Introduction

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This blog is a recap of our vacation to Maui to share with our friends and family but more to help us recall our trip. When reading an entry click on the "Read More" link to open a new page and see some representative pictures. Due to the nature of blogs, and the fact this isn't a true blog we recommend that you read this in the following order:

1. Introduction
2. Arriving in Maui
3. Road to Hana
4. Wai'anapanapa State Park cabins
5. Haleakala National Park- the southern/ lower section
6. Food
7. Haleakala National Park- the northern/ upper section
8. Wai'anapanapa State Park trail
9. Sea Mammals
10. Octopus' Garden
11. The Hana Road less traveled
12. Lu'au

Katie kept an ongoing journal of our trip and recorded the videos. I attempted to act as photographer. Rather than a evening of wine and a three hour slideshow of beaches and coconut palms, sure to put the most interested to sleep, we decided a website would prove to be an adequate excuse to distract you from your daily grind. Feel free to comment, or don't. If you do, you get put on our favorite friends and family list. If not you get dog sitting duties. Soon we will put all the pictures up on Shutterfly, where there will be some cool pics that didn't really fit the narrative.
Thanks, Katie and Chris

Lu'au

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When in Hawaii you have to do a lu'au. I was thought it was going to be cheesy. A Disney stage version of a tradition that had long since died out. Some crappy renaissance fair re-enactment of days gone by. Guided by Maui Revealed we went to what was considered the most authentic lu'au on Maui. We both found it very intriguing.
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Lets be honest, "most authentic," I guess, "authentic" probably not. Upon walking through the doors you and 3oo of your closest friends get ushered to your assigned seats and handed a watered down fruity drink. From there you are able to wander around the lu'au grounds observing people sitting, weaving baskets, and making other traditional crafts. Sort of like what you would expect to see hippies doing at a musical festival. Not too impressed at this point as I get vague memories of Williamsburg (or NH's lesser known Strawberry Banke, anyone speak colonial english?).

Our new place in Boston!

Next we were escorted to the imu, which is the pit where they roasted the pig. Of course I am intrigued. Any food that is buried to cook it has to be interesting. Mesquite wood provides heat, beach rocks (nothing porous) are placed over the burning wood, a layer of Ti leaves, then a butterflied pig wrapped in a sheet and buried. The result is a slow smoked and steamed pig that tastes delicious. In the pit they also add the Pork Lau Lau (see food entry).

Vegetarians might want to look away

One more drink as the pork is dished out into the buffet lines then we are lead to the grub. One oversized plate full of pork, poi, ahi poke, tako poke, lomi lomi, sweat potatoes, teriyaki beef, coconut mahimahi, huli-huli chicken, banana bread, and pork lau lau later and I was stuffed.

Ahhhh buffets at a lu'au...only in America

Damn that's a lot of yummy food

After dinner, the hula dancing began. Again, I thought it was going to be cheesy. But it actually was very fascinating, both men and women. The hula has been around for centuries and every movement, the placement of hands and feet is choreographed to portray a legend or story. The hula we saw was accompanied by rhythmic bongos and chanting. I can only speculate what was being chanted but for the hour that the dancers performed I was mesmerized. Its hard to describe and granted the dancing was done with full lighting effects, but I would definitely recommend this to anyone. Apparently the less traditional Lu'aus include fire juggling that originated in other Polynesian islands.

For the ladies

Chris enjoyed all of the fast hip movements and the coconut bras

Lu'au dancing

More lu'au dancing

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The Hana Road Less Traveled

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Beyond the town of Hana, the Hana Highway continues, essentially creating a loop around the island. Unfortunately, due to an earthquake a few years ago, part of the road either disappeared or was buried. The state of Hawaii thought it prudent to close this portion of the road. Katie and Chris thought it prudent to explore two cool sights along this section.
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Katie, always the lawyer, forbade me from driving the Jeep over the concrete barrier that had been outfitted with a stone ramp on either side by locals. Our rental car map strictly issued a warning about not using this road. And admittedly, not knowing what was on the other side, I didn't put up much of a protest. Our destination was the Alelele Falls: a waterfall about 1.5 miles down the road. We packed a lunch, hopped the barrier and wandered down the portion of the Hana Highway that no AARP discounted tour bus dared venture. We quickly gazed upon a fairly desolate beach surrounded in lush greenery. We quickly discovered what had to have been one of the most interesting noises. The beach was not sandy. It entirely made up of smooth rocks the size of softballs that stretched for about a quarter mile with a fresh water stream flowing into the sea midway down the beach. It was relatively open to the ocean and waves were crashing close to shore. The noise we heard was the sound of the incoming and receding waves grabbing the rocks and grinding them against each other. Simultaneously tumbling and polishing thousands of rocks. We stopped, ate lunch, enjoyed the strange noise, and enjoyed the scenery of this isolated cove which even allowed us to get a rare glimpse of a stream we passed over dumping into the ocean from a 50ft water fall.

Kukui'ula Falls from a distance

The rocky beach where we stopped for lunch

We packed up after lunch and wandered to our destination. A mile later we entered into the woods, traversed a stream and came to a special waterfall. The Alelele Falls were nestled in the forest and provided a cooling break from the sun that came out in force that day. We had the place to ourselves. We took a dip in the water, allowing me to forgo a shower that day... And marveled at the sight. Like almost everything there, it was beautiful and its deafening flow almost mesmerizing. We took pictures and relaxed. The tranquility of the location was perfect. However, after a few minutes we were interrupted by two groups of people. The first group contained a old white haired, pony-tailed aging hippie wearing a sarape, his wife, and grandson. Upon reaching the pool and with no shame he shed his sarape to declare to those gathered around the waterfall that he swam naked. We did not take pics.

Alelele Falls

After the falls, we headed to Hamoa Beach.

Hamoa Beach- and an unofficial sighting of Weird Al Yankovic (far left)

Random picture of the birds and the cows that were BFFs

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Octopus' Garden

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Questions to ask yourself in Maui:

• Should we snorkel or SCUBA today?
• Is that turtle bigger than that turtle?
• I wonder how hard it is to find a job for a water purifying engineer in Maui?
• How many whales am I listening to as I am swimming among coral reefs?

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Next to the whale watching, the diving and snorkeling we did was probably the best thing we did in Maui. The Hawaiian Islands are the most remote large islands in world (over 2000 miles from other land), providing unique species of animals and fish that are only found here. Or at least that is what we were told several times. Unique or not, the diving was just straight fun.

We both SCUBA'd for the first time. We did two dives with an instructor and went up to 40' underwater from a shore dive. It was a sensory overload. The large green sea turtles, colorful topical fish, warm water, and the song of a humpback serenading us in the background. Did I mention the taste of seawater? Mmmm. Anyhow we didn't really have any underwater cameras and didn't take any pics of us geared up, so you will have to take my word on this. If you have never SCUBA dived, definitely do it. If you have, do it again and do it on Maui.

Snorkeling I have done several times but apparently not in the right places or with good equipment. Usually it takes me about 5 minutes before I inhale half the ocean and gag from the nasty taste of the water. For some reason after SCUBA, I got snorkeling. I think I used to always over swim, rather than just sort of float. Relax and enjoy. I did enjoy. Turns out, from our hotel in West Maui, we had a coral reef just 20 ft from the shore. I rented the snorkel gear from the cabana and had several days of entertainment. Our last day we went on a snorkeling trip (see Sea Mammals entry). We had two dive sites and this time were prepared. Katie, thinking ahead, bought us each a cheapo underwater camera. Turns out underwater photography with these cameras works as long as the things you are taking a pic of are 3 feet from your face. I accidentally came face to face with a turtle and we hung out for about 10 minutes together but the picture of him surfacing right in front of me didn't come out because I ran out of film. You guys remember film right? I forgot that film meant you couldn't just take 500 pictures then weed them out afterwards. 27 pictures later, I missed my cool turtle pic. Fish aren't as photogenic, but check the ones we were able to get:

Snorkeling with green sea turtles was amazing

One of our tropical fish pictures actually turned out!

Unfortunately, we didn't take these pictures, but we did see these water creatures:

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Sea Mammals

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Seriously, is anything cooler than having a Whale Season (non-hunting of course). No? How about we throw that season in 85 degree weather in January and place it on a tropical island. Sold!
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Mammal 1- Whales
I grew up in New Hampshire. At the age of 6 I had surgery on my chest that would keep me bed ridden for two weeks and inactive for an entire summer. As a means of placating me before my chest got ripped open my parents took me on my first "whale watch" the day before. In New England whale watches require a long, cold boat ride out off Cape Ann. They were always fun, you could see the whales off in the distance while the boat pitched in the open Atlantic Ocean. Since then i have been on several and the experience is always about the same. You'd see a few whales off in the distance while trying not to toss up the $5 hotdog and Sunkist you downed on the two hour boat ride out. No more New England Whale watches.

My first inclination that Maui is different came as we were driving to West Maui from Hana. It was a lazy drive and Katie was reading about a light house where we could watch whales surface. Cool I thought as we were driving along. I daydreamed about seeing whales surfacing as ants against the horizon as Katie gripped my arm. "WHALE! WHALE! PULL OVER!!!! PULL OVER!!!!!!!!!!" div>
Sure enough just off the shore there were a couple of whales flopping around in the water with a boat hovering near to watch. Amazing. I couldn't believe our luck. What were the chances we'd see a whale right from the shore. Katie had never seen a whale and I all but had to handcuff her to keep her from grabbing the wheel and forcing me to pull over. I dodged traffic and snuck into a harbor to gather a view. After about fifteen minutes and about 57 pictures we pulled out of the harbor parking lot to complete the 20 minute drive to the hotel. In that 20 drive we saw two more whales... In subsequent days we saw them while sitting at the pool, while having cocktails, while watching the sunset, while eating dinner, and while driving to the airport on the way home.

While feeling the Humpback adrenaline rush we made plans to go on a whale watch the next day. The watch was just short of a miracle (only because one didn't swim up right next to our boat). We ended up following a pod of 10-12 whales. It was crazy. They were surfacing and flashing their tails literally in every direction. Katie almost passed out spinning around so many times... or maybe it was the 2 mai tais for $2 special they had on the boat. The company guiding the Whale Watch, the Pacific Whale Foundation (PWF) is a nonprofit foundation that study and educate people about whales. The ship we were on was equipped with an underwater microphone. It was crazy to listen to, sounded like a pack of dogs getting excited over the mailman... only speaking whale, not dog. (A few days later we went scuba diving. During our second dive, at about 25 feet below the surface, we heard the distant songs of humpback whales. Again very awesome.)

Tail shot

Soooo pretty

Whales surfacing while the microphone was in the water

About the most incredible encounter we had was on the return side of a snorkeling trip when we thought the fun was over, a mother whale, calf, and male escort surfaced close to the boat. The captain killed the engine and for 15 minutes the whales surfaced, dove and rolled around on the surface of the water and swam with 20 feet of the stern side of the boat. Unfortunately we were on the bow side but we got some sweet pics and left us with an great sense of whale fullfillment (we flying home later that day which made it that much apropos).

Momma whale and her calf

Mammal #2
Spinner Dolphins are apparently another abundant sea mammal (we unfortunately missed out on Monk Seals, the third sea mammal we wanted to see). We only saw them once while motoring to a snorkeling spot aboard a snorkeling/dolphin trip with the PWF (became a fav of ours). Spinner Dolphins are a type of bottlenose dolphin (according to Katie who heard something different than I did) , are about 5-6 feet long, and travel in pods of about 100. Did I mention they get their name by jumping out of the water and spinning around like a ballerinas. Although not as gracefully as a ballerina which makes it all the more entertaining. So as the boat spotted the pod, they kill the engine and sit. What followed was a swarm of about 100 dolphins scouting our boat and engulfing the water around us. After moving on, they lagged behind and followed us to our snorkeling spot. Unfortunately the showed up as we got out the water. No worries because we got to swim with turtles a couple of minutes later.

Spinner dolphins swimming with our boat

Show off!

Spinner dolphins showing off for the boat. The microphone was in the water at the time so the sounds you hear are the dolphins.

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Wai'anapanapa State Park Trail

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Wai'anapanapa State Park is the park in which our cabin was located while staying in Hana. It is a long narrow park that provides a trail to hike along the coastline for about two miles (or that is what we covered). It offered perhaps the prettiest rocky coast I have seen. The sea is deep blue, the surf turquoise, the shore jagged jet black lava rock with a with green shrub that grew in the rock. Beyond the shrubbery, coconut palms and banyan trees trapped you against the shoreline. The crashing waves made for deafening background noise.
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The park itself is known for a couple of fresh water caves, a black sand beach and a "blow hole". All of which were mediocre when compared to the rest of the park. The caves were cool and there's some legend about a princess and an angry prince regarding the cave (every tourist sight has a legend about a princess). Luckily our cabin opened right onto the trail and it wasn't until the last day that we actually visited the advertised attractions. We found a better "blow hole" about a quarter mile from our cabin. We spent a number of mornings and evenings wandering the trail. We took way too many pictures which we attributed to the fact that we live in Colorado and don't see water very often! I will mostly let the pictures and the videos do the talking.

Katie is surprised by the waves

Yet another tripod picture, this one along the coastline

Wow it's actually sunny out

Chris was very excited about finding this coconut.....and then he got drenched

Yet another picture of the colorful shrubbery along the trail

Yes the waves were really that big at all times

The black sand beach located in the park

The blowhole we found along the trail

Crashing waves against the lava rocks

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Haleakala National Park- the Northern/ Upper Section

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Ten thousand feet above the beaches stands Haleakala Crater. It's massive and usually obscured in clouds. The "thing to do" is get up at about two o'clock in the morning and drive to the summit. From there you witness a mind-altering sunrise, as the sun ascends over the clouds and lights up in a myriad of colors that bring you inches from heaven. After receiving the inner enlightenment one is supposed to then bike down the side of the crater to envelope one's self with the beauty that is Maui.
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We decided to be different. First, we ditched the biking idea for fear that we might sight-see ourselves off a 10,000 foot cliff. Turns out we weren't that far off. Weeks before getting there, the park made biking the top 3000 feet illegal due to injuries. Second, we timed it such that we woke up 3:30 to make it to the summit by 6:30 to catch the 6:55 sunrise. We didn't get there until 6:45, which took some high speed driving that is only possible when you know you're late and you can't see the sure death dropoff beyond the wooden guard rail. It turns out the cool colors come out before the sun rises, from about 6:30 to about 6:45. Third, I think I got frost bite. Yep- on Hawaii. It was cold and the wind was gusting, and I needed to set up the camera and tripod which exposed my hands to the cold. I stuck it out and just as the sun came over the clouds my fingers went tingly. My finger tips still are somewhat numb as a result.

The sun starts to peek out from the clouds below

The pretty colors of the sunrise. Damn it's cold!

Anyhow the sunrise was still pretty damned cool despite my bitterness. The view from the top was something to behold. You could see the top of the volcano on the Big Island and once the clouds cleared you could see other neighboring islands laying next to Maui. I was very happy after I recovered most of the feeling in my fingers. That is, until we went hiking.

Yay for a fantastic view!

Hiking was a bit of an adventure and gave us a new perspective of Maui. Within the Haleakala crater there were multiple cinder cones. To reach the first cinder cone we hiked a 2 mile trail down 1500 feet in elevation. Going down is great- wide views of the crater, views into the cinder cones, different arrays of rock strata and color, and clear thin air.

High above the clouds on our way down to the cinder cone

Sitting on the edge of the colorful cinder cone.

Looking out at the other cinder cones

Panning view of the crater

As we made our way down the trail, we ran into the nene. The nene is a protected bird on Maui. They are pretty stupid and we're pretty sure the reason they became endangered is because they are very lazy and don't move out of the way. Maybe they should have gone the way of the dodo bird?

The nene

We also saw one of the few plants to grow on the crater- the silversword. Unfortunately, they only bloom in the summer so we missed the flowers. These plants take 50 years to mature and once they bloom, they die.

The pretty silversword

Coming back up is a different story. You've already got your pictures. You've seen it all before. You just want to get back up. It turns out the Haleakala trail builders defeated physics by making the return trip twice as long and twice as steep. As we climbed we passed horseback tours heading into the crater... hmmm, probably should have seen that as a sign. But no, we're from Denver dammit! We were used to the altitude. However, those stupid horses let there presence be known such that every out of shape, high altitude of gasp of air was perfumed with horse manure. Awesome!

Post hike we ditched our peanut butter and jelly lunch and opted for a restaurant in the Upcountry and wandered around the shops and galleries. It was away from the water that I actually had the best sushi of the trip in a small deli/ice cream parlor/sushi bar. After it all was said and done the hike and the park are definitely recommended and hopefully the pics reflect how beautiful it is.

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Food

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We had a lot of opportunities to experiment with new foods in Maui. Two weeks in any given place gives you a chance to get a feeling for the regional cuisine. We actually found it more difficult to find local foods than we expected. Most restaurants served typical meat and potatoes types of dishes that catered to the cruise crowd. For a land surounded by the vast Pacific Ocean and settled by a diverse conglomeration of Pacific Rimmers, we figured they offered more than midwestern fare. We found what we were looking for.
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Rather than a recap of every meal- I'll run through some of the interesting fare we had. For the first week of the vacation we mostly made food and ate in the cabin. Hana offered a single general store from which to buy food (we bought some grub at a grocery store near the airport to save money but ended up mostly buying from the general store). In West Maui, we had had a choice of spending big money for food or making our own in the hotel suite. We split about half and half. Here's our recap.

Fish-
No real surprise its an island. However the surprise was more in the variety. Let see there was: Ono, Ahi, Aku, Opakapaka, Onaga, Gindai , Ehu , Uku, Lehi, Mahimahi, Opah, Spearfish, and Tako. Huh you say? Yeah, they pretty much all made it onto our plates at some point during the two weeks. Some were types of tuna, some were types of snapper, the rest were types of other fish you see such as swordfish. They pretty much had Mahimahi everywhere, kind of like haddock in New England.

Poke-
(sounds like pokay, rhymes with okay)- I ate more poke than most Hawaiians. Basically its raw fish chopped up and marinated in something. Typically it was Ahi Shoyo (Japanese soy sauce). Poke- tuna chopped and mixed with soy sauce, onions, green onions, and (don't tell Katie) seaweed. To top it off it only cost $6-$8 a pound. They also had other versions. One supermarket had about 20 different types set up in the deli including spicy ahi, tako, octopus, and other fish. After a week of eating for lunch, dinner, and breakfast, I sort of got tired of it.

Chris is very excited about the poke we bought at the grocery store

Poi-
Yeah, you've heard of it but until you taste it you have no idea what you're in for. Our first experience was when we bought it from Hasegawa's General Store in Hana. Here's a couple things to keep in mind:
#1- pay attention to the check out girl's instructions on how to prepare and eat poi
#2- Poi is a condiment and not a side dish.
#3- Poi is served cold not hot.
Let's just say our first experience was a little disappointing and left us each with a plate full of starchy warm brown goo that even the cats wouldn't touch. Turns out, again, its a condiment. Therefore, you are supposed to mix it with other stuff. I liked mine with roasted pork; it picks up the flavor of the meat and gives it a hardier, thicker consistency. I ended up liking it. Katie did not.

Mmmmm heated poo.

Lomi Lomi-
Basically Pico De Gallo with raw salmon in it. Mmmm.

Pork Lau Lau-
Pork and salted butterfish wrapped in taro leaves (a bitter green sort of like spinach) and steamed. I enjoyed thoroughly, Katie did not. (It might be noted that I pretty much eat anything and if people consume it, I generally can find a reason to like it.)

The Lau Lau is the dark stuff behind the shredded pork.

Sweet Potatoes-
The Hawaiian sweet potato was spectaular. Very sweet and very purple on the inside; they seemed to get even more colorful the more you cook them. The first time we baked them on the grill at the cabin Katie accused me of burning them because they were so dark. Delicious. We had them at the luau as well.

Breadfruit-
Unfortunately, we were only able to try this once. It was another suprisingly good veggie. Basically sort of starchy like a tuber but topped off with a sweet red chili sauce. We got the breadfruit at a road side stand outside Hana for a couple of bucks, we figured we had nothing to lose.

Mmmm breadfruit. You can even eat the outside of it.

Fruit-
Mostly served as garnishes for drinks... I kid. The road to Hana was littered with fruit stands and our cabin had some fresh stuff growing in the yard. Papaya, lechi, some fruit that starts with an S that we couldn't remember the name of, coconuts, guava, apple bananas, mangos, and more. I ate more fruit in the course of the two weeks than I did in all of 2007.

One of the many road side fruit stands

Macadamia nut banana bread and rambutans. Rambutans tasted like grapes.

Early morning harvesting of a guava from the ground

Apple bananas are so small, but yet so tasty!

Mmmmm papayas are yummy

Macadamia Nuts-
They're on and in everything.

Restaurants-
We put the links up for our favorite places. Hana had three places to eat. We tried one; then resorted to eating homemade food until we made it to West Maui. We went to a lu'au which was almost too much food...almost. There was a place called Aloha Mixed Plate, which served mixed plates. Go figure. Anyhow, apparently its a style stemming from the fruit plantation days where groups of plantation workers would eat together and "mix" plates of food. Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino food all served together with two scoops of rice. (there's something significant about the two scoops, but not certain what.) We went to some high end fish places like Mama's Fish House in Central Maui and IO in West Maui. IO in particular showed some originality and experimentation with flavor (an example: cream of asparagus with curry soup). Mama's was a little more traditional but still very good. Eskimo Candy is local fish monger that supplies restaurants and has a cafe/deli attached to the warehouse. Probably the best fish and chips (ordered by Katie) and fried calamari I've had.

Overall I think a successful culinary vacation in addition to the sun and nature.


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Haleakala National Park- the southern/ lower section

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New Years Day we decided to head into Haleakala National Park to take advantage of the hungover masses and hopefully have the park for ourselves. The park is rather expansive and derives its name from the 10,000 foot volcano/ crater for which its famous. However, the park is so large that it not only includes the peak but the lava flow down to the sea. The peak is barren, almost desert-like while the lower portion is lush and engulfed in a rain forest. The differences are so stark it is hard to believe they are on the same island, let alone part of the same park.

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Yay! A rainbow!
(first time we saw sun since arriving in Hana, didn't
realize this was the first of about 20 rainbows, we'll spare you the pics)

Our first adventure was to see the Seven Sacred Pools. It's a series of cascading waterfalls and gentle pools for swimming and picture taking. We were lucky we arrived early. It was a quiet and peaceful location in the morning, then in the afternoon, it was swarmed by elderly people fresh off their cruise ships wearing orthopedic shoes and bad Hawaiian shirts. Access to the pools was easy and location was the terminal point on every tour bus driving the Hana Highway. The rangers forbade any swimming due to the swollen pools, high water levels, and threats of flash floods. It had rained for three weeks straight prior to this day which luckily broke the day we arrived at the park.


The hike to the Seven Sacred Pools is a quick 1/2 mile loop; I managed to make it stretch into a full morning hike. I had just bought a new SLR camera for the trip, read a book on photography on plane ride, and forgot the manual for the camera. This left me with the dilemma of how to set up a good shot, how to set apetures, shutter speeds and ISO settings, how to level the new tripod, how to account for the sun for the first time, while simultaneously trying to look professional enough to justify the 50 lbs of camera gear I hauled onto a hike mastered by 80 year old women with canes. I felt a little foolish at times, considering I ended up using the same settings as most point and shoot cameras.

The waterfalls and pools were beautiful and amazingly enough, the sun shone for the rest of the afternoon, putting us in a good mood.

Not the best picture of the two of us, but another chance to use the new tripod!

The pools spilling out into the ocean.

Another view of the pools and waterfalls.

As our footwear was not up to the 4 mile trail known as the Pipiwai Trail, we came back the next day better prepared for the hike and inches of wet, mushy mud. The trail hugs a stream along its ascent providing multiple beautiful waterfalls and winds through a bamboo forest ultimately terminating in a final grand waterfall.

The first sight was Makahiku Falls, a 200 foot waterfall with what looks like an infinity pool on top of it. Katie played the "mom" role to a 't' and wouldn't let me get close to the drop off of the waterfall. I really did want to get closer and could have despite my "fear of heights" issue, but mom was nagging pretty hard, the footing a little shaky, and the idea of a getting swept over the edge in a flash flood a bit unnerving. I still would have like to have gotten closer to the edge. Maui Revealed recommended it.

I can't believe we wasted our time on this waterfall. ;-)

Be careful Chris!

Wandering up this trail barely left a momement when you didn't want to stop and gaze at the eye candy. There were multiple waterfalls. There was an enormous Banyon tree.

Banyan trees- some of their branches grow their own roots to the ground

But the last two were probably the most rewarding. With about a half mile left in the hike we reached a bamboo forest. Totally amazing. The entrance into the bamboo forest starts with a trip across a foot bridge. Bamboo forests are amazing to look at from the outside as well as inside. From outside, the trees sway in unison to any breeze to produce a hypnotic ripple that caught us for more than a few minutes. Katie liked to call them the snuffleupagus trees. From within, there is a refreshing coolness from the shade of the overhanging trees that is utterly peaceful. From the trail we could only see maybe 50 feet into the forest due to its density which also gave a sense of a long tall corridor.

Katie outside the bamboo forest entrance.

Another chance to use the tripod

Chris pretending to be a monkey in the bamboo forest

Towards the end of the hike we came upon a our first sights of the Waimoku Falls. It skies 400 feet from an eroded, recessed cliff. The rock wall of the cliff is lined with moss and grasses, and trickles with water that didn't make it into the main fall. We ended up eating our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the bottom with sore necks. The sound of falling rocks encouraged us to heed the warning sign about approaching the waterfall. Katie and I attempted to get some pics of ourselves but they are slightly off because in order to get us and the falls in the same picture, we needed to set the tripod, one of us would stand 50 feet from the camera, and the other would set the timer, push the button, sprint to the other while bounding over slippery rocks and boulders then look natural after getting there. Fun!

Waimoku Falls

Waimoku Falls- the video

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