Waimano Falls

So a while ago, a friend of mine suggested we make bucket lists. Now I am not one for coming up with radical things to do before I die, but I do have very little self motivation unless I have something requiring me to do it. Leading me back to making my bucket list. One of the things I included was hiking at least once every 2 weeks. I needed to take better advantage of this beautiful state I am living in, and I wasn't going to let not having a buddy stop me from exploring any longer!

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, Kaena
point...

PIC and Hamakua Marsh

This week was absolutely crazy. The Pacific Island Committee Conference was finally here, after a month of planning. This was a conference with all US Pacific Islands, including Guam, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, American Samoa, and the Marshall Islands. I had an epiphany a few days before the conference that I would be doing registration, which involved me having to hear peoples names, and mark them off on whether they paid or not. And I struggle with accents. This was going to be interesting. Fortunately once registration got into full swing, I was left doing parking validation and receipts, which suited me just fine. We were working most of the morning and therefore wasn't really able to listen to the lectures till the afternoon. The afternoon lectures were about the effects of climate change on Pacific Islands, something I am extremely interested in. I even got to see a couple of people I had met at the Hawaiian Conservation Conference I had gone to over the summer.

The next day was going to be an even longer one. Not only did we have a day at the Conference, but also an evening event we were hosting for the visiting islanders. I had been working with Kokua Kalihi Valley as our location to attempt to get some donations for the dinner. This had resulted in me making Craigslist ads for coconuts and writing interdepartment memos asking for coconuts, firewood, and ulu (breadfruit). The people at KKV had planned to do an imu (cooking in the ground) complete with salmon, kalua, venison, and some veggies. I spent the afternoon driving everyone around to get enough vehicles to drive 40 people into Kalihi Valley, and then we ended up having far too many cars. Once we arrived, we could see two tents with twinkling lights and appetizers of smoked salmon, venison, fruit, and ava. Dinner had fruit salad, hau soup, taro bread, poi, chicken, kalua, and many other delicious things! It was really great to have a traditional Hawaiian dinner with good company.

The Spread

Day 3 I helped set up for the Society of American Foresters Conference, which involved putting out displays of boxes from each of the states. Around the world, countries were partaking in this project to have a box show the best things about forests from their home to celebrate the International Year of the Forests. The other benefit was that other groups that had been setting up had left out all their give away items and while I wasnt going to the conference (far too expensive) I did get a lot of cool swag. Add in the cool stuff from the Forest Service for helping at the PIC and I have tons of cool US Forest items.

My swag!

Since everyone was at the SAF conference, I went to fill my time doing some field work at Hamakua marsh. We had been told we were going to be pulling pickleweed to help make it a better environment for the wetland birds. While previously I had been not looking forward to this, it ended up being tons of fun. I don't know why I have yet to learn that with the right crew of people and a nice steady pace, field work is actually really fun. I had been promised use of atvs, but instead got to learn how to use chainsaws. I have this tendency to agree to do things without thinking and this was definitely one of those times. I agreed to be the first one to try it without remembering how dangerous I am near deadly items. I believe my clumsiness plays a large role in my decision making, and it apparently wasn't remembered till the blade was going. Fortunately, I did not drop any branches on myself, fall on the blade, cut anyone else, and actually gained some confidence in doing some really awesome things like face cuts! No, not cutting someones face, but the legit way of cutting trees where you cut a wedge on one side and tap it on the other so you can manipulate its fall. It was really awesome. I also got to see some cool birds: stilts, coots, and moorhens.

The Marsh

Our fun crew, Katie, Arthur, and James

And to cap off my week, how about some GIS. GIS stands for Geospatial Information Systems and involved combining maps with data. The cool thing I was going to learn about, was how we could include the web in all this. ESRI, the group that releases all the main GIS programs was putting on a seminar on how to outreach your maps to the public using the internet. A few weeks before I had gone to a seminar where they discussed how to do this, and now I was going to a workshop to put it all into action. It was really fun and surprisingly easy (which is truly shocking for GIS, the last project I did took me 5 hours just to get it right), and I have already begun thinking about how we could use it in a couple of our projects! So heres a quick map I made in 5 minutes at the seminar showing a couple of locations of my favorite places.

View Larger Map

First Field Trip!

So I have now completed only 3 days at my new job and I already feel at home. My bosses are great and have so much knowledge to share! My first day was filled with lots and lots of reading. I am working for the forestry department, but mostly focused in land assistance programs, so similar work to what I did for my senior internship at the NRCS. The projects I am focusing on have been the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program and Forest Stewardship Program. Haven't heard of them? Well that makes two of us. So my first day was spent reading about these various programs and becoming educated on them. I also got introduced to a couple more projects that I am still waiting to learn more about.

While the first day was a bit of a bore (reading dense material on the computer for 9 hours) the second day was much better. I was going on my first field trip! So I am assisting with a Pacific Islands Conference at the end of this month and we were hoping one of the FSP projects could host a dinner for all the islands. These islands include American Samoa, Palau, Guam, Federated States of Micronesia, and a few more, to come to Hawaii to discuss forestry issues specific to Pacific Islands. I am so excited to get to help out with this conference and meet all these incredible people especially since I have such a focus in the Pacific Islands. Anyway, back to the field trip, we went to this beautiful agroforestry farm in Kalihi called Ho`oulu `Aina where they are working to grow medicinal plants and all native Hawaiian plants. We discussed menu ideas for this dinner and they described things I haven't even heard of so I am super excited to be involved and learn new things. It was also great getting to go outside and experience a new ecosystem. It is amazing how much I learned going on field visits with the NRCS, without even realizing it. I learned what plants are invasive and native to California, but none of that applies here. Its a totally different forest and I have a lot to learn. So far we have gone over Albizia which is all over Manoa and Hawaii and invasive to Hawaii and Kukui, the state tree, which is also invasive. I also got to see what Koa looks like when its not the kitchen table I am eating off of! I am so excited to become familiar with a more Polynesian ecosystem.

Another project I am working on has been changing the rules in their statutes, which means I am putting all those law classes to work. It is a bit weird how much I enjoy reading statutes and knowing why particular language is used over another. I am excited to get going on this so that hopefully by the time my internship is coming to a close, I can say I helped change a statute! I am also working on the Big Tree project to help get Native Hawaiian trees on a national register and just got an email from someone doing the same thing but for New Zealand! So I hope to either get a few of our trees on the national list and a couple more on the Pacific Islands list in New Zealand.

So enough about work. Many of you ask how I am doing and what I am up to. To be honest, I've only had one weekend so far and it was spent unpacking my giant suitcases and becoming settled in my new life. Most of the time my days include work, going for a run, dinner, then relaxing before retiring quite early (as many of you know I am a bit of a night owl so this has probably been the hardest part). Running has been so enjoyable here, and I am not sure if its because the humidity makes it easier to breathe, the downhill at the beginning of my run, or the slight mist that is always hanging around Manoa in the evening. I just feel happy while running, which hasn't been the case since I took 3 months off after spraining my ankle. It has been a highlight of my day and I am hoping possibly a key to making new friends since I plan on joining a running club soon. This weekend I look forward to meeting up with some family returning from the World Cup in New Zealand (I am soooo jealous) and watching the All Blacks take on Australia. Hope to check in soon!

Heres a couple of pics from the field visit!

New Resident of the Great State of Hawaii

So I am not completely sold on wanting to do a blog for my time in Hawaii since I am just going to be living here and its not like im a tourist, considering how many times I've been to Hawaii. But I am thinking that it would be a good way to reflect and to share hopefully what will become really cool things related to my new job.

So in case you are unaware of what the heck I am doing in Hawaii, im going to fill you in. After graduating from UCSC with a degree in Environmental Studies, I went out into the real world in search of a job. I applied mostly to federal jobs because I had experience working with the NRCS already. I also knew that I wanted to work in Hawaii at some point. I decided to go the Hawaii Conservation Conference in the beginning of August in the hope that I could network and maybe get hired. I learned a lot and met tons of great people, but wasn't offered any jobs. What I did learn was that there was a group called KUPU that placed people in environmental positions in Hawaii using Americorp funding. They had year internships with a living stipend and an educational award at the end. After inquiring about my chances to actually get picked, I was pretty sure I had found my next employment.

So I was interviewed by a couple of groups that were interested after looking at my resume and application. It was all phone interviews mostly asking what experience I had, what I was most interested in, and what my responsibilities would be if I worked at their office. Both of my interviews were with the Dept. of Land and Natural Resources: Div. of Forestry and Wildlife but were different focuses in that department. I quickly heard back from the Forestry section and agreed to be their intern for the year!

I have been lucky enough to have experience with traveling and moving somewhere new, whether it was moving to Santa Cruz for college or studying abroad in New Zealand. I kinda thought that this would feel the same way. However, as I was on the way to the airport, I realized that this was probably the last time I would call LA home. There is no return home ticket waiting to bring me back to all the friends and family in California this time. It was a bit of reality check since I had made this big decision on a whim. Add in a bit of stress about having two very large suitcases (at the maximum weight and still short of belongings) and two bags pushing the boundaries on the term "carry on" and I had a bit of a freak out.
Once I got to my gate, I heard they were offering a $400 flight voucher, $30 food vouchers, a hotel room for the night, and 1st class tomorrow if you gave up your seat and I instantly agreed. Then I had a voucher to come home at some point AND got to fly 1st class. So I got a shuttle to the hotel, and Heather D. joined me at the hotel for some dessert, compliments of Delta. The next day I flew in style, drinking mimosas, coffee, tea, eating an egg omelet and chips, and pretty much over indulged in a way that only a coach flyer would.

Yesterday was my first day and I went and picked up my car which we had shipped out so I wouldn't die riding a moped (thanks mom) and then ran some errands. Mostly it was me attempting to put off unpacking, which I successfully did (still incomplete). I am staying with family in Manoa which is pretty close to work, which is in downtown Honolulu. I went to check out my work today to pick up paperwork and to get a feel for the office (aka figure out work appropriate clothing). Turned out they were doing a meeting going over their various projects in the office. I got a general overview of what my responsibilities were and even ended up with my name on projects despite not officially starting work until Monday. The most exciting thing was learning that there would be a lot of new things to learn. I will get a lot of opportunities to build on skills I already have (private land conservation projects, GIS) but I also get to learn new ones like spatial analysis, compliance, lobbying for legislation, all things I am eager to do. Best part, there will be island hopping in my future! DOFAW (Dept. of Forestry and Wildlife) has a couple of easements on various islands and each year they have to do monitoring of the property and I get to go along! Theres at least one on the big island and one on Molokai that I get to go see. I also have a field trip planned to do some invasive control at a marsh on the winward side so hopefully I will have some fun pictures for you all soon.

Well I guess I should probably get back to unpacking, still have a whole bag and a half to deal with :)