At the beginning of this month I hiked this trail for the first time with the HTMC trail clearing crew. It is such a great hike that I scheduled it for the Pecos Hikers right away. The hike takes a little over 5 hours and this stretches it a bit above a Novice hike. Its sort of Novice + because of the time involved. The steepest climb is thru a bamboo patch and there are lots of things to pull you up.
I have written up about this trail at:
http://165.248.141.16/htmctmc/pauoaWoods/TMFeb03/01.htm
Please check the above site as I did not take a lot of pictures on this hike. The above site will give you also a map of the access to the trail head, and of the hike. This time I clocked the mileage to the parking area. It is 2.8 miles up Tantalus Drive starting from the turn off to Punchbowl Cemetery.
We began walking around 9:10 a.m. The sky was overcast and it had been raining earlier in the morning. Although a number of people signed up to do the hike only my two best male hikers, George and son Matt, and Karen showed. I think the others that said they would hike were turned back by the early morning rain. Mistake. Although we had a little drizzle for the first 20 minutes or so it never rained again. The high clouds kept the day cool and there was a breeze most of the day.
Along the Kalawahine portion of the trail I noticed this fungus. If you know its name please eMail me at crider@hawaii.rr.com and give me the page number (1). Mahalo
Farther along the Kalawahine Trail there is a section marked with signs warning people not to cut or pick any plants as it is a habitat for some native Hawaiian snails. They are very tiny and seem to have adapted to non-native plants in this case its either a white or yellow ginger.
