Continued...
With more rain forecast over the Ko'olau Range, I headed to the drier, sunnier
side of the island at Makaha. Ryan came with me, intending to run, fish and do
beachy sort of things while I trampsed about in the grassy hills. It was raining
on both sides of the H3 tunnel through the Ko'olau Range but by the time we got
on the H1 heading west it was almost all blue skies. Temps would be in the
80s for much of the hiking, on the warm side, but once above about 1,500ft
there was a fine breeze that helped keeps things quite nice for the upper
elevations.
Puu Kea'au
This is one of the highpoints in the Makua Kea'au Forest Reserve which lies
between the Kea'au Valley to the north and the Makaha Valley to the south. The
summit lies only a few miles from the coast, but rises to an elevation of
2,650ft, a fairly steep climb. There is no maintained trail on the route, but
one can find a use trail in places, more often used by the feral goats that
graze the slopes on either side than by people. The cross-country travel is
pretty easy along the grassy ridge which does not become more heavily vegetated
until sometime after the summit. Other TRs describe hiking further to two
additional summits, but those may more easily be reached by another route from
Kea'au Valley (in any event, I planned to make a second outing to those later
in the week). I also read reports of bushwhacking in the beginning of the hike
to reach an old road which switchbacks partway up the initial slope. I found
that completely unnecessary, instead
from the Makaha Beach Park parking lot
on the east side of the highway and simply heading through the tall grass to
the ridge. It makes for some decent scrambling, first up to
with a flag
depicting a pink breast cancer ribbon with a bunch of names on it (survivors?),
then to a pair of old
overlooking the coast. An
powered by a gasoline engine is found just below these, perhaps used to bring
supplies and personnel up the hill. The only other folks I found on the
route were a few local teens from the pillboxes, one of
them carrying a BB gun. The ridge reaches a highpoint at
before dropping a few hundred feet and resuming the climb. The views from the
ridge are quite fine, looking and the coast
as well as to the
higher summits of the Wai'anae Range, and only seem to get better the higher
you go. It took me a little under 2hrs at a moderate pace to reach the summit.
It was so lovely up there taking in
with a cool breeze blowing that
I did something I rarely do - sit a spell. After about 30min of lying about, I
picked up my things and started back down. I took a shorter, steeper route
down . The ridge goes at class 2-3, nothing really
hard, dropping to a pair of city
and then Kili Rd which leads back to
the highway. I found a surprising amount of trash on this route, picking up
what I could and stashing it in my pack, pockets and carrying it in a small
bundle in my hands. Seems the rock outcrops above the water tanks may be
semi-popular with some of the local teens to hang out and party. I walked back
along Kili Rd (which sadly is used by others as a local dumping ground on
either side of the road)
to the highway and turned north to return to the park I'd started
at. Ryan came driving by when I was less than 100yds from the parking lot -
he'd taken the Jeep for a drive and was getting back a little after our 2p
meeting time, but perfect timing as it turned out.
Mauna Kuwale
Ryan had had a good day fishing, and was happy to spend another hour at it when
I told him I could do another short hike if he'd like more time. I dropped him
off at Pokai Bay Beach Park in Wai'anae and drove up Wai'anae Valley Rd
intending
to climb Kaua'opu'u, only half a mile from the road. It looked to be a bit
more effort than I expected
with a stream crossing and I didn't think I'd get back in an hour.
Just southwest of it is another lower summit with more prominence in Mauna
Kuwale - and only half the distance.
I north of the summit between two homesteads on the
south side of the road and hoofed it .
No trail again, but not really
hard. One just has to watch out for the lava rocks hidden in the tall grass
and watch out for cliffs on the way up and down. There is a 7-foot
at the 855-foot summit with a neat view of
over the Wai'anae Range to the east and Wai'anae Valley
to . The hike took but
30min car-to-car. And now back to get Ryan and go find some kalua pork...
Continued...