Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 19:07:17 -1000 From: Wing C Ng (wing@lava.net> Subject: Superhike IV, Malaekahana
Paka/Prof. duo led Superhike IV today, going up Malaekahana, crossing over, and then down Laie. Since it's easier going up Laie, I elected to do that and come down Malaekahana.
The _only_ difficulty about this hike is that it is severely overgrown, other than Laie and the bottom 1/3 of Malaekahana. The trail-clearing gang however did a fantastic job on it though, and so it's now a freeway. I only took a little over 3 h. to go down Malaekahana, whereas it took 5 h. last May.
Weather is great, windy and cool, without rain or much fog/cloud, and so the hike is a great success and extremely enjoyable. However, some macho people are going to complain that it is not "super"-hike.
The bottom part of Malaekahana seems to have changed a lot, and I hardly recognized it. I wasted some 40 min. looking for the right route, and ended up busting out my compass to get the general direction. Eventually I got on the right exit route. But it's _not_ true that I took 4 hours going down Malaekahana!!
Wing
Thirteen club members joined Pat and I for the outing. We left the community park in Laie at 8:15, and the fastest hikers reached the top of Malaekahana Ridge in two hours and change. Many commented about the excellent condition of the trail. Kudos to the HTMC trail clearing crew for doing nice work.
The upslope weather looked ominous when we began but as it turned out, the summit was clear by the time we reached it. The winds were gusty, but otherwise the weather proved to be no problem, with not a drop of rain falling all day.
The KST was a mudbath, as the KST tends to be, and everyone was colored chocolate brown from the knee-down by day's end as a result. Our lunchspot was the foxhole at the Laie trail summit.
Everyone was out by 3:15.
I will recommend to the club's schedule committee that Malaekahana to the summit be made a club hike. In recent years, club hikes have gone only as far as the junction with the trail down to Malaekahana Stream. Since the entire ridge route is now wide open, we should continue hiking it, else the ridge route will be lost.
--DKT