Olomana Peaks Trail (Three peaks)

 

     Olomana Peaks is a 6 mile roundtrip hike at 1600ft elevation. Olomana is the craggy, commanding mountain windward of Nu'uanu Pali. The steep, narrow climb to its three peaks demands concentration, sure feet and little fear of heights. From its summit is a panorama unsurpassed on Oahu. Level of difficulty is intermediate/expert... and they aren't joking when they say that.

    

 

^The tallest peak you see here is the first peak of Olomana, the one we climbed. Steep doesn't even begin to describe the rise to the top...

 

^^Park below the golf course, and walk to the trailhead to enter the Olomana Peaks trail.

 

     Let me reiterate: This trail is rated expert for a reason.   It started with a little mud, and lots of roots which gave you great footholds.

 

 

A huge Banyan tree greeted us at the beginning of the trail... I'm not sure I'd ever get used to seeing these exotic trees.

 

The hike quickly turns into dense jungle....

 

     The trail ascends very quickly, giving you amazing views of the island. As we headed up the mountain, we got winded very quickly. The hike wasn't anything like what I've climbed before (and I've done some difficult mountains.) Instead of hiking a gentle slope, this was scrambling and climbing sheer rock faces, sometimes with the aid of ropes.


      As the trail ascended, the terrain changed into an amazing pine forest (like nothing I've ever seen before.) The sound of the wind whipping through the pines was incredible.

 

 We continued up the mountain until we came to a series of ropes to climb up.  This is when it got scary.  The 20-30mph winds combined with the narrow trail was enough to make anyone nervous.

 

 

Logan and I switched packs, he put Kenna on his back and I carried the pack. (I trust his muscles a lot more than my own!)

 

     At the very top, I let the boys continue the last few feet up to the summit. I was exhausted, my muscles were shaky, and I wasn't about to take a chance on my second day in Hawaii... Here is where I stopped: 

 

 

Logan snapped a pic of the view from the very top:

 

^^ That's the second and third peak you see in the photo... the second peak is a doable hike, (less altitude, but more difficult than the first, and the third is extremely difficult. Hike at your own risk.)

 

 Olomana is an amazing view, hike it at your own risk, and only do what you're comfortable with. People have died and been seriously injured on this trail, so take that into consideration when deciding if you're up for this trail.

 



     The trip down the mountain was significantly easier... belaying down the ropes was scary but doable...

 

We reached the bottom feeling accomplished and headed out for a bite to eat. (Which was Musubi, spam on a bed of rice wrapped in seaweed. Apparently it's a local delicacy... It surprised me! I could've done without the seaweed, but the spam wasn't awful. The meal cost $9 total for the three of us.)

 

     My next post will be about the Mokapu'u tide pools. (Be sure to give plenty of time for this next hike if you decide to do it, you'll want to spend some time hanging out at the pools at the bottom!)

     

 



Day two- the hardest and best.

   I'm still exhausted from our second day on the island, (a 9+ mile day.)

   Our primary reason for going to Hawaii wasn't for the beautiful beaches, it was for the awesome hikes and adventure we knew we would find there. Don't get me wrong, we love the beach, but we also love the mountains. I'm not a "lay on the beach all day and get a tan," I'm a "climb the tallest mountain in sight and see a beautiful view," kind of girl.

     We started the day at 7am with sunrise with the boys on their back porch. (Jason and Matt live and work at an aquaponics nursery, which uses red tilapia to fertilize the vegetables they grow, and the vegetables in turn feed the tilapia. Super, super cool symbiotic system that I would love to have one day.) Sunrise was beautiful as we imagined.

^^The view of the mountains from the nursery's back porch...)

     For breakfast, we made oatmeal (that we brought with us) packed with extra goodies- almonds, dried fruit, banana chips, etc.) and packed our lunches for the Olomana Peaks trail.
     I have so much good information and tips on the Olomana Peaks trail, I'll be dedicating a whole post to it... check back soon to see it! Thanks for reading, friends!

The gear...

 

     When I say we are camping in Hawaii, some of you will automatically think camping on a beautiful beach with lots of amenities like hot showers, clean restrooms, cushiony sand to sleep on, and a park ranger on a golf cart to bring you firewood anytime you need it. The other half of you will imagine us roughing it on the beach, no toilet, blazing hot weather, and talking to a beach volleyball named Wilson. (Castaway style, if you will...)  The reality is somewhere in the middle. There are bathrooms and showers, but not ones I'd necessarily go barefoot in... and there is sand and beautiful beaches, but there are also centipedes and African snails that are ginormous.

     The trick to camping is to have great gear so you aren't miserable in paradise all week. (Trust me, it's possible if you aren't well prepared.) No, camping isn't nearly as posh as the Hilton, but with the right gear you can have a truly pleasant vacation for next to nothing.
     All of the gear we are taking with us is VERY small. Here's a comparison shot of some of our necessities next to my mini ipad... and Kenna. (Left to right: sleeping pad, sleeping bag, hammock, camp stove.)

     Here is what we are taking with us:

     *Tent: Kelty Grand Mesa 2. ($100 via eBay, or $140 brand new.) Weighing in around 4 pounds (including a full rain fly) it's a tent that's prepared for almost any weather.  It's exactly the right size for two people and a small toddler.  Weight of items is super important when backpacking- and the weight adds up quickly. (Trust me, you'll get tired of lugging around a 7-10 pound four person tent, especially if you don't need anything that large.) It also sets up in less than 2 minutes, (literally.) which is perfect if you arrive to your campsite later than expected and have to make camp in the dark.
     *Sleeping Pads: Big Agnes Insulated Air Core.  They weigh less than 2 lbs each, and fold into a compression sack about the size of a Nalgene bottle. They elevate you off the ground just enough to keep you warm and comfortable. Sleeping pads add 5-10 degrees of warmth to your sleeping bag. In Hawaii, warmth isn't a big deal, since nights were still around 70 degrees. But, when we are camping in the Sierras, we need these desperately; the ground gets very cold.
     *Sleeping bags: We are huge fans of down. There's nothing that packs as small, and keeps you as warm as duck down. Logan has a 32 degree Ozark Trail sleeping bag (from Wal-Mart, about $80!) that weighs less than half a pound. It was perfect for this trip to use like a blanket instead of a mummy bag... If you used it like a mummy bag, you would've been sweating profusely.
     *Camp Stove- MSR Pocket Rocket. This was a gift to Logan from my dad, but can be purchased at REI for about $50.) Weighing in at 3 ounces, it boils water in less than five minutes with our GSI Soloist cook set ($40.)

     Yes, good gear is quite expensive. But, buy things that are high quality and they will last you forever- and will help to make camping comfortable, and something you actually want to do!

Day one on the island...

     Our plane left from Oakland at 8:20am. Oakland is a 2 hour drive from our house in Yuba City, which meant we had to leave the house at 4am. (From traveling so much with Kenna, and to different time zones, we've learned a few things about how to make the trip a little easier, and get her on a decent schedule. Rule one: Always dress them for bed in what they will wear the next day. Waking a 2 year old up at 3am and expecting to dress them without a fuss is pure ignorance. We also try to completely destroy her schedule the first day of the trip, so that it erases her sleeping patterns and nap schedule.... And then work really hard the next day on establishing a routine.) When traveling with Kenna, we always plan to arrive at the airport two hours before take off. Everything takes more time with a child, so we always plan for the unexpected. This trip, the unexpected was super thick fog halfway to Oakland. (Driving in that was NOT fun.)

     Once at the airport, we boarded our plane for our 5.5 hour trip to Maui, then caught a connecting flight to Oahu.  They served breakfast on the plane, a wonderful tray of fruit and cheese with pineapple juice.

^^The view of Honolulu from the plane^^

     Once we arrive at the airport, we met an old friend of Logan's from high school (Jason) and his friend Matt. Jason greeted Kenna at the airport with a Lei and they became fast friends. When we were planning the trip originally, we had settled on Maui. Logan remembered that Jason had been living on Oahu for almost a year and called him to see what he recommended seeing in Maui... after hearing about how awesome Oahu was we quickly changed plans and headed to spend the week with him there. Knowing a local helps TREMENDOUSLY in Hawaii. Jason and Matt showed us all the local spots, the great places to eat, and we even avoided 99% of the touristy places. Knowing someone on the island also saved us 200$ on a rental car, and since we were doing this trip on a budget, that was a huge plus. (If you don't know a local, and want to save the money on the rental car, you can get a four day unlimited bus pass for 40$, or each ride on the bus is 2$ if you want to go that route.)

     We packed most of the stuff we would need for the week, (all breakfast and lunches would be eaten at the campsite to save money, with one meal out per day.) but TSA doesn't allow you to fly with camp fuel. We headed to Wal-Mart to pick some up, and to our surprise, they didn't have any. This proved to make our trip hard, since most of our food relied on boiled water. (Backpacking meals, cream of wheat, oatmeal, macaroni for Kenna....etc.) I was SHOCKED to see that the Wal-Mart prices weren't much higher than ours in California/Kentucky... and some things were even cheaper. (We brought our own sunscreen, peanut butter, backpacking meals, etc. All these things were no higher in price than on the mainland. Next time, I'll save the space in my pack and buy those things once we arrive.)

     After the Wal-Mart run, (which we got nothing...) I got to meet up with my good friend from photography school, Rosco Wuestewald who I haven't seen since summer of 2009. (His band was playing a show in Honolulu while we were there, and it just happened to work out for an awesome mini reunion. Check out his band Onward, Etc. on facebook HERE. We also got to meet his beautiful fiancé.) We hung out on Kaimana Beach (near Waikiki, more local and way less crowded) keeping updates on the SuperBowl (go Pats!) and laughing, soaking up sun, and watching Kenna run around in the sand.

 

 

     After laying at the beach for a few hours, we packed up and headed for the campsite. The drive was out of this world. Everything was a lush green, soaring mountains everywhere, awesome Banyan trees- the beauty is indescribable.

 

     We stopped at a local grocery store to grab a loaf of bread... and I checked out prices of some other things as well. (All we've heard is how Hawaii is unaffordable, which is incorrect. Yes, milk is more expensive, but lots of things are very comparable to our prices here.) Gas was also about .75 cents higher than we have here in California, with the highest price being $2.99/gallon, and the lowest price we saw was $2.64/gallon.

 

 

     We spent the rest of the evening laughing and planning tomorrow's adventures.  Our campsite for the night was Kualoa B, which has an amazing view of Chinaman's hat... and is steps from the water. (We were site 24, which was awesome.)  Clean bathrooms and showers are available here as well.  (Sites are just under $11/night.) If you camp here, be sure to bring your hammock. There are perfectly spaced palm trees to hang an Eno.

 



 

 

     What an amazing day! 

 

    

 



Oh yeah? Well then I'm going.

"Oh yeah? We'll then I'm going."

That's what I said to my yoga instructor Jesi when she told me Hawaii tickets were at an all time low. (Around $300! Round trip!)

Let me be the first to say, planning a vacation is hard. After trying to get in touch with multiple travel agents and having no luck, I relied solely on google and Pinterest for this one. What on earth did we do before the World Wide Web?!

After researching plane tickets, We realized we would have to leave in about a week to snag the great deal. That's the first tip of traveling on a budget: 1.) BE FLEXIBLE. I understand this is hard for so many with work and school, but being able to alter your schedule helps tremendously on airfare. They say to book the cheapest airfare do so on a Tuesday, the third week of the month, three weeks before you fly, when there's a full moon and right after you've had a haircut-- (ok, I'm kidding) but I've never found that to be consistent. Normally we would try to book as early as possible, but in this case it was the last minute deal that sold us. So, keep your eyes out. There's not a set time when you'll find a great deal.

Travel tip number 2.) DON'T BE A PRINCESS.  Yes, I understand that camping is not for everyone. But, if you are wanting to do an elaborate vacation on a shoestring budget, an amazing resort is probably not in your stars. (At least, not in ours.) Some beaches of Hawaii have tiny cabins you can rent for $40/night if you aren't into tent camping. We knew we wanted to camp from the start, so we looked at a few options on the camp Honolulu website which has all the information you could possibly want.  Camping in Hawaii is very, very cheap. (Much cheaper than many of the KOAs we've been to.) Many of them enforce a three day stay limit, so we had to find one that allowed for five day camping. We chose Kualoa B regional park. It's adjacent to the Hawaiian fishponds, and has a beautiful  view of Chinaman's Hat. We are told the fishing there is quite good. (I'll have a review of the campsite posted next week after up our arrival.) and the best part? It costs less than $11/day.

Anytime I hear a review of Hawaii, the first thing people say is, "it's beautiful," the second thing people say is, "it's crazy expensive!" Knowing this ahead of time, we've prepared for the shock of expensive food, and how to avoid some of it. Having a picky eater for a two year old, paying 20$ for a hamburger she will decide not to eat isn't on my "to-do" list while there. So, this week I've prepared foods I know she will eat and packed with us. (Oatmeal, noodles, trail mix, crackers, peanut butter-- all things I can easily pack in my pack and cook on Logan's camp stove.) So, we should be able to eat two meals a day in, and splurge on dinners out for fresh local seafood.  That leads me to travel tip 3.) BE PREPARED.

I'll keep you posted on how well we have prepared for this trip :-) We leave day after tomorrow, and there's still so much to do! I'm hoping to share with you our plans, our gear (maybe I can get Logan to write that one!) what it's like traveling with a toddler, and of course tons of photos with it all. Prayers for safe travel are greatly appreciated!