Weekend hiking

On Saturday, David and I finally rolled out of bed around 10:30am (lazy bums!) and then decided to find an easy hike in order to get us out of the house for some physical activity. We drove up the Pali Highway, which cuts through the island from Honolulu to the windward side of the island (near Kanehoe and Kailua) and goes up and over (and sometimes under) some big mountains. We stopped at the summit, at the Pali Lookout where you can see some absolutely stunning views of the windward side of the island. It is incredibly windy up there but it feels nice. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring our camera along so David took some pictures with his phone. Not the best quality, but at least it gives you an idea of how gorgeous it is up there:


This is looking down at Kaneohoe on the windward (or east) side of the island.

The hike David and I went on was off the Pali Lookout. We walked about a mile down an old access road that I think was once part of the old highway. It's been completely overrun by plants and guava trees and at some parts, the road was almost entirely gone. Once we got on the trail, which was slightly muddy, we hiked up and around the side of the mountain, at times running almost parallel to the H3. We hiked for another 1-2 miles before turning around and heading back to the lookout and our car. It was a nice hike, slightly wet and muddy at parts, but nicely shady although there was a lot of fallen and rotting fruit on the trail which gave off a sickly sweet smell. We thought there was a waterfall about 1.5 miles in, but we were sadly mistaken. The trail went on for about 10 miles and we met other hikers who told us the waterfall was about 2 hours away. We decided at that point to turn around and head back but not before snapping another picture of us nice and sweaty at an opening in the trees.

I hope we can go back sometime soon and I'll try to take my camera so I can actually get some good shots. In any case, it was nice to try out one of Oahu's many hikes. Unfortunately most of the cool hikes are "illegal" but that shouldn't stop us for too much longer.