mortiz005

I'm on vacation this week (Spring Recess). Ditto for my friend Bill Melemai. We hadn't hiked together for a bunch of months, so Bill suggested an overnight backpack. His first choice was Haleakala and his second was Poamoho-Schofield. However, circumstances indicated we best not attempt these. The third option was Waimano-Waiau, and we agreed that this would work. We started at 12:45 on Tuesday afternoon at the Waimano trailhead. Bill's wife, Donna, dropped us off and she'd pick us up at the end of Kaahumanu Street at the end of our trip sometime on Wed afternoon. I was carrying a fairly light load--no more than 15 lbs. In comparison, Bill's pack was about 35. During our trip, he heard me extol the virtues of lightweight backpacking so much that he's convinced he should make modifications to what gear he'll use in the future. Our plan for Day 1 was to pack in to the five-mile marker campsite along Waimano. From there, we'd make camp then fetch wat...

Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 14:06:26 -1000 From: nota yahoo <notayahoo50@hotmail.com> Subject: Waikau overnight After hiking down the Halemauu trail I turned left on the unmaintained trail that leads across Koolau gap to the old Waikau cabin site and up to re-join the Halemauu trail near Bottomless Pit. This trail makes lots of twists and turns through the very rough lava fields. With the normal situation of hiking in the clouds it is very easy to lose your sense of direction and even to lose the trail. One area was covered by what looked like a lichen(?) forest. All the lava was covered by the gray stuff, which was from one to three inches high, and occasionally green. I was looking for some large pine trees I was told were at the cabin site but found they had been blown down long ago. As I set up my tent it began to rain lightly, after I was all set it rained more heavily and began to get dark. I was snug in my tent, having put on dry longjohns and enjoyed my dinner. Later tha...

Paying us will probably be the worst thing for the HTMC TM crew. If we ever were paid, then the amount of work we'd do, plus the quality of that work, would drop off drastically. I say this because as volunteers, with the only compensation being a couple of cold soft drinks and a piece of cheese cake (and occasionally hot dogs or meatballs) we do a helluva lot of work on Sundays. And if do say so myself, pretty damn bang-up work, too. Put a crew of paid workers up in the mountains to do what we do, and, yes, they'd get the job done. But likely in 3 to 4x the amount of time. And better? Probably not. But I'm biased. Today, we worked on the Waikane Trail, which has traditionally been tough to clear because of numerous fallen trees, fast regrowth of trailside flora, and ongoing trail slippage. In short, we have to bust tail to clear this trail. But we inevitably do a good job. And today we did a helluva job. We started at 8, commencing with a hard hour of hiking just t...

Today, the crew worked on the Kulepeamoa Ridge trail, part of the Hawaii Loa trail, and the crossover on the summit between the two for an upcoming (3/25) HTMC hike. As it always is, the starting place for the outing was in Niu Valley at the end of Anolani Street. We started at 8 and on hand were Mabel Kekina, Jay Feldman, Ken Suzuki, Carole K. Moon, Ralph Valentino, Grant Oka, Georgina Oka (16!), June Miyasato, Dick & Brenda Cowan, Connie & Gordon Muschek, Ed Gilman, Peter Kempf, Tom Yoza, Ken Mankhoff (78!), Brandon Stone, Kay Lynch, Karen, Karen's boyfriend, Karen's boyfriend's brother (didn't get the names of these two), Jason Sunada, and I. Also doing trail work for the club (Kawaewae Ridge overlooking Kaneohe) were Dusty Klein and Steve Brown. Around noon, I made walkie-talkie contact with Dusty. Soon afterward, I tried radioing someone on the HTMC Pupukea to Laie hike but did not hear a response (I once made contact with Mike Algiers via walkie-talkie ...

Thirteen members joined me today for an HTMC hike in upper Nuuanu. Hikers included Arnold Fujioka, Dave Webb, Dave Waller, Deb Kuster, Rich Jacobson, Ed Gilman, Pat Enomoto, Hiroshi Sakae, Tom Anderson, Don Piburn, Janice Nako-Piburn, Ben McBride, and Gary Christal. Wing Ng also showed up and was hiking unofficially. There were two last minute drop-outs. First off, thanks are extended to Pat and Wing who helped with the vehicle shuttle from Puiwa Road in lower Nuuanu to our starting point by the hunter check-in at the top of Nuuanu Pali Drive. We began hiking at just about 8 on the dot, and just like this past Wednesday we were joined by the same Waianae bowhunter. After we entered the forest, I stopped to brief the group about the hike and in particular reminded them about one-at-a-time-on-a-cable protocol and carefulness when climbing one after another, especially in areas with loose rock. In 15 minutes, we had reached the tunnel, where most stopped to dig out flashlights from t...

Today, Rich Jacobson, Peter Kempf, Jason Sunada, Ed Gilman, and I covered the route to be hiked for this Saturday's HTMC outing which I'll coordinate. I hiked part of the route this past Saturday but felt a need to cover the whole thing prior to make sure ribbons were up at key points along the way. And it was good that we hiked the whole deal because there were places folks might go astray without today's ribbons and trail bashing. Amen. We left a car (Ed's) at the park on Puiwa Road which is just mauka of Queen Emma Summer Palace and then drove up to our hike's starting point at the upper end of Nuuanu Pali Drive. We started hiking at 8:30 and were joined by a Waianae bow hunter, who was unfamiliar with the area and wanted to tag along. On the way to the ditch tunnel into Mo'ole Valley, Jason said he and the hunter spotted three baby pigs. This apparently was a good sign for the hunter, who did not follow us through the tunnel, ankle-deep in water for mo...

I have to lead a hike in upper Nuuanu for the club next Saturday, so I wanted to cover the route to put up ribbons and make sure things were okay. While I like to have a few others with me when I do these hike-thrus, everyone else had other plans or preferences (many folks were helping to clear the Kipapa trail today), so I ended up solo. This morning at 8, I swung over to the trailhead at the top of Nuuanu Pali Drive. Steve Poor had indicated he would join me unless the surf on the north shore was up (it was), so when 8:15 arrived and Mr. Poor hadn't, I knew he was likely out in the lineup at Waimea or some other wave-riding venue. The weather wasn't looking pretty in Nuuanu, with blustery winds propelling drizzly sheets of rain. And with Steve a no-show, I wasn't enthused about going out alone. So what would be Plan B? It was too late to blitz over to meet the folks doing Kipapa, so that was out. However, the club had a hike on the schedule today (Waimano Pool), an...