Malaekahana Pools - January 18, 2014

Three years ago, I didn’t get to the 40 ft. waterfall. Three years went by...

Sensei wanted to do this hike and invited whoever, but in the end it would just be me and him. Sensei can be considered one of the experts anywhere from Kahuku to Hau’ula. That is pretty much his neighborhood. He has also hiked many of the trails back there. 

Not sure if Sensei did any prep for the hike, but I didn’t. I just knew that Malaekahana had a lot of ups and downs. It is not an easy ridge. Today, we would not be going to the summit. Instead, we would veer right at the junction and head down to the pools. I’ve been to these pools once before, but only explored very little. 

Sensei met me at the community park at around 8am. From there we hiked at a blistering pace up and down Malaekahana ridge until we hit the junction. The walk down towards the gulch does take a while, I’d say at least 20 minutes. At the stream, we could either go right or left. I knew we’d be doing both today, so a choice was made to head upstream to try to get to the 40 ft. waterfall first.

On the way there, I figured I practiced shooting my silk waterfalls. It has become an obsession of mine to shoot silk. I really wish I had a ND filter and a good lens, but my starter lens does the job and I adjust my manual settings accordingly. After a short hike through the stream, we got to the base of the 20 ft waterfall. There’s a good size swimming pool which we would have to ford. To do this, we tried holding onto the side of the walls, trying not to submerge our bodies too much underneath the water. The water was below waist level and cold. Sensei got to the waterfall first and started to make the initial attempt. There were no good footholds at the base of the waterfall, so Sensei tried to contour it, but had some problems. I thought I saw a foothold at the base of the waterfall and took a turn. However, the climb seemed too technical for me and I decided to backtrack and solve the problem by following Sensei’s route. I found two branches to hold onto which got me to a solid foothold and a rope, I maneuvered my body to a small ledge. From there, I waited for Sensei to tackle the problem and get to a rest spot to where I was perched. Then, I decided to tackle the semi-vertical waterfall to the top. The holds were spectacular as it was easy to climb. Sensei followed suit and we got to the top. Low and behold, the 40 ft. waterfall was staring us right in the face. It was a trickle on this day, which was very disappointing. The stream had a decent flow, but the water flow was not meant to be on this day.

After some pictures we headed back down the waterfall and decided to check out the lower falls and pools. This area is beautiful as the pools are deep and it appeared that one could jump off from a ledge into the pool. I would check the bottom first to make sure it is deep enough.  After more pictures, we headed back up the hill to the junction. The hike down Malaekahana was really fast, less than 2 hours. 

The PHM was at Tita’s grill. I was on my diet, but decided to purchase their legendary [best on the island] Pastrami Sandwich. I figure I only eat half of it. In about 15 minutes, I devoured the whole thing and was satisfied, but guilty. Hopefully I burned enough calories on the hike to nullify all those calories from the Pastrami Sandwich.