This is definately the experience of a lifetime. Certainly the hardest hike I have ever been on, but at the same time, quite fun. There are pictures in this post but for high quality go to www.netpimpz.com/bigrob/kauai05
We had to wake up at 5:30 a.m. to be able to do the whole hike in time. We arrive to the trail at 7:15 a.m. To get to the trail you walk down a muddy road, climb down a 5 foot drop off, and cross the first river. Then you enter the bamboo forest, and hit a 4 foot drop off. Then you walk on ferns! Not even a real path, just trodden ferns. Well then you cross the second river and realize that you have gone the wrong way. Back track to the bamboo forest, take a different path, make it back to the second river, realize you've gone the wrong way again, and that the second river is actually the first river.
Well by 9:30 a.m. we had finally found the right path, and were off. Well this is the most over grown path I've ever been on.
Here's Scott coming out of the overgrown path. We missed a lot of good pictures of the shitty path for haste, but basically there are long stretches of bending to avoid the trees, and one part where you actually have to crawl.
Well, after 2.5 miles of a hellish hike, there's a big puddle of water and then you come around the bend and
We do a little celebration, take some picutures, and enter the tunnel
I think we need a new word for HARDCORE!
6'6" in the tunnels
That dot in the Center is the end of the tunnel. Well you get out of the tunnel and immediately to your right are some beautiful waterfalls.
Ok, so it's not that impressive. It hadn't rained in days so we missed out on the beautiful waterfall, however we also got to miss out on the knee deep mud, which was nice.
After that you take a quick 100 yard hike to the next tunnel.
They have these beams in the second tunnel. I hope they aren't holding anything up though, because thanks to years of water logging, a nice little judo chop would break right through these things.
Exit the 2nd tunnel, then you climb this man made wall in the middle of nowhere. Follow the overgrown trail to this damn. At the damn you are no more than 100 yards from the 3 tunnel. Unfortunately, it ain't easy to walk upstream, and we could never spot the tunnel. We are running out of time and decide to head back just in case. I'm a little upset that I'm going to have to go on this hike the next time I go to Kauai because it sure as hell ain't easy. Here are some pics that I just had to add. For high quality check out www.netpimpz.com/bigrob/kauai05 Download time is a little slow.
View of the mountains in the mourning
Scott has a pretty serious beard in this picture.
We boldly go where no man has gone today.
Yeah, i don't go nowhere without Tony Chacheres.
We climbed up the side of this damn, never to find the 3rd tunnel.
posted by robbo at 11:55 PM
1 Comments:
I did this hike twice - the first time in 2003 when I found the last tunnel. After a couple of false starts I found it by hiking up the stream. If you look carefully to your right, you can spot a very narrow channel of water (less than 2 feet wide) coming into the stream. Follow this channel uphill and very shortly (less than a few minutes you will come to the tunnel). While the first long tunnel had no more than 6 inches of water to walk through, this one had up to hip deep water at times and was usually knee deep. It was almost as long as the first tunnel. Right before you get to the pinpoint of light at the end of it, you take a left through another bore, go up a concrete incline and emerge from the tunnel to a really nice waterfall and very steep walls all around you. On my second try last summer, I could not get into the 2nd short tunnel you described. It was too high up on the steep slippery hill and there wasn't anything to grab onto to lift myself up to it, so I returned a little disappointed. Its a great, but strenous adventure.
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