This hike starts with the Aiea Loop trail. After about
a mile in you come to a right bend in the trail with a trail heading up a small gully.
That trail splits two ways, the left heads back around the side of the mountain to
aiea ridge, the other??? I got to this point and thought, "hey, the ridge looks
about 300 yards back where we came from!" but we were actually on the right
track.The ridge trail starts off gradually heading downslope for quite aways.
It's not difficult in anyway and there are very few steep sections. You're mostly
following along the ridge to the left of the H3 freeway. While heading up if you
look townward you can see the ridges of Halawa, Tripler and Bowman!
About 2/3 of the way in is Pu'u Kawipo'o. (that big hill you see from the start
of the ridge hike). From there things get wild! Not difficult but the ridges
are wide open with uluhe and ie'ie covered slopes! You can see so many different
directions!
The remainder of the hike is climbing up and down peaks through some seriously eroded
paths! If it were to rain, you'd be walking in a river! When we finally got to
the top it was all socked in! Bummers! I bet the views would have been really
nice! While going back down we kept looking back thinking it was starting to clear
and considered heading back up, but the clouds would just come right back in and obscure
the peaks. Oh well, I've accepted that I must do each of these hikes at least twice.
Once cloudy and once clear.
Date: July 26, 1998
Time Duration: 6.5hours
Difficulty: Green
Danger: Green
Notes: The hike seemed longer than it really was because it is quite winding.
It was also very muddy! This increases your hike time a lot when you're
trying not to actually wade through the pools which are everywhere! I would not go
within 4 days of a big rain. Saw a lot of amakihi right from the start of the ridge.
These three people in the picture are the one I go hiking with most. Gail's been
hiking for awhile. Elise and Jim started about the same time as me (around May 98)
