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In Which I Have a Very Hawaiian Day
Mar. 14th, 2020 03:55 pmToday was my most Hawaiian Day since I arrived on the island 10 weeks ago, and it was my first real solo day, going out and doing my own thing.
I was out of the house at about 9am with my destination being Waimea Canyon. This is one of the big tourist sites in Kauai, though that's mostly people going an hour on a bus to view an overlook, before getting in a bus for an hour to return. But, it's also got some hiking that I'd never explored.
My destination was the the Kukui Trail, which is about 9 miles up Waimea Canyon Road, and which descends down from about 2900 or so feet to the valley floor, which is somewhere below 1300 feet. It struck me as being really magical, because I know the ancient Kauaians traveled right through the center of the island, rather than skirting the edges like we do today, and I know they lived in some of the river valleys, so Waimea Canyon has always struck me as this lost pathway.
Except, it turns out not so lost: you can go straight down to the Waimea River via the Kukui Trail, and then either walk upriver (to where? I dunno) or downriver, all the way to Waimea. So, I checked it out today.
The climb down is ... tense. The path is decently maintained, but it's got lots of places where you're climbing down over rocks and have to be careful where your feet are, and some loose gravel, and at least one slightly harrowing walk along a crumbling (but supported) hillside. So I think it took me about an hour and a half to head two miles down.
Of course, the slow pace was in part due to the absolute gorgeous views looking around at the canyon as it slowly rose further and further above you.
Somewhere between the 1.75 and 2.00 mile marker I entered the forest on the valley floor. I found a place to eat a sandwich and afterward decided that I'd descended enough, and even though I'd really like to head out to the river at the 2.5 mile mark, I didn't have to do it all in a day, because there will be plenty of other days to walk Waimea. So, I turned back.
And the walk back up was brutal. I was at 1300 feet, and I had to ascend somewhere around 1600 or 1700 feet in less than two miles. And it was noon by now, so it was getting increasingly hot.
OK, brutal might be an excessive description. But I frequently got my heart rate up to "peak" rate (160-170 for me and WOW my heart rate was peak rate for 41 minutes, and I can't usually get it to peak at all just from hiking) and whenever there was shade, I took it and rested. Sometimes I only managed the equivalent of 10 flights of stairs between breaks, sometimes 40.
It was a gorgeous trip, and great to see more of Waimea Canyon.
And, it was great to really spend a solitaire time out on my own, sometime I used to do every week or two, but hadn't since I'd moved here.
And I'm going to explore other trails before I return.
My mantra that got me back up the hill was JoJos-JoJos-JoJos, which is a shave ice place in Waimea.
Actually, it's two shave ice places: The Original JoJos, and JoJos, because there'd been some dispute some years ago. I always went to The Original out of loyalty ... but they're now gone.
In fact, they've been replaced by some pork place, and they also had shave ice, but didn't list their flavors, and I didn't want pork-flavored shave ice.
So I went to JoJos instead.
I'd always liked the "chocolate" flavor at the Original, which is pretty rare on shave ice, and they had it at the non-Original JoJos too ... but it wasn't nearly as good. In fact, I got chocolate-banana-cherry, and the other two were great, and the chocolate I was happy to have less of. Ah well.
I was doing pretty good at staying away from people ("social distancing") in my hike. It's a good way to get out and not actually be around sicklies (or to spread sicklies). I passed a few people when I was going down and then a few people passed me when I had my lunch, but our interactions were seconds long.
Not so at JoJo's. There was a large party of about a dozen people from Utah all getting shave ice. I didn't think about it at first, but afterward I was less than thrilled to be in the store with all these people who'd just travelled through airports.
It might be time to put eating out aside for the moment.
Because Kauai has just had its first two coronavirus cases, which were also "visitors": two visitors who have been very, very irresponsible. They'd been exposed to a coronavirus victim on the mainland, and then came to Hawaii anyways, and then on Maui they were so sick they went to urgent care, and then they merrily continued on with their vacation to Kauai.
So the island (and islands) have been mostly clean so far, but these two people who should have known better could easily have spread disease across Maui and Kauai both.
Thanks folks.
I finally got my bluetooth in Julie the Benz hooked up to my phone last night, and so when my dad called me on my trip down from Kukui, I was able to answer hands-free.
Yay! It worked great.
He said it looked like a swimming day, and I agreed, in part because I was very hot from my trip up the side of Waimea Canyon.
So, in the afternoon he picked me up and we went to Poipu.
Is there social distancing in swimming? Can the water transmit the virus? I dunno.
It was a nice swim, though, for the moment.
So that was my very Hawaiian day: hiking in Waimea Canyon, shave ice at Jojos, and swimming at Poipu.
And we'll see if there are more days like that in the near future, or if our island gets shut down now too, thanks to those irresponsible visitors (or thanks to a more random, less known vector of disease).
And as I write and edit this, the wild pigs out in the valley behind our house have been going crazy. Which is also very Hawaii.
I was out of the house at about 9am with my destination being Waimea Canyon. This is one of the big tourist sites in Kauai, though that's mostly people going an hour on a bus to view an overlook, before getting in a bus for an hour to return. But, it's also got some hiking that I'd never explored.
My destination was the the Kukui Trail, which is about 9 miles up Waimea Canyon Road, and which descends down from about 2900 or so feet to the valley floor, which is somewhere below 1300 feet. It struck me as being really magical, because I know the ancient Kauaians traveled right through the center of the island, rather than skirting the edges like we do today, and I know they lived in some of the river valleys, so Waimea Canyon has always struck me as this lost pathway.
Except, it turns out not so lost: you can go straight down to the Waimea River via the Kukui Trail, and then either walk upriver (to where? I dunno) or downriver, all the way to Waimea. So, I checked it out today.
The climb down is ... tense. The path is decently maintained, but it's got lots of places where you're climbing down over rocks and have to be careful where your feet are, and some loose gravel, and at least one slightly harrowing walk along a crumbling (but supported) hillside. So I think it took me about an hour and a half to head two miles down.
Of course, the slow pace was in part due to the absolute gorgeous views looking around at the canyon as it slowly rose further and further above you.
Somewhere between the 1.75 and 2.00 mile marker I entered the forest on the valley floor. I found a place to eat a sandwich and afterward decided that I'd descended enough, and even though I'd really like to head out to the river at the 2.5 mile mark, I didn't have to do it all in a day, because there will be plenty of other days to walk Waimea. So, I turned back.
And the walk back up was brutal. I was at 1300 feet, and I had to ascend somewhere around 1600 or 1700 feet in less than two miles. And it was noon by now, so it was getting increasingly hot.
OK, brutal might be an excessive description. But I frequently got my heart rate up to "peak" rate (160-170 for me and WOW my heart rate was peak rate for 41 minutes, and I can't usually get it to peak at all just from hiking) and whenever there was shade, I took it and rested. Sometimes I only managed the equivalent of 10 flights of stairs between breaks, sometimes 40.
It was a gorgeous trip, and great to see more of Waimea Canyon.
And, it was great to really spend a solitaire time out on my own, sometime I used to do every week or two, but hadn't since I'd moved here.
And I'm going to explore other trails before I return.
My mantra that got me back up the hill was JoJos-JoJos-JoJos, which is a shave ice place in Waimea.
Actually, it's two shave ice places: The Original JoJos, and JoJos, because there'd been some dispute some years ago. I always went to The Original out of loyalty ... but they're now gone.
In fact, they've been replaced by some pork place, and they also had shave ice, but didn't list their flavors, and I didn't want pork-flavored shave ice.
So I went to JoJos instead.
I'd always liked the "chocolate" flavor at the Original, which is pretty rare on shave ice, and they had it at the non-Original JoJos too ... but it wasn't nearly as good. In fact, I got chocolate-banana-cherry, and the other two were great, and the chocolate I was happy to have less of. Ah well.
I was doing pretty good at staying away from people ("social distancing") in my hike. It's a good way to get out and not actually be around sicklies (or to spread sicklies). I passed a few people when I was going down and then a few people passed me when I had my lunch, but our interactions were seconds long.
Not so at JoJo's. There was a large party of about a dozen people from Utah all getting shave ice. I didn't think about it at first, but afterward I was less than thrilled to be in the store with all these people who'd just travelled through airports.
It might be time to put eating out aside for the moment.
Because Kauai has just had its first two coronavirus cases, which were also "visitors": two visitors who have been very, very irresponsible. They'd been exposed to a coronavirus victim on the mainland, and then came to Hawaii anyways, and then on Maui they were so sick they went to urgent care, and then they merrily continued on with their vacation to Kauai.
So the island (and islands) have been mostly clean so far, but these two people who should have known better could easily have spread disease across Maui and Kauai both.
Thanks folks.
I finally got my bluetooth in Julie the Benz hooked up to my phone last night, and so when my dad called me on my trip down from Kukui, I was able to answer hands-free.
Yay! It worked great.
He said it looked like a swimming day, and I agreed, in part because I was very hot from my trip up the side of Waimea Canyon.
So, in the afternoon he picked me up and we went to Poipu.
Is there social distancing in swimming? Can the water transmit the virus? I dunno.
It was a nice swim, though, for the moment.
So that was my very Hawaiian day: hiking in Waimea Canyon, shave ice at Jojos, and swimming at Poipu.
And we'll see if there are more days like that in the near future, or if our island gets shut down now too, thanks to those irresponsible visitors (or thanks to a more random, less known vector of disease).
And as I write and edit this, the wild pigs out in the valley behind our house have been going crazy. Which is also very Hawaii.