Hawaii Part 2

Day Three - Friday, April 17th

A couple weeks before we were set to head to Oahu, I came across a picture on Twitter of the Stairway to Heaven hike on Oahu.  The picture was absolutely amazing, and I immediately decided that we had to do the hike.

After doing some research, I learned that the trail, called the Haiku Stairs, was originally a wooden ladder spiked to a cliff along a valley in the southeast region of Oahu.  It was built in World War II in 1942 for the U.S. Navy's Haiku radio station.  Constant rain wore out the wooden stairs and they were replaced with metal ones 10 years later.  By the 1980's, the metal steps were worn and some were missing, so it was closed to the public in 1987.  Because hikers were still accessing the stairs illegally and the city was worried about liability, in 2003, they had the 3,922 stairs replaced at a cost of $875,000 and hoped to reopen the trail.  The trail has never been reopened for a multitude of reasons, but it hasn't stopped hikers from continuing to access the trail.  Honolulu officials now spend nearly $50,000 annually for a private security guard that monitors the stairs 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

After talking with some people who had done the hike, they suggested we go at 3 in the morning to avoid the guard.  I'm not an early morning person, so that didn't excite me much, so we hoped to go in the day and either hope the guard was not there, or convince him to let us go.  Hindsight being 20/20, we probably should have known that if the trail was closed, there was probably a reason, and it might not be the best thing to do, but oh well.  We had read on Yelp and other sites that the hike wasn't that difficult and the views were worth it, so we were really excited to go!

We decided that Friday would be a good day to give it a go, so we woke up, went for runs again, and then showered and headed to the trailhead.  When we arrived, there were hikers everywhere (we could tell from the mud running up and down their legs).  I was surprised at how many people were there to hike this "forbidden" trail.  It was raining, so I was not interested in doing the hike because I had heard that the rails get very slippery and we didn't have gloves or anything to help dry our hands, so I knew that I didn't want to do it that day.  Doug wanted to though, so we made our way up the trail a ways. We encountered many hikers, all of whom, said the guard was there and he wasn't letting anyone go.  We decided to leave and try again another day when it wasn't raining and when the guard might not be there.

Because we had no other plans for the day, we decided to go to Honolulu because we were so close.  It was raining where we were and where we came from, so we were hoping that the weather was better in Honolulu.  We went to climb Diamond Head to get our hiking fix in since we were rejected that morning.  Both Doug and I had done it before on previous trips to Oahu, but it's always a fun little hike and gives you a pretty good view.  It was busy, as always, but fun nonetheless.

After hiking Diamond Head, we headed down to Waikiki to have some lunch and spend some time on the beach.  We ate at the Yard House for lunch, and boy was it good.  Doug was excited because they had almost 200 beers on tap, and I had a great margarita and some wonderful food.  After lunch, we spent some time on the beach, and we lucked out because it was sunny in Honolulu.  After spending some time strolling through the shops at Waikiki, we headed back up to the North Shore.

That night for dinner, we decided to ride our cruiser bikes to a Thai food truck just down the way from us.  The North Shore doesn't really have much for restaurants, but there are food trucks everywhere, so unless we went into Haleiwa for dinner, our only option was the food trucks.  We headed out and ended up getting caught in a terrible downpour and got absolutely soaked!  The rain finally gave up and we had some dinner at the Thai food truck.  It was delicious.  I had panang curry and Doug had some sort of rice dish.  They were both amazing!

On the ride back to our rental house, we saw a pretty amazing sunset.  Doug also got hit by a wave while we were standing onshore. Yes, you read that right.  I'm still not sure how it happened, but I looked up and my husband was soaking wet and missing his hat, because he got pummeled by a wave while standing on the beach.  What a nut!

Friday was an eventful day, but our adventure with the Haiku Stairs was not over yet!  Stay tuned for the real deal when we finally make our way up the Stairway to Heaven!

Doug wanted to do the hike, but I did not!  It was raining and I had visions of me slipping off the mountain!

The view as we were leaving the Haiku Stairs.  You can see it was raining and the clouds were extremely low, so we wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway!

On the way up Diamond Head.

The tunnel before reaching the welcome center of Diamond Head State Monument.

The path up...you can see it was pretty busy!

On the way up!

Part of the bunker at the top.

Spiral staircase on the way up.

View of the crater from the top.

We made it!

View of Honolulu from the top.

These stairs were incredibly steep!

Lunch at the Yard House!

Pomegranate margarita and a beer!

Waikiki!

And finally some SUN!

Such a beautiful beach, but oh so crowded!

Doug and Duke Kamehameha!

The bikes that our rental came with.

On the ride.  You can see the ominous cloud behind us that was about to unleash its fury!

Soaked, but glad I had a hat!

Thai food from the Elephant Truck!  Yumm!

Sunset!

The wave that got him!

Ha!

The ride back to our house.