Fortunately, Memorial Day weekend came around and provided many opportunities for hikes; with other people!!!! My friend Christina was visiting with her family and was interested in exploring a waterfall hike that wasn't touristy. She had been going to school in Hilo the past year and already felt like she had the "typical" hawaiian experience. What better time for me to pull out my brand new Hiking Guide to Oahu by Stuart Ball to find something amazing to do. The only waterfall hikes I knew about were Manoa Falls and Maunawili, ranked #1 and #2 for touristy hikes. It was then that I came across the Waimano Falls, which was definitely qualified under not touristy, boasted of 2 waterfalls, including a pool you can jump into. I knew I had found the one.
The hike began like most hikes here in Hawaii do, at the end of a residential street. I always wonder about how the people in these neighborhoods feel about all the weekend hikers taking over their street parking every weekend. The trail is actually called the Manana Trail, managed by the State (Na Ala Hele) and begins easy enough. About 3/4 in is when you reach Cardiac Hill, said to be the misery of all those on their return trip. Psh, forget coming up it, downhill is where it takes forever! I, being the clumsy individual that I am, focused hard on making sure my foot found roots rather than the bare soil that I could already imagine my tumbling down should I become unbalanced (see previous post about near death experience). Finally, after an eternity of side stepping down the mountain, we turned the corner to see...MORE MUD AND STEEP HILLS! YAYYY! The path split and we followed the pink (or yellow or orange) ribbons to ensure we were on the correct path. There was some bouldering, swinging from trees, ducking branches, before we hit a clearing and could hear people laughing up stream.
Once we arrived at the waterfall, we found it to be a trickle, but people were still jumping off into the water. There was a rope hanging from across the waterfall, and another rope to use to climb up to the jumping point. It took me a while to convince myself it was worth giving a shot. My hesitation had to do with my last waterfall jumping experience (once again resulting in me falling off the waterfall) and leptospirosis, an illness found in Hawaii's waterways known to be fatal. But once I shrugged those off, I still had to do a bit of rock climbing to get to the jumping off point. It was from there I could see the much higher waterfall that was behind the one with the pool. I carefully stepped myself over to the edge and jumped in, and immediately knew I was going to do it again. After a couple more times, I just sat back and watched some of the more daring military guys give it a shot. They were climbing out from the rope across the pool and doing backflips etc. Pretty good stuff.
Then we saw that you could hike up to the top of the other waterfall. I imagined it would be a pretty interesting view so we gave it a shot and found ourselves looking down to where we just were, as well as catching a view of the valley. Not too shabby for a 3 mile hike. The trek back was not nearly as bad, as I have found that uphills suck way less than downhills. I powered up Cardiac hill like a beast and then ended the day as all good hiking trips should, with a trip to Waiolas. If you visit Hawaii and don't go to Waiolas, you're missing out. Hands down best shaved ice in Hawaii. It was a great hike and an awesome opportunity to spend time with a friend I hadn't seen in a while. Next day, Kaenapoint...
