Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 20:24:36 -1000 From: Wing C Ng (wing@lava.net> Subject: Waiau
Started at 7 am with Steve Poor on Waimano. Got to the top of Waiau by 11:15.
It's GOOD to be BACK!!, at my old trail, now well cleared!!
Took 1 hour to get to the exact same point I had lunch in 1996, at which time I took _2_ hours to get to the same spot. That was also the spot I reached back in 1991 from below, _and_ also had lunch. So I had lunch there 3 times already.
Took 45 minutes to get to the wallet spot (where I lost it in '96), and a couple more minutes to the place where I bivouacked. I can't believe I took 6 hours to do the same stretch back in '96!!! Major, major, difference.
Then took 1:15 to get to the bottom of the Big Dip. Took 5 hours back in '96. Then time comparisons are cut off: that's the Wing helipad. As is my custom, I tied a very long ribbon on that dead tree that trapped me in '96.
The rest is a highway. Then in 1 hour I met Bob Silva St. Waiau and his wife, and he said it's even wider from there on. It is, it's a six-lane freeway!
Got out at 4:18 to the car waiting at the top of Kaahumanu. Haven't been to that side since '91, have been forced to use Hapaki access all this time. Kaahumanu is shorter by 15 min.
Dayle was over-modest, or does not know what's going on behind him: trail-clearing never ceased last Sunday, the ENTIRE trail is now cleared to at least two feet wide!!, a state Waiau Trail has never known since the rise of the Koolau Volcano from the ocean waves!!
Excelsior!
Wing