Mo'ole, Lanihuli, Kekoalele

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 most of its ~100 meters. 

Once in Mo'ole, we headed upstream, following the route used in past
forays there.  Because of rain the night before, we faced more slippery
conditions than I had had on Saturday. At a place where there was a
rockslide, we put up an orange rope for security.

We made it past the seven falls of the valley without incident and then
commenced the steep climb on the left to Alewa Ridge.  Halfway up the spur
from the valley, we stopped to check out the view of Honolulu urbandom,
framed by the spreading funnel of the walls of Mo'ole. While we were on
the ascent, Peter's cell phone chimed, and he stopped for a minute to chat
with whoever had called.  After the call was completed, I jokingly needled
him for the idle chitchat that distracted us from the business at
hand.  With the views and phone calls taken in, we crested out on Alewa
Ridge at 10:30, two hours after setting out.

>From the ridgetop junction, four of us made the muddy ~20-minute climb to
Pu'u Lanihuli.  I noted heavy pig damage to the trail about half the way
to the top.  The pigs, it seems, do not fancy climbing all the way to
Lanihuli.  I'm not sure why since no physical obstacles prevent them from
doing so. Maybe they're not into the views.

With the summit acquired, we ate lunch there (peanuts and vienna sausage
for me), ogling occasional vistas of the windward side when clouds allowed
them. Just like Saturday, I spotted my house in Kaneohe, which garnered
only lukewarm interest by my colleagues. Jason and I talked about an
upcoming HTMC TM outing of Kawaewae Ridge (aka Dusty's Ridge), one of the
many features we could see from our summit vantage point.

When a drizzle shower arrived, we quickly packed up and headed down the
slippery trail.  In 20 minutes we had rejoined our non-summiting colleague
and then commenced down Alewa Ridge.  En route to the top of the
Kapalama Loop, we passed several noteworthy places, including a junction
where Rich and Henry had climbed up from Mo'ole on a past hike, a narrow
dike section (I call this "Straddle Ridge"), a lunchspot used on HTMC
hikes of the Kapalama Loop, and the junction with Brandon Stone's spur
trail down to Mo'ole.

At the top of Kapalama Loop (an old wooden sign is affixed there), we
veered left to head down its Nuuanu side.  We passed a bamboo grove on the
right, contoured up and around a small pu'u, traversed a fairly level
section through uluhe, then climbed to the top of Napu'umaia, a large
hill.  Near the highest point of Napu'umaia, we veered left on an
overgrown trail to descend Kekoalele Ridge, which bottoms out adjacent to
the Oahu Country Club. To channel hikers from Saturday's group down
Kekoalele, Jason and I stacked a blockade of dead uluhe across the loop
trail. I also affixed several ribbons there.

The initial descent of Kekoalele was messy (with a capital M), and we had
to wade around in uluhe at times to find the correct line. At one point,
Ed said, "I feel like I'm about to plunge into a deep hole."  A couple
minutes later--bingo--a-plunging Ed went, landing him in a hole obscured
by thick uluhe (fortunately he was unhurt).  After navigating and marking
a line through the Mess, we veered right and down into a dark guava hollow
then climbed gradually to go left around an eroded dike.  After that, most
of the "trail" down the ridge was generally obvious, with occasional old
ribbons still hanging to help.  I hung more ribbons, mostly for assurance
value and also to direct folks to the best lines.  About an hour down the
ridge, Jason and I stopped at a section of rocky dikes with a nice view of
the neighborhood where Ralph Valentino (HTMC good-guy) lives.

Like the top, the bottom of the ridge was a bloody mess.  Since the last
time I'd been there (a year ago?), someone had cut down large trees with a
chainsaw.  The fallen timber wasn't moved and effectively obscured what
was already a fairly obscure trail.  With ample searching, hacking, and
ribbon tying, we forged a hikeable route through the obscurity to emerge
next to the maintenance area of the Oahu Country Club.  Mission
accomplished.

We were back at Ed's car at the park on Puiwa Road by 2:45 and by 3:00 I
was in my Cherokee on the way home to Kaneohe.  Much thanks to Jason, Ed,
Rich, and Peter for hiking with me today.  While we didn't do much
clearing, the stamping down of the trail we did will be helpful to club
hikers on Saturday.

--dkt