Diamond Head Rim – May 5, 2012 

With the new creation of a route up Diamond Head, the hiking community has been going in droids around the rim of the crater. With Ikaika and Merv circumnavigating the crater last week, it was now our turn. Marvin was supposed to lead us on this hike, but he came down with a cold, so it was all us DH newbies attempting to go around the rim.

We met at Kapiolani Park at around 6p. The crew today was Aida, Steve, Stephen, Kim (his wife) and I. Three of us are in 7D. We parked in a lot near the small park adjacent to Kapiolani Park and on foot went up a street to a board of water supply station. There was a barbed wire fence, but we took a route near a house. To do that, we climbed on a concrete wall where the gate was opened and bushwhacked until we found an obvious trail.

The ridge up the mountain looked intimidating. It looked undoable from our vantage point. We followed the ridge and got to the vertical section. Diamond Head is only 800+ feet high, but the vertical section was about 300 of those feet. There were ropes to assist. It does look doable without ropes because there were hands and footholds albeit you had to find them.

We reached the highest point and the pillboxes in about 1 hour and started traversing the rim counter clockwise. Merv suggested that would be the safest route. There was this one crumbly section where going down was tricky. There were no ropes. We inched our way down and crossed a narrow dike before ascending up to a pillbox. Just then a security car went driving around. Fuck we told ourselves, were going to be detained. We turned our headlamps off and waited for about 30 minutes. The car just drove around and after a while we were like fuck it, lets just go, so that is what we did.

After that pillbox there was all this barbed wire, more pillboxes, and a long cable. This part of the rim was simple and we traversed it with ease. We eventually got to some sort of communications tower and a paved road. Instead of continuing on the ridge, we took the paved road and rejoined the ridge. This prompted the security guard to go up and make their rounds again. They must have seen us on a camera located in the area.

As we were meandering along, we saw Pete, August, & Chenay – some of the best hikers on this island, bar none. They came up Diamond Head via a spur ridge. They tend to do that because they can. We continued on and saw the security guard slowly driving up to the paved road. We were way past that section already. Continuing further, we hit a super narrow section about 18 inches wide with drops to both sides. The right side was vertical and dangerous. It took us a while. Appearing in front of us was a big climb. Steve explored and found a contour trail to the left of it. We would encounter a few more big climbs and topped out at the highest point. There, we saw Laredo and Quyen. We chatted a bit and started going back down the vertical section. It took us forever, probably because we wanted to be safe. Finally after 6 hours and 1 am, we finished our hike.

I felt some sort of accomplishment. This week I completed the entire rim of Koko Crater and Diamond Head Crater, a feat I didn’t think was possible, but anything is possible if you believe.  

***This trail is a non-sanctioned trail and is on federal property. The feds can detain you if they catch you. The trailhead is also on private property. Doing this trail is at your own risk.***