Heleakala – October 16, 2011

Heleakala, not to be confused with Haleakala on Maui, is the ridge that separates Nanakuli and Lualualei Valley. I joined the HTMC today, the coordinator was the personable Bob. Trailhead directions were near Haleakala Avenue. I parked on the side of the road in a residential neighborhood and met everyone near a house. The HTMC trailhead is between two houses. We waited for a few minutes, were debriefed, and headed towards the ridge to Heleakala. I led the charge.  The initial climb up the ridge was tiring. My legs were getting tight in a hurry. Bob laid pink ribbons on the trail two weeks before. I followed those ribbons until I gained the crest of the ridge.

There were no trees in sight. The ridge was exposed. The sun was beaming down. I started to sweat like crazy. There was also a section where a brush fire destroyed part of the area not too long ago. It smelled like burnt grass when I entered the area.

In about 20 minutes, I separated myself from the pack and was hiking all by myself. The area was dry and the rocks that were sprawled out all over the trail were crumbly. There were a few hills that needed to be climbed over. I had to take a few breaks because I was out of breath. However, I was so far ahead, no one was visibly behind me, so I took my time. At about 40 minutes, I encountered a rock face. I didn’t see a contour trail around it, so I just climbed it. It was great.

I got to the top in a little over an hour. The summit is overloaded with vegetation. There are no true views. There are trails to the left and right. Since I was so far ahead, I decided to explore both trails. I started with the left trail. I encountered a Buddhist shrine, that's weird!, so I turned around and worked my way back to the summit. I then tried the trail to the right. After walking for about 5 minutes, I could see that the trail led down to a saddle, then up a ridge which appeared to head towards Palikea. The trail looked steep and hot. Just then, I heard some people at the summit, I worked my way back. I said hi to everyone. I also saw Nate (I met him from the Lanihuli hike). We talked about some hikes we wanted to do. There was also a family of dragon flies in the area. I haven’t seen so many dragon flies in my life. I swear there were at least 10 in the area.

In about 15 minutes we headed back down. On the way down, I fell on my ass. My ass hit a rock. The pain was sore. I shook it off and followed the hiker’s down the mountain. Going down was slippery, especially with all the crumbly rock. When we encountered the rock face, the lady in the front climbed down the contour trail, I didn’t remember seeing that trail when going up. Oh well, no matter. In less than an hour we got back to the trailhead. I said bye to everyone and drove home.

This hike is not too enchanting. It was more of a hike to check off the list. This is not your average ridge hike. It's more like hiking up Kokohead Crater or Makapu’u Ridge. That’s the beauty of Hawaii, doing hikes with different terrain. One day you can hike in the dense forest, the next day you can hike on a dry.