken Suzuki, June Miyasato, Grant Oka, Georgina Oka, Jason Sunada, Ed Gilman, Art Isbell, Larry Oswald, Kris Corliss, ...

Exploring the remote Molokai wilderness - Traversing the divide between Wailau and Halawa Valleys by John B. Hall  PART I  One of the earliest outer island trips I took with the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club was a short jaunt to Molokai sometime in the early 1960s. We flew to Molokai and were driven to Halawa Valley. There we donned our packs and hiked up the jeep road that runs north, parallel to the coast, climbs into the hills above Lamaloa Head and then winds for 4 or 5 miles through the hills above the north shore of the island until it ends in range land at the edge of scrubby native forest near a small peak called Pohakuloa. Here we camped in the cow pasture. I had some difficulty in finding a place to sling my hammock, since the pasture was essentially treeless, but I finally found a small dry wash with the stumps of long dead trees at appropriate distances apart on either side, and hung my hammock across this. I can't remember whether we spent 1 or 2 nights in ...

  Author : Ryan Moss" < m.l.d.video@gmail.com > Ryan Moss   As for my journey... I would first would like to thank anyone whoever cleared a trail, tied a ribbon as a trail marker, pioneered those saddles and just wasn't afraid to go out and explore. I owe a huge thanks to first off my family for always being there to support me throughout this journey. Kris and Martina Harms for always making me feel at home and giving me a place to stay every time I flew in to attempt this journey. Not only taking me in, but helping me through the healing process as I had to lick my wounds a few times. Windy Purdue for dropping me off at the trail head in Pupukea on December 27th  (2013) at 7am and being there to pick me up at 6pm on January 1st 2014. The same goes for Kris and Martina who greeted me with a champagne shower on that final day. I need to also thank Fancis Joy, Marcus Greigo, Laredo, Jeremy Kreis, Thomas Engle, and Katie Ersbak for h...

Author :  Pete Clines <peteclines@YAHOO.COM> My long-time hiker partner, Dave Webb, was visiting Hawaii from his ( slightly ) colder home in Oregon , so I got to take him on one of my favorite hikes. Between jeep - road - walking segments, we got to spend three adventurous hours in Kaha wainui Gulch, negotiating 18 waterfalls and a crazy hau tangle along the way.   Not surprising, the busted up kayak was still present. However, this time it was between the hau tan gle and the first falls. Last May it was at the base of the 8 th falls – a go o d distance upstream . How this thing gets downstream despite all the obstacles is a mystery. The water level must rise A LOT to accomplish this. In any case, it was busted in two now, with the pieces several feet apart and well above water level. Here is Dave hoping for a big swell to ride it out. The flow was about perfect this time – not too low and stagnant, and not too high and dangerous. We didn ’ t get rained on, a...

Author :  Pete Clines <peteclines@YAHOO.COM> Having hiked Pauao ridge from the water tank to the Koolau summit several times, and having scrambled along the tricky section of the same ridge from Puu Piei to the coast a couple times (Piei Makai)…. I thought it would be interesting to complete the remaining section in the middle. Chenay Borja was up for it, and we headed into Kahana valley on foot sometime around 9-9:30am. We endured the long road walk to the water tank at the foot of the Pauao up-trail that I have become too familiar with. Once on trail, I was bummed to see that the uluhe was already growing back from a recent clearing that was done here. Upon reaching the ridgeline, we paused for a snack at the clearing before heading makai with Piei far in the distance. With knowledge of the terrain and vegetation on the extreme ends of this ridge, I explained to Chenay that we would face the hardest bushwhack at the beginning due to uluhe…with that tapering off along the wa...

Author :  Pete Clines <peteclines@YAHOO.COM> “ Hiking is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get. ” That held true for several aspects of last Sunday’s outing. The weather, trail conditions, and even the route would all be a surprise when Duc, August, and I started off into Manoa Valley at 8:40am. First, the route. I originally planned to lead us up Manoa stream and bypass some waterfalls until we could no longer progress, and then we would climb to a side ridge and decide what to do from there. Simple enough, as Laredo and I had done this previously, encountering 17 falls before we decided to loop out another way. But on this day we only got past two falls – by climbing banyan trees as seen below – before we made a split - second decision to keep climbing up the ridge we were on instead of following the stream. Figured we were already pointing that direction.... So up we continued, sometimes with evidence of previous hikers – a swath - and s...