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Today's main event was a swim/climb to Chinamans Hat on the east
side of the island. We'd done this three years earlier, but came
back a second time because it had been one of the highlights of that
trip. Afterwards, the others joined Mom for a zipline tour while I
went off on my own to tag a few other short summits, keeping me busy
for the rest of the afternoon.
Chinamans Hat
A fun little adventure featuring a quarter mile swim/walk from Kualoa
Point to Chinamans Hat, the swim/walk dependent on the tides. We
used
as floatation devices (I used the dry bag instead)
and swam out in about 30 minutes. The weather was gorgeous today and
the outing was popular, with several dozen others sharing the island
with us though most had come over on kayaks. We landed on the rocks
on ,
stored our gear and
to the summit with a short bit of just below the top.
Oddly, we had to for the five
minutes we were
up there. A was making their way up as we
headed down.
There's an alternate class 3 route that we used to
of the
main route to avoid a bottleneck at the crux. After
to the
water we headed back, this time mostly walking our way, which we
found actually easier than swimming. In all we spent about an hour
and a half on the outing - good fun, this one.
Pu'u Pueo
Pu'u Pueo lies two miles WSW of Chinamans Hat, a point on the
2mi-long SE Ridge of Pu'u O Hulehule. An unsigned, hard-to-find trail
starts at in Waikane. One walks past
the last house and , then sort of has to
for the first couple hundred yards until
and a good trail become apparent.
The trail follows the ridge through forest understory to start, then
up a with
as one climbs higher. There are numerous ,
none needed in dry conditions
like today. I passed a party of three young adults on their way
down. I didn't ask which summit they'd been to, but they looked a
little too relaxed and clean to have reached Pu'u O Hulehule. I
reached Pu'u Pueo in about 40min with a few sprinkles falling
from some passing clouds. Not enough to get wet, yet enough to make
a weak rainbow looking to Pu'u Kanehoalani. To the
northwest rose , another 1,300ft higher and
more
than a mile away, connected by a narrow ridge to Pu'u Pueo. The trail
continues over Pueo and up to the higher summit, but I didn't have
the 3-4hrs that this extra effort might take - plus I'd already
visited the higher summit by another route. After a short break I
headed back the way I'd come, finishing before 4p.
Kaimuki
The rest of these easy summits are located on the south side of the
island, near Waikiki and Honolulu. Kaimuki is the highpoint of a
small, "" in a busy neighborhood. The highpoint
was adorned with a cell tower and, for the holiday, an electric
light .
Rocky Hill
This is the highpoint of a huge tract of land on which sits the
exclusive Punahou High School, $26K/yr current tuition cost. Its most
famous alumni - Barack Obama. I expected they might have equally
expensive security, but that didn't seems to be the case. The easy
way to
reach the highpoint is via Kakela Pl on
, with a gate
opening to the
Alumni House. Though signed for No Trespassing, things seem a bit
relaxed. I walked through the recycling area to find a garden and
leading to . There is a small
view bench found there and nice views overlooking
and .
Punchbowl Crater
Punchbowl Crater is home to the National Memorial Cemetery of the
Pacific, dedicated to war veterans of the various Pacific wars -
WWII, Korea, Vietnam. The highpoint is found at the western end,
above the footpath leading to the . There's
no trail leading to it, but one can (maybe) find some
leading directly up to it from the east. The summit features a
a hawaiian-style . Good views overlooking Honolulu and .
Pu'u Kapu
This is a very minor summit in the
. There
is an empty lot between two homes to provide access to
.
Climb the lava wall out front or the fence. Watch out for dogs in
the house to the left. Pretty lame summit, really.
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