For Good Friday me and Mike Duvernay hiked up Moanalua Valley on the Kulana`ahane Trail.   It's a realtively easy trail, a solid mix of dirt road, stream crossings, and a short ridge to gain a nice Ko`olau summit between the Haiku and Moanalua Valleys.  The Trail is 4.5 miles from the park at the back of Moanalua Valley to the the Ko`olau Ridge.  We started at 7:30 am and ended at 3:00 pm.  Taking a lot of pictures slowed us down.

For the first half of the hike you walk along an old dirt road, built by the Damon Estate.

A couple of miles on the road will lead to the start of the Kulana`ahane Trail, as it veers away from the dirt road across a stream bed and up the valley.

There is a Moanalua Valley Stream monitoring station just a few yards into the trail section.

The trail after the dirt road is a mix of stream crossing, leisure grassy trail, and rooted path with plenty of overhanging branches.

Along the way you pass and crossover some beautiful stream sections.

There are some rodent traps along the way, including this rusted out rat trap secured to a tree.

The trail leads to a short, semi-steep section that scrambles up a side ridge to a saddle on the Ko`olau Ridge.

The climb is quickly rewarded with great views of Moanalua Valley.

Before you know it, you're at the top, straddling the Ko`olau ridge between Moanalua and Haiku Valley.

And for Sommer, some pictures of plants and flowers on the way up.

More pics here:  Flickr
You can see the pictures on a google maps overlay here.

Pali Puka

Sommer had to work this past Saturday (April 9, 2011) and I had to go to an Eagle Scout project that afternoon, so Kai and I headed up to the Nu`uanu Pali Lookout for a short but kinda crazy hike up to the Pali Puka.  The Nu`uanu Pali is famous for the Battle of Nu`uanu where Kamehameha forced Kalanikupule's troops up Nu`uanu Valley where some 400 warriors were jumped or were pushed over the cliffs.  The Pali Puka is known as a secret spot where Kalanikupule and his men monitored the Kailua and Kaneohe coasts for Kamehameha's invading forces.  It's a perfect spot to monitor the Windward shores in secrecy.

We started off from the Nu`uanu Pali State Park and headed past the bus parking lot, over the rock wall, and straight up the ridge.

The trail is pretty straight forward...straight up the ridge. Sometimes you're under the relative safety of surrounding shrubs and trees, sometimes you are struggling up narrow muddy paths or scrambling over bare slippery rock faces.

The steep climb quickly leads to amazing views.

For many parts of the trail you are right up against the pali and the 1000+ foot drop to the windward side.

Photo: Unreal Hawaii

Photo: Teare Zick-Mariteragi

Before you know it you come up to a towering rock wall.

Below the wall, just to the left of a very narrow section of the trail is the Pali Puka.

Kai and I spent about half an hour at the puka resting and waiting out some passing showers. It had rained heavily a couple of days before and that made for a slick and slippery trail. We didn't see any hikers on this trail or the Pali notches on the other side of the valley.









Once the rain had passed we made our way down to the lookout.

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Kai took video of nearly the entire way down. You can see those videos on our Youtube channel. More pics from this short and steep hike here.