Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Kokohead Crater 12/22













Adam standing atop a caged junction


Found a butterfly
Almost down
Heading to Sandys after lunch

A white Hawaiian Monk Seal taking a tan


Sandy Beach with the hui
The staircase to the top of Kokohead Crater is probabley one hike I will NEVER repeat in my lifetime ...

We started out at about 9:30 am from Ewabeach with my young *G's* of the Hammerhead Football Team ( Adam Amosa, Nalu Castro, Kyle Palenapa, Kameron Carino , Jerome Masiclat, Tua Tagovailoa, Antonio Lambert , my son DJ, Aaron Carino, and Albert Lambert) with our little convoy and the beautiful Hawaiian weather over to Hawaii Kai.

As we entered Hawaii Kai gazing over at the hill before us I felt no threat thinking to myself no problem Im just gonna run up this staircase and it'll be over boy was I wrong.

I will briefly describe the directions to the ball park as yesterdays hike event still remains a bit hazy to me. If coming from the west take a left at Foodland intersection off Kamehameha and your first right continue driving all the way back with the staircase in view and you will come to a park entrance on the right hand side. Sorry I didnt get the street names as I found this hike to be totally out of my sync.

Anyways we get to the parking area a little after 10:30am and proceed to hike the stairs. The weather was perfect . The boyz didnt even wait and reached the top within 40 minutes or so. Our hiking partner Aaron counted the steps and i think he said it was approximently 1074 steps or something like that from the bottom up. All I can remember is going into cardiac arrest after passing every light post. I was kinna getting irritated with this health freak dude that past us about three times going up and down the staircase. But he was really nice and must be a local resident that frequants this stairs daily.

We'll with incouragement from Aaron telling me slow pace I finally reached the top. I saw GOD I sware ! And we probabley rested for about a whole hour before heading back down.

At the top you will find it very rewarding with a very cool breeze and also views to die for. From the points that I stood atop I caught perfect senic photos of both the daimond head angles as well as toward Makapuu Lighthouse area.

It was time to leave and head to Hawaii Kai Shopping Center for some lunch. As we started down I hoticed at certain areas to be rather tricky and recommend that if ever doing this hike to stay very alert coming down. Another thing I noticed was the gravity pulling at my feet. A couple of us slipped and I must admit I felt rather faint during this hike and to be honest I wanted to give up and thank Aaron for his encouragement to the top. All it all it was worth it. We got to the bottom. I walked over to the bottom parking area to thank a local resident who was kind enough to clean the cuts on some of the boys. We had lunch and spent the rest of our afternoon at Sandy Beach. What a great day !