OHE October 9, 1999 (Notes from Gene)



Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 00:48:11 -1000
From: Gene Robinson (gene@lava.net>
Subject: Hiking plans for 1/1/00

Hey gang,

I heard from Torrey Goodman today and she asked me to post the following:

" Could you pass on some info to the hiking email gang. I'm planning to do MaunaLoa summit for New Year's Eve, and was wondering if anyone else is interested. Tentatively thinking about starting over on the Volcano side on the 30th, with the first night at Red Hill, then the 31st at the summit cabin, and back to Red Hill the night on the 1st. Home on the 2nd. "

Sounds cool, doesn't it? (Literally.) Anybody interested? Torrey may be reached at tgood808@lava.net

I haven't been out much lately, and I've been too puzzled by PATRICK RORIE's new capitalization technique to send in any reports. But I should mention that:

1-The Waimano trail is getting very overgrown

2-The SILVA trail above Pearl City remains in fantastic trim

3-There's a way to go from Pearl Harbor to the Waiau State Prison/Mililani Cemetery area ALL ON DIRT ROAD/TRAIL (except for about 100 yards). Surprised? I was.

4-The October 'Elepaio (Journal of the Hawaiian Audubon Society) tells about a population of Guam Swiftlets roosting in a cave in North Halawa Valley. These birds are native to the Southern Marianas and were introduced to O'ahu in the early 1960's. They're still here, but much like those little Kalihi wallabies, they're only found in one isolated corner of the Ko'olaus. And, unfortunately, the article makes it very clear that "...recreational birdwatchers and hikers [should] be discouraged entirely from going to the site...Human disturbance may cause incubating adults to inadvertently kick eggs out of nests, when the birds hurriedly take flight to escape the cave. Visitors can also easily bump into nests and accidentally knock them to the floor." So, no free bird's nest soup, WING NG. You better stay outta there.

5-Thanks to GEORGINA for revealing what many of us on OHE had suspected: those HTMC neighbor island trips are a cross between Woodstock and "Wild Kingdom." What a great trip description! I shudder to think what she would have written about last year's Leonid meteor shower trip...

Happy hiking!


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