I know. I am so behind in my blogs. I still have two days of Big Island I haven't posted, plus all of the shit from the end of the semester, plus everything that's going on in my personal life....but I want to make sure that I'm putting hikes in, too, so whatever. I'm skipping around. It's my fucking blog, I do what I want.
So, in the personal life vein, Derek and I are moving to Missouri in three months, possibly less. It's cutting our stay on island by a year, which is exceptionally disappointing. While I definitely feel the pangs of claustrophobia being on a small island in the bumfuck middle of the fucking lawless, terrifying ocean, I have never felt as content anywhere as I have here on Oahu. I'm not sure I've grown as much in my entire life as I have in my two years here, and I can't say that I'm necessarily looking forward to leaving, even though I've been quietly looking forward to not being somewhere where I can't jump in the car and take a 15 hour drive to some new, empty place and photographing abandoned places along the way. Being hit with the reality of leaving early and having it NOT be for Germany, as was initially likely, kinda makes my heart ache for the place we're leaving behind.
So we've taken to doing as many hikes as we can shove in a week. Because Derek has been having to run in to Army to do Army things for a few hours every day lately, we've been leaving our hikes to the weekends. On Saturday, Derek and I wake up at an ungodly hour (though when you're an atheist, EVERY hour is ungodly!!! Hooray!) and go do a dangerous hike. One that may also be quite long. Because Gabriel is a bit of a whining wiener about hikes that require...you know...effort. We've had a very long list of hikes like these that we've kinda been sleeping on, but knowing we only have so many weekends left has lit a fire under our crotches. Three Peaks was one of them, and it inspired us to NOT do the Pali Notches Hike (if you feel inclined, check out this video of the hike on youtube. That shit is fucking wild. The ridges I can deal with, the hike up I can deal with. The high stakes scrambling and hopping from rock to rock? No fucking thank you).
The first hike we crossed off of our long list was Lulumahu Falls. This one isn't terribly complicated, it isn't terribly long, the only reason this was a Saturday Just-Derek-and-I hike was because we had to wake up VERY early to make sure we had the falls to ourselves, and Gabriel makes life miserable if you wake him up earlier than, say, 3:30 in the afternoon. I'm exaggerating, it's more like 10am, but the sentiment is the same. If he has to wake up any earlier than that, he's a fucking pill. We had to buy a permit to do this hike, because it's on property owned by the Board of Water Supply (my nemesis!!!!), so I bought the permit about a week before we went. This was a wonderful hike, I really enjoyed it. It was short and easy, and the falls were lovely.
Here we go!!! The bulk of these are going to be cell phone shots, of course, and then I'll add the really real camera ones at the end. There are a LOT of cell phone photos. A lot.
It was a little tricky to find the parking for the trail head, but it was SUPER fucking empty. So we got there early enough to both get parking, and have a decent chance at having the falls to ourselves.
Hooray for 5 am wake up calls! Down with staying in our comfortable bed where it's warm and not humid and also free of mosquitoes! BE RIDICULOUS EVERY DAY, 2020!!!
Here's the trail head! Right where the internet said it would be. And it was grey outside. I was very worried about rain. I'll spoil the ending for you, my fears were unfounded. It only drizzled for maybe two milliseconds and then it was dry as a bone.
Can't you tell how happy he is to be married to me? I can't either, don't worry.
This was kind of a big deal for me. I went out in nothing but a sports bra and a pair of jogging leggings. I've never in my life done that, and I doubt I'll do it again. So I celebrated by taking a selfie of myself baring no midriff whatsoever and providing no proof of how boldly I stepped out of my comfort zone! SMART.
You think you're excited, take a look at those nipples!!! As Derek packed his photography knapsack, I made fun of his socks. Just kidding, I didn't, but he knows how much I despise them.
And off we went! I forgot to take a lot of the photos of the way in, which was ENTIRELY overgrown, and the trouble with being the first person to forge through an overgrown trail that day is having to forge through the spiderwebs, and I did not want that for myself. So I took photos of the way in on the way back, so as not to lose my nerve and to keep plowing ahead.
There is a lovely bit of bamboo to trek through, though! It smelled crazy good in here. Very earthy and damp, but not like mold or mildew, more like a strong cup of very herbaceous tea.
When you pop out of the first section, you get this great view of the pali. Because it was pretty early, and people aren't driving very much ANYWAY, it was very quiet. So we got this dramatic view and it was still and it was absolutely lovely.
These are cell phone photos, so while textures look wonky and hypersaturated, the baseline is correct. So the grass is very green, the sky is very blue and pink. Just not THAT blue and pink. I just checked my roll in Lightroom, and it turns out I didn't bother trying to take any non-cellphone photos until we were at the falls. What an asshole.
This is the reservoir, and when I was watching videos on how to not get lost on this trail, I felt really inspired to take photos of the reservoir bridge. And then, that morning, I felt nothing. I was just like...oh.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY in the distance there, Derek has his long lens out, and he's photographing one of the far off falls in the pali..
Yup. A real nothingburger for the ol' creative dome. Eh.
Beautiful valley views....
Lame reservoir views. Oh well.
So, there is this huge wall that gets graffiti'ed, and the graffiti changes fairly often. There are a LOT of places like that out here, like Kaka'ako is pretty well known for its murals, the pillboxes have ever changing graffiti, I think the box at Ka'ena is my favorite place to go looking for local art. Anyway, I was massively fucking stoked to get a good shot of a wall covered in color. Imagine my god damn disappointment to find it fucking littered with god damn construction garbage:
What the fuck, Oahu? Fucking stop. It obstructed the entrance into the trail, as well, so we had to climb up over all of the nonsense, barging our way into the den of who knows how many spiders, and I almost twisted my ankle because, and here's the thing....we were too moronic and impatient to TRY AND FIND ANOTHER WAY IN. Which there was, about fifteen feet to the right of where I'm standing to take this picture. Well, there are at least two other ways in, because Derek and I found two different ways OUT, so we're double the morons for climbing over all of this construction detritus.
But there we go! Officially in/on the trail. And look! A place to store rotten children who misbehave. I think this is a feature all trails need.
It had a very "Secret Garden" feel to it, I would have loved this area so much more if it weren't sweaty and covered in mosquitoes. (Read: I was already sweaty and covered in mosquitoes, and because I am always complaining, my opinion of this tiny area is taking the hit for my out of shapeness and my sweet sweet blood meat)
I was too lazy to take my camera out and get an actual shot of these stairs and the fence, but I wanted one. Derek was like, are you sure? I said I was, but I wasn't. He asked again, I thought about it, and laziness won the day. I said no and opted to move forward. Honestly, I just didn't want to put my camera bag down in the mud, and I also didn't want to ask Derek to hold it while I juggled shit around, so I didn't take the shot. I only kind of regret, I think it could have been a cool shot, but eh. No real loss. The shot also could have been bullshit. We'll never know. Hooray for no disappointment!
I expected this to be a really easy trail, and it didn't disappoint. Smooth sailing!
I do this annoying thing now where, anytime I pass by water in a secluded area, I ask myself, "will it mermaid?" I think this area would mermaid, but I can't be sure.
I think THIS area would DEFINITELY mermaid, but only for kids. Derek and I have been having conversations about doing mermaid shoots in Missouri, and I think they're something we could DEFINITELY make work, but I also think we'd need an entirely different color scheme. Something woodsy that goes with waterfalls. There are quite a few lakes and rivers and falls in that area, but I don't think the tropical colors with the tails I have now would necessarily work in an environment that looks like...well...THIS.
And here comes Seabiscuit, bringing up the rear!!! JUST KIDDING! Seabiscuit is totally fucking glue by now. It's just Derek. Derek is way better than Seabiscuit. I had a bit of a journey going over those rocks, and I almost fell and busted my ass on one of them, because I refused to walk through the water in my clean hiking shoes that are meant for walking through water in. Derek just plowed his way through the water like an intelligent monster.
Forests are so god damn romantic. This photo does absolutely no justice to this tree patch growing over this boulder, but I assure you, it was mystical in person.
Oh good! My quads hadn't had enough when we did Three Peaks! MOAR INCLINE!
Here's our first river crossing. I didn't almost fall, I didn't have to walk through water, I just daintily (just kidding!) walked over the rocks.
Will it mini-mermaid?
Keep going uphill! You'll love it.
Hiking through this forest was both all uphill, and all beautiful. Please enjoy too many photos of it.
Look how LUSH. The place was absolutely bristling with bird songs. We have a few recordings, because we heard a bird song I couldn't identify (I'm kind of fascinated with birds. I learn everything I can about the birds of anywhere I'm living, so I can recognize their call, the difference between males and females, varieties, I just want to know the birds), and you can hear the wind, the bird song, the bugs droning, it's VERY pleasant. But the recordings are on Derek's phone. I don't have them.
There's Derek, lending perspective to the scrambling! It was really easy. I'm glad it wasn't raining, because it would have been slippery and obnoxious, but we had a very easy go of it.
Because we could hear so much rushing water, we were pretty sure this was the last leg of the falls hike.
The river bed looked really sparse, though, so I was starting to get worried that there wouldn't be much to the falls. Enough to photograph, but not in any dramatic kind of way.
We spent a LOT of time in this little area, because it's jammin' with electric eels! It'll turn your butt inside out for real! It's like orange juice, it's gross!
Or waterfalls. It's jammin' with little falls, and we wanted to get lots of shots of them. But we could hear Lulumahu crashing down in the background! We were damn near there.
People who know me really well know that anytime I see an abandoned shoe, or an abandoned pair of shoes, I always assume the person who was wearing them was kidnapped. I'm not sure why, it's just a morbid belief that logical me knows isn't true (for 99% of the shoes, anyway...), but wild me can't be talked out of.
What a strange place to kidnap someone.
There's my super hot man piece, doing what I do best.
Looking back this way is where we came from:
And looking this way is where we're headed! You can see the first little sneaky peek of Lulumahu falls!
We made it! Of course we did, but I am always so elated to get to waterfalls. I loe them. And we had them all to ourselves.
I had a companion with me, though I never would have noticed if he hadn't jumped very forcefully into the water and startled the fuck out of me so hard that I almost dropped my tripod into the water. Hullo, you noisy little shit! Please do not give me warts*!
*The makers of this blog are aware that amphibians of any kind do not give humans warts, and perpetuating that stereotype is rude. But that frog can't fucking stop me! I'm rude. It happens.
Maybe here is it?
If you can't picture a mermaid here, it is hardly my fault that your imagination is stunted.
That water would be perfect for a tail! If only silicone tails weren't so fucking expensive. My fabric tails would look amazing here, too, but there is an extra magical oomph in a silicone tail.
I wanted to get a closer angle in on that hole. You can actually follow that hole a fair way through. Did I do that? No.
He's so handsome!!!!
HERE'S THE FUCKING BETTER WAY IN!!!!!!! See?? I was right fucking next to it!!!! MORON.
This is the overgrowth we had been dealing with on the way in that I was too scared of spiders to photograph that morning.
Such delicate roses! Or mini peonies? They look kind of like a floribunda variety? Polyantha? Neither? I am not sure.
You can practically hear the spiders.
I definitely walked through about 40 more webs than the 0 I had planned on.
I noticed this sign, it made me really happy. And honestly, most of the people we saw crowded into the parking lot WERE social distancing, were wearing masks, it was refreshing.
Lulumahu had been such a nice jaunt that we wanted to do another hike. Not just to get our bodies going a little longer, but because we were super close to an easy hike that I'd been wanting to do for ages. We wandered down the road a beat to do the Kaniakapupu ruins.
Since people don't want ragamuffins vandalizing the ruins, the entrance is kinda kept as under wraps as possible (though once we found it, it's a pretty obvious hike entrance). I'll talk about why in a bit.
We had a bitch of a time finding the right way in because, as history has shown, we are dumb dumbs. Derek though he had found the right path in. What he found in reality was a very dense bamboo forest.
That he insisted we wander through. You know, because we'd eventually find our way there.
Look! We found an abandoned wall! Surely this must be the right way! Derek kept telling me, "we're adventuring, honey!" Which is all well and good, except adventuring isn't fun when you're still walking through spider webs, you have to pee like nothing else, and you're fighting with bamboo that will absolutely come back and hit you in the face if you push it forward too forcefully (how do I know? Because I'm a client! That got hit in the face with several bamboo stalks), and on top of all that, adventuring isn't fun when you know there is a better way to get to your adventure destination instead of tromping through fucking bamboo forests.
GET.ME.THE.FUCK.OUTOFHERE.
After literally 40 fucking minutes of rudely forcing our way through the bamboo, we fucked right outta that nonsense, got back to the road, and found the really real path.
See? Easily marked.
And the bamboo didn't need to be wrestled to the ground! There was a nice, clear path! That's the way I take my adventuring!!
Time to leave!!!
Seriously, this is the easiest path. That bamboo forest was a fucking nightmare.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND the highlight of our day...Derek's shoes died.
D-E-D DEAD. He's had them for ten years, I think he said, and this was the hike that killed them. They were fine when we started, but no longer.
Ok. Here are the photos I took with my actual camera:
The camera is DEFINITELY better.
Ok. Aeia Loop is up next!
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