Manoa Falls

"Let's go see a 100 foot waterfall!" Where else but Hawai'i can you utter a phrase like! What other utterance could offer such a perfect distraction from the weighty possibility I had encountered the night before while looking at job postings. Fifteen minutes later we found ourselves at a trail head leading into the rainforest, up a mountain and towards a waterfall. Manoa Falls is yet another hike Ross and I took on last week. It's a fairly tourist trodden path, though still a workout. And even in these drier months, the path was lush with foliage. Considering most rain falls in the valley what else should we have expected.

The trail itself was slick with red mud. Which got progressively worse throughout the day and further up the trail. Most of the way we wound beside the stream. Enormous trees flanked us. Enormous. Yes...that is a tiny person at the base of that goliath. Dense trees and vibrant green ground cover alternated with bamboo groves. And ferns and branches covered us overhead. It was muggy and sweltering under the thick green cover. But we trudged on. Trigger happy with our cameras. This is only a fraction of the beauty that surrounded us. Manoa was a much more picturesque hike than Maunawili Falls. But the payoff at Maunawili is much better. Manoa Falls itself, while ridiculous and mindboggling in height was little more than a trickle down the cliff side. The water did cascade down a sheer rock face. It was stunning. And from the accounts of others, the falls are absolutely beautiful in the rainy season when the water volume is much greater. Of course, that time of year also yields muddier more difficult footing through the forest.At the falls basin, the Manoa Falls trail dead ended, but just off to the left, after a bit of a climb over a pile of rocks we started up the Aihualama Trail. This one was much more of a work out. What at first seemed just a slight upward jaunt began zigging and zagging back and forth. After a while it dawned on us we were slowly working our way up the mountain. Aihualama Trail reaches an elevation of about 1200 feet...a vantage point from which we saw breathtaking views of Maona Valley, Waikiki and Diamond Head Crater....waaaaayyyy off in the distance. From up on this trail, it appeared little more than a pimple on the coast. This trail dead ended into yet another one...Pauoa Flats Trail. Here we ran into a rather humorous, yet serious sign, warning of the pig hunting in the area. After strolling a bit off to the right on this new path we turned around due to mud and...fear that we indeed run into a pig. Vicious they are...or so I'm told. All in all we hiked, round trip, almost five miles over four hours. And a terror greeted us as our Aihualama Trail rejoined Manoa Falls. A roar nearby...a sound as if someone had splashed into the pool below the falls and continued to splash around. A roar like water that ran too long for it to be caused by one person. Perhaps the falls decided to be less of a trickle and let loose the earlier rainfall. Or even thunder? The rumble began to be punctuated by the sounds of snapping branches. I saw the cause just as others at the basin began to shout "get back get back!" I landed hard on my foot, straining my knee slightly as we scampered away from the falls. A minor landslide had started...a pile of small boulders tearing through the foliage on the far side of the falls...all 150-200 feet down to the basin. Small boulders yes, but it wouldn't take one much larger than a golf ball to do serious damage falling from that height. It turns out we were in the clear...the landslide happening on the other side of the gully. But such chances should never taken.

That, combined with yet another sign warning of the dangers of bacteria that lurk in the pools, reminded us of the power of Mother Nature.
Quite an appropriate outing after seeing The Happening a few days earlier...Don't mess with Nature. She will fuck you up!

Later that evening, going off of the helpful brochure the parking attended handed us on our way in, we looked up exactly where through Honolulu and Oahu we had manevured. It turns out, had we continued on Pauoa Flats, and onto the trail it dumped into, and onto yet another trail or two, we could have ended up at a trail head almost around the corner from my apartment. It's mind boggling to think on the network of paths and trails the lurk through the island.