Some of you may remember our first "death hike" on Oahu...Lanipo trail. It took us 8 hours, it was a high ridge, it rained, it was hot, Brian and I both fell at different times on the trail and when we got to the lookout, it was cloudy so we couldn't even see anything. We were very sore and tired and didn't want to hike every again.
Well...we had another one of those yesterday. It wasn't a high ridge hike, it was a nice valley hike. In fact, it was a repeat of the very first hike we ever did. It was Halloween of 08 and we did one of the two loops on the trail. Yesterday, we wanted to do both loops. BIG mistake!
We had to drive to the other side of the island between Kaneohe and Laie. The hike was in Kahana Valley. I sent a video of it last time we did it. There was a dam with water spilling over it that we had to walk over at the end of the trail. Last time the trail was muddy. This time the trail was VERY muddy. But we were better prepared. We had our water, food, hiking shoes, and water shoes. We had a can of bug spray and sunscreen.
It started out so humid that we were sweating before we got a half mile. I had sprayed us with our bug spray really well. It was so hot and humid. There was little breeze because we were in the valley and we were in very lush rainforest. Sounds exotic.....sort of like in "Romancing the Stone". Not so much. We were sliding in mud and I was getting attacked by mosquitoes. For some reason, they have absolutely no interest in Brian. We think they can't get through his man hair to reach his actual skin. The first stream we crossed we were rock hoping and I slipped off the rock and ended up stepping right into the water. So I had one wet foot within the first hour of the hike. We continued on to the point where we looped back last time. This time we wanted to take the extra loop.
We started the extra loop and were walking through all of these Hala trees. They look kind of like a cross between a palm tree and a pineapple plant. They have long leaves as a sprout (I use this term loosely as a sprout is still taller than me) that are thin, but the shape of an aloe plant. They have these spikes on the edge of the leaves that are sharp. They were scraping against my legs, which was making the hike not so fun. We went on for over half mile and hit a water tank and a fence. There is no mention of a water tank or fence in our directions. We are following the pink tags so we ended up walking all around the big water tank. There were also areas of previous taro farming. Taro is a traditional Hawaiian tuber that grows in loose soil with flooded fields. These areas were harvested but the dirt was all loose and wet. So when you stepped down you sank into the mud about 5-6 inches and hoped it didn't suck off your shoe. We finally decided that even though we were following the pink tags, we were not on the right trail and trekked back. We found the junction we missed and got on the right loop. This loop was supposed to be about 2 miles. Keep in mind that during this time, I resprayed my bug spray 2 more times. The mosquitoes were so bad that even when I was spraying my legs they would stay on my legs while being pelted with spray.
We started the loop we've never been on before. It was very wet, the trail was not maintained well. There was a lot of overgrowth. I ended up somehow running my leg into a big stick on the trail and it was swelling up right away. One of those real bad bruises. There were several rope sections where you have to hold onto a rope to get around a tree on a narrow spot. We kept coming to the Kahana stream and having to cross it. We decided to put my camera into Brian's bag. We had gotten a new waterproof bag so that we have someplace to put my new camera if we are crossing streams. I switched out my hiking shoes for my water shoes. The water felt so good and cold. The water was pretty clear so you could see where you were going. We ended up crossing the stream 10 times! I couldn't believe it. We would never have done the second loop if we knew there were that many crossings. Sometime during this time, I went to get out my camera to take a picture. Only, when we opened the bag, the inside was soaked! One of our water bottles leaked and my camera and video camera were soaked! We transferred the cameras to my bag and dried off what we could. But I didn't take any more pictures, because we wanted to let my cameras dry out before I used them. Brian got a bigger cut on his thumb from one of those Hala leaves and I had a few on my ankles. We had blisters on our heels from hiking in our water shoes. But it was so muddy and we were in and out of the stream so much, it wasn't worth it to wear our hiking shoes. We are definitely going to be watching out for leptosporosis. Its a bacterial infection that you can get from stream water if you have open cuts. So if we have flu symptoms in 14 days...
We finally got back to the junction where we take the loop that we have been on before. We get to the dam that we crossed before. Only this time...someone cut the rope that we used to hold onto to cross the dam. Not very nice! So now we had to slowly walk over the damn with the water rushing over it with no balance rope. Brian put my backpack inside his waterproof pack and went first. I followed carrying the hiking shoes (we crossed in our water shoes). We went slow, but made it without falling in. Then we were on the home stretch. We were making bets as to what time it was since we forgot our watches. We started at 8:40. We finally made it back to the car. It was 3:20! We figured we hiked 8-10 miles. We only stopped briefly for a couple minutes because I was getting bit by so many mosquitos. We were sooo tired!
I iced my leg to try to keep my bruise from swelling anymore. When I get bit by mosquitos, I don't usually start feeling the itchiness until 24 hours later. I felt tired, but good last night. This morning when I got up, I looked at my legs and it looked like I had the chicken pox! Red welts all over my legs. Barely any on my arms, few on my neck. I went to work and picked up some afterbite. Brian called in a prescription strength cortisone cream for me. I got home and started putting a dot of cortisone on each bite. I have 94 bites on my right leg (probably more since I couldn't see the back of my leg well) and about 70 on my left leg. I started to give up counting, since it was making it itchier. So tonight we are staying in and I'm trying not to scratch my legs. In addition, I've pulled out two thorns out of my ankles from those Hala plants. I have two more that I still couldn't get out, that's tomorrow's agenda.
Half way through our hike, I asked Brian, "Why can't my hobby be shopping?"
We will definitely have a hiking break for a bit.....
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