Date: 11 January 2001
From: LastKoho (lastkoho@yahoo.com)
Subject: Manana Ridge — December 2000
This past December, early on a Sunday, I dragged myself out of bed and wobbled to the kitchen where I forced down two Eggos with maple syrup, some cold left-over fried rice, and a couple of Portuguese sausages. My wife, I vaguely recall, already done with her breakfast, was watching CNN. It was not morning — it was a dream, a dream that continued with me behind the wheel of our car as it floated along H1.
"Man, I'm surprised there're so many cars out here at this time of day."
"I guess folks are going to breakfast before church or something."
"Geez, who the hell are all of these people?"
We headed along Moanalua Road and turned onto Waimano Home Road and were then somehow magically curving up into Pacific Palisades on Komo Mai Drive. Finally, reaching the end of the street and the start of Manana trail, I parked at a cul-de-sac. Car locked, backpacks slung on, my wife signed-in at the trailhead mailbox and, with flashlights beaming, we headed up the paved road.
The skies had now lightened. The air was still, birds were calling in the distance—a serene dawn. We now put our flashlights in our packs and walked through brown-topped buffalo grass, up a lengthy and relatively steep grade, and then climbing a puny pali with the aid of some well-placed ropes. Five minutes after 8:00 A.M. we reached the helipad, halfway — and it started to rain.
We took frequent water and cardiac breaks (my personal rule of thumb: when the heart knocks heavily, answer it). We eventually broke into the open, moving along the narrow, somewhat overgrown ridge path. We were far out in the thunderously quiet, peaceful Koolaus, just us. And then, suddenly, we spotted two apapanes; they flew above and over the Waimano Valley, gave out a call, and then just as suddenly disappeared below the cliff.
Starting back at around 11:30, with time on our side, we took a picture or two and gained three more quick looks at apapanes. When we reached the helipad over two hours later, I was tired. I lay down on my back. When I lifted my head and looked toward the summit, I saw that it was now cloaked in clouds. My wife sat nearby and compared the mud on her legs and shoes to the mud on my legs and shoes and declared the contest a tie.
After a hundred or so more yards, we saw a discarded McDonalds cup lying like an open wound in the center of the road. There's always something. It was a rather depressing sight after such a satisfactory day. I recalled the stretch of the hike where we hovered over the valleys on the narrow ridge path as the apapanes flew above us. I wondered what it would feel like to be there and come across a McDonalds cup lying on the ground. It stung a little, this thought.
At the cul-de-sac, finished, we signed-out at the mailbox and threw our rubbish in a smelly waste can. After changing shoes, we got in the car, my wife behind the wheel, and, with visions of McDonalds and Manana dancing in our heads, rolled toward home.