Hawaii - Arrival and Olomana Hike

Honolulu isn't the only city in Hawaii that accepts flights from the mainland, but it's the only one I've ever entered through.  Every time I've come, I've stopped to check out the neat little courtyard in the main terminal.

Melch and I got to share that tradition with my brother, who is on Oahu for his first time.

We're going to be in Hawaii for two weeks, but on Oahu for only 6 days before moving on to Kauai.  While we're here, we are staying in Kailua.  It's pretty close to Melch's aunt and uncle in Kaneohe and it's where we found a cool vacation home to rent.

On the way to our lodging, we stopped off at Uahi Grill to show Drayas what Hawaiian plate lunch was all about.  Rice, mac salad, poke and chicken went down just fine, washed down with a locally brewed coconut porter.

After check-in, it was time for a quick hike.  We picked a 1.5 mile trail to the top of a local mountain peak.  It turns out that it was a little more than that since the closest parking is nearly a mile from the trail head, but the walk to the trail was just a golf course cart path, so NBD.

The trail itself was a different story.  As we were walking up we saw a few couples coming down after having finished the trail.  These weren't the usual cruise ship tourist crowd.  They all looked like Crossfitters.

The Yelp review of the hike said that it was pretty challenging, with some bouldering to be done at the end, so that did kind of make sense.  We figured we'd give it a shot.

It was muddy.  It rained for a good portion of the ascent.  The last half was a steep rocky ascent to the peak, made more difficult by the fact that our mud-caked shoes had no traction on the rock.  The peak was actually a narrow ridge line, not more than a body-length wide, surrounded on both sides by steep drops into the pines and palms below.  We hadn't slept much the night before, were jet-lagged and had to get back down the mountain before sun set.

Perfect recipe for a good time!

The first quarter mile was just plain mud.  Inches deep at times

The brown mud gave way to reddish-brown mud that was a little drier

After that there was a bit of pine forest.  That was great because of the better traction

After that, it just went up.

And more up.

And more up.

And then pretty much straight up!

Melch was a little concerned about the final ascent, but she seemed to remember a bit from her mountain-climbing days in the Girl Scouts.

The views were worth it though!

Looking towards Kaneohe

Kailua

Stopping for a snack

#selfie

Crazy descent

Yeah, it was muddy.

After the hike we cleaned off as best we could and went home to take some showers before heading out for dinner.  The place we wanted to eat was closed for a fundraiser, so we went to Zippy's (Hawaiian fast-food, Melch loves it!) and then came back home to pass out.

A great start to our Hawaiian adventure.