Blue Pacific Baptism

“The selfish they’re all standing in line, faithing and hoping to buy themselves time. Me I figure as each breath goes by, I only own my mind. North is to south what the clock is to time, there’s east and there’s west and there’s everywhere life. I know I was born and I know that I’ll die. The in between is mine. I am mine.” -Pearl Jam

I have a love-hate relationship with the Hawaiian Islands. Love must be winning since this was my 13th trip to the islands, and my 10th to the island of Oahu. It’s the glorification of memories that keep bringing me back. The moments of bliss. Memories of sunshine and waves washing over my fresh pedicure, pulling away the sand from beneath my feet, that moment when all I can hear is the ocean. My cell phone doesn’t matter, my job doesn’t matter, my responsibilities are gone. The suffocating darkness I’ve been trapped in for months is washed away. My dry, cracked, pasty-white skin drinks in the sun and humidity, and I get to hide the dark circles under my eyes with oversized Maui Jims. It’s my tropical sanctification. Brief and temporary, but a powerful cleanse.

I chase after these moments of bliss, but they seem to be getting further out of reach. Each time I visit I feel as though the hotels get more expensive, the crowds get bigger, the traffic gets worse, and the locals get more annoyed with the necessary but tiresome tourists. Most of the time you wouldn’t know you were in Hawaii except for the obligatory “Aloha” and “Mahalo” that punctuate every greeting with skeptical sincerity.

Beach bliss is expensive, and if I’m going to do 12 hiking excursions this year, I have to find less expensive bliss. So, I’ll begrudgingly forgo the $455 per night, hotel room with the ocean view and book a sensible Air BnB studio. I’ll make the most of my converted shed in the back of someone’s yard. Suck it up! It’s clean, the locks on the doors seem to work, AND it also has a feature no $455 per night hotel can give you. The greatest invention of the 21st Century! The luxurious amenity so foreign to Alaskans, so genius, and yet so simple -THE OUTDOOR SHOWER!

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Kaunala Trail

Since beach bliss wasn’t what I was after on this trip anyhow, it was easy to redirect and escape into the Pupukea-Paumalu Forest Reserve just a few miles away from the crowds of Haleiwa and Sunset Beach. The Kaunala Trail starts at the end of Pupukea Road. (That’s the road just next to the Foodland.) The actual trailhead and signage are a few hundred yards in from the end of the road, just to the right of the Boy Scout camp.

This was supposed to be a 5.2 mile loop, but my adventure was a little longer. I’ll get into that later after I work up the courage. The trail starts out on a wide dirt path and connects to a paved road that’s inaccessible to the public. The dirt trail picks up again to your left and that’s where the real adventure begins.

This trail was an absolute delight. I loved almost every moment of this adventure. The island was hit hard by the recent storm which made for a muddy path and lots of downed trees, but nothing that was impassable.

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The trail winds down to a valley floor, then back up again, and down again. It twists and turns under dense forest with few openings for a panoramic view. There are few trail markers and they’re subtle so you have to pay attention.

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I only saw one other couple on the trail, which meant I was blissfully alone for most of the day. I was alone and worry free. There are very few things to haunt your hike in Hawaii: no snakes, no bears, no mountain lions! This is liberating and makes Hawaii one of my favorite places to hike!

Where Am I?

The trail takes you up and down hills several times. I crossed a few creeks that were no doubt higher than usual, but easily navigated. The trail opens up and eventually takes you out of the dense forest and on to a dirt road that looks like it might be used for maintenance by the state.

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The state maintenance road leads back to the paved road. This is where my adventure turned into a slight misadventure. Let me start by saying, I have never been lost. Never! Not once! I have been temporarily confused and not 100% certain of my location, but never lost, and certainly never lost on a paved road. No respectable Alaskan gets lost on a paved road.

I have a great sense of direction that I trust implicitly. So, when the state maintenance road met up with the paved road, I simply turned left. I had about a mile and half to go to get back to my car. A mile and half later, I didn’t recognize anything, and I was going up. Something felt off. I kept walking to see if I could get a better view of my surroundings. I remained fairly calm with the exception of a brief moment of shame and dread. It was raining hard, I was in a cotton T shirt, and the battery life on my phone was less than 5%. That pin that I set to mark my car in Google Maps wasn’t registering and I knew no one was going to drive by. In Alaska, this set of circumstances can kill you.

I was scolding myself for such stupidity and then remembered, “oh yeah, I’m in Hawaii and it’s 78 degrees.” I had plenty of water, snacks, and like every well-prepared Alaskan, my emergency, space blanket, bivy sack, and a respectable med kit. I reached the next clearing and realized where I had gone wrong. The ocean was on my left and should have been on my right. I turned around and headed back down the road. This “detour” turned my 5.2 mile loop into an 8 mile hike.

Next time I’ll bring a paper map, and make sure I have another way to navigate besides my iPhone. It’s best to learn these lessons at 78 degrees and not 38 degrees.

Shout Outs

I loved this hike, and even my misadventure for what it taught me. It’s going to be a very long time before I visit the islands again. Thirteen visits is quite enough, and there are other places to see and many different types of bliss to be chased. If I do come back, I’ll see if Maya’s Tapas & Wine Bar http://www.mayastapasandwine.com is still there serving the most delicious brunch and prosecco. It’s a new place in Haleiwa and a much needed addition to the old and somewhat tired restaurant scene on the North Shore. I had no idea you could elevate avocado toast to such a sublime place. It was almost blissful.

Aloha and Mahalo!