Wailupe trail, sorta....

Wanted to do a different hike today so decided to try Wailupe since never been there. Not that hard to find, just go down West Hind Drive in Aina Haina, then go hunting for Hao street. I had to ask mail lady where it was lol.

Just go around this gate and off you go! Beginning of this trail is an old dirt road. Must be fun riding on it because its soo rocky.

Going is pretty fast since its pretty even and no real climbing. Bummer part today was I forgot my GPS at home! That sucked and I was too lazy/late to go back and get it.

When you on this trail, watch out for doggy presents since hunters go up here. Hate stepping in it then finding out after you get in your car!

View towards my goal. Looks pretty far away and I didnt have that much time today.

Most of the trail is under leaf cover so not sunny hot, just humid, forest hot. I was getting nice and drenched by this time. Glad I brought my camelbak and a few extra liters. I even brought my super big gulp and my hiking stick since I knew was gonna have lotsa slippery roots and mud.

Only problem with this trail is there are a lot of trails running off the main, and some are pretty well worn so easy to mistake for the main.. like I did!! Had so many turning off the trail, I didnt know which was the correct one. So, I just followed the ones that went off to the left, BIG mistake!! Trail started going up hill pretty steeply, but i was far from the summit.. Finally my "trail" came to a dead end with just a rockface in front of me. It didnt look that bad so up I went, BIGGER mistake!! Seem the new "trail" I was on wasnt a trail but some spur leading up to the Wiliwilinui trail. By time I figured out I was lost, I was up way to high on some really crumbly rockface to go back down. My poor big gulp committed suicide and I didnt realize it, but so did my hiking stick!!

This is the spur, ridge what ever you call it that I went up. The rocks just crumbled when I tried to grab onto them to get up. The plants were scratching my arms up everywhere, and when I was climbing, I had no way of knowing how much higher I had to go or where I was going.

Finally reached spot I could catch my breath and boy I climbed pretty high. I'm not kidding when I say it was scary!! One wrong handhold and down I would fall! Had to check and double check my handholds and footholds before I made any moves so took while to get up.

View from where I started. I didnt get that far before I was in trouble yeah? lol

Finally got to near the top and had to do some ridge crawling/walking to get across these crumbly rocks. Hard to tell in the picture but had drops on both sides. After crossing this part, I reached another dead end. The path was blocked with guava trees and there was no way thru them. I had to squeeze thru them, climb over them, crawl under them...till I finally reached the Wiliwilinui trail. I was thinking about going all way up that trail, walk along the ridge and go down Wailupe. but I had no clue if there was any way of knowing where that was. Luckily, on the way up the trail, I saw a trail going back down the ridge to bottom. I followed it and it was marked with a zillion ribbons! Thanks to whomever did that! No way to get lost !!

Made it back to bottom and the trail was well marked with ribbons still so off I went.

Came to a nice, thick bamboo forest and followed the trail to the back of the valley. Maybe I can reach the summit.. or maybe not.

Crossed a dried up river bed and again the trail kinda went poof on me. Had to backtrack a bit and found it again.

And I reached my end. I couldnt find the trail any further to the back of the valley. I was running out of time so decided to try find my way out. Followed a trail on the east side of the valley and again, the trail ended on me. backtracked to the way I came and finally found my way back to the dirt road.

One of the few times you could see anything except leaves.

Almost back to the start of the trail and I smelled something stink. Looked around and saw this hanging on a tree. Gross..
Thought hunters supposed to bury that crap...

I was almost at the beginning of the trail when I decided to go look for my hiking stick. It's my favorite one so had to at least try. Followed the trail I went on and found my mistake. Supposed to turn right at the first intersection lol. Went all way back up till the rockface deadend and looked around. No luck.. darn it! So, if any of you reading this find my stick, email me!! lol
At least learned a lesson, dont forget your GPS, make sure you know where the trail goes or bring someone who knows and if you bite off more then you can chew, turn back before its too late!! I swear if I fell off that dumb mountain, no one would have found me for years!!! lol