We just wake up early now. Not only can you hear the wild chickens but you could also hear mountain goats up on the cliff, making the whole area sound like a farm. Unfortunately we couldn’t spot the mountain goats. A simple breakfast and we were on our way back up to the high canyon country. Pohale was a wonderful place to stay, I’m glad the couple suggested it. We stopped in at the Koke’e museum to talk with the clerk about trail conditions and where exactly to camp. She informed us of the area rules. We headed to the campground to pick a spot. Only a few of the campsites are visible from the road, more are up beyond the bathrooms, each one was nice and private with picnic tables. The bathrooms were quite nice too with light bulbs, a mirror, and showers available, although cold water only and not private. The museum clerk did inform me that the WMCA camp across the street allowed campers to use their warm water showers for a donation so I thought that might be a better idea.
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| Koke'e campground |
We headed down road 10, the plan was to hike the Po'omau ditch trail. We made it about a quarter mile from the trailhead before parking. We continued down the road until a knee-high cairn on the right side signaled our trail dropping down. The book said the first 20 yards or so was a good indicator of how overgrown the trail would be, as maintenance only happens once a year. We found the trail easy enough to follow, although we realized quickly that we should have worn pants instead of shorts. Soon we came upon the ditch creek. It was cool to see a large creek pop out of the hillside and dive into the hill opposite the draw. Mat happened upon a pair of really nice Maui Jim sunglass, heavy and with real glass lenses, probably worth a couple hundred dollars. Since no one was on the trail or even around for a number of miles, he just picked them up. He was really excited about them :)
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| Po'omau Ditch trail |
We walked along, enjoying the dry warm forest. Eventually we came across a side trail to the left, stating a view point ahead. We turned left and follow the little trail until it popped us out on a bald finger sticking out into the canyon, providing us with a 360, unobstructed view of the canyon’s higher reaches. It was very beautiful, we stopped and sat a while to drink in the view. We laughed at the rooster calls out here in middle of 2000ft cliffs. These are the extreme, hard core chickens who live on the edge, not those spoiled chickens back at camp who live on a green plush lawn and get fed by tourists. Mat and I laughed at the prospect of cliff chickens that could eventually evolve around here, or even sea chickens that could evolve along the coast. They would be called Chunas or Tuckens because tunas could no longer claim their status as chickens of the seas, ha!
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| Viewpoint on the Po'omau Ditch Trail |
Continuing on the trail, catching glimpses here and there of the canyon between the brush. We reached a junction, either take the road back to where our car is parked or continue on the trail, beyond which is much less maintained, to make a bigger loop. We decided to continue on. The trail wasn’t too bad until we got to a washed out section about 200ft long. To cross we had to cut up hill to above the land slide, traverse across, then descend back down to the trail. The terrain was very steep, and a slip above the washed out section would definitely send you towards the cliff’s edge. But a slow and steady traverse and we were back on the trail. However, now the trail was really overgrown, covered in a thick sweet smelling brush with lots of thorns. Oh how we wished we wore pants instead of shorts!! It was slower going for a while.
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| Po'omau Ditch Trail |
Eventually we came across a flat area with brush reaching above our heads, thats were we came across the spiders. Huge things the size of my hand, all strips, neon green and black, stretching across the trail. Mat was my hero and would cut the webs. We’d work up the courage to slide past the struggling spider hanging on it's broken web. We came across a few of these before breaking out of the flat area. We came upon the little side trail going to a lookout the guide book described as one of the best on the trail. We went down to the little grassy patch overlooking the canyon. Although it was a nice, grassy place to sit on the ground, this grassy patch is in a small ravine, so the view of the canyon, as magnificent as it is, is much more restricted than the view we enjoyed from the finger placing us in the center of the canyon we sat at earlier. We didn’t linger here long but we did enjoy another access point to the ditch creek that workers had tunneled through the hills. This one was a hole that looked down onto the creek, plants growing up out of the hole.
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| Wiamea Canyon from the Po'omau Ditch Trail |
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| Waimea Canyon from the Po'omea Ditch Trail |
We climbed up out of the small ravine were we came across another road, which we followed back to our car. By this time we were hot, sweaty, scratched, dusty, and ready for a shower. Back at camp a cold shower never felt so refreshing. We hung out at camp that evening, tired and pleased with our day’s adventure. We noticed a scrawny blond dog hovering around our campsite. He didn’t look like he belonged to anybody so we left some of our food scraps out in the bushes for him. That night we enjoyed the thousands of stars, so many stars at night here!
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| Pretty tropical flower |
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