Mokuleia Trail – June 1, 2012

I set out to find Three Corners today, but failed. This now becomes a storied hike. This hike isn’t too difficult, but with the exposure to the sun, it becomes taxing and physically draining.           

I woke up early, dropped the kids off at school, and drove towards the Mokuleia Access Road and parked my car. The gate is locked which means walking on the 4 mile long road. There are no big trees with long branches and wide leaves hanging over the road which means exposure to the sun. Being summertime in Hawaii, it was very hot. The initial walk on the road is level and easy, but the road will incline. I passed a few more gates, one was locked and one wasn’t. Somewhere after the second mile, I met Sensei and his friend Lisa. They started out before me and were now heading back. They walked near three miles on the road, but didn’t make it to the Peacock Flats Campsite. We talked about various topics, but the most interesting topic to me was skydiving. I surely want to do that one day.

After the short chat, I made my way up the road till the cook pines and the Peacock Flats Campsite. The road appeared to extend, but I veered off to explore the campsite. It’s a huge campsite. At the campsite, I saw a dirt road. I followed the dirt road until I encountered the Mokuleia trailhead sign. This was great I thought! I finally got to do the Mokuleia trail. The trail is well graded and parallels a fence. The fence was there probably to keep the pigs out. I walked and walked contouring right below the crest of the summit ridge. I knew I had to get to the summit, but didn’t see any junctions. I kept on walking until I got to a fence line blocking the trail. The fence line went up and down the mountain. Further progress past the fence appeared possible, but the trail was overgrown. My instincts told me not to proceed further on the overgrown trail, but to go up the mountain by following a fence. I assumed this would lead me to the crest of the ridge. After some scrambling while holding onto the fence, I hit the crest of the ridge.  The fence continued on the ridge’s crest and appeared to head towards Makaha valley, but it didn’t look to be worth the hike. Now that I think about it, I should have tried. Oh well, I went back down the mountain and took a break on the Mokuleia trail.

I had two options 1) was to head back the way I came, which would mean another 6 miles or 2) follow this fence line down the ridge and hopefully rejoin the road. I decided on the latter option. I had a strong feeling the fence would lead down the mountain and it did. My guess is why not, somebody had to build it. It took me about a half an hour to get towards the bottom of the mountain, but I didn’t rejoin the road yet. Instead I ended up at this dry rocky stream bed that gradually descended. On a nice rainy day, I’m assuming you could see some nice waterfalls. I climbed down the rocky stream bed and forged my way through towards the road.  On the way to the road, I saw a few peacocks, a small wild boar, and many birds.

The walk back on the road was tiring, luckily I brought enough water. I pounded the water. After 4 ½ hours, I ended up in my car, pretty tired and lazy.

I have to do this hike again. After looking at Rich’s gps file when he did the hike a few months ago, there appears to be a junction to take on the Mokuleia trail to get to the summit.