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canyonwalkerHawaii April Travelog #16
Hawaii Kai, Oahu - Mon, 11 Apr, 2022, 3pm
We're back from atop Koko Head now, eating a late lunch/early dinner at a Greek restaurant in Hawaii Kai. Taste amplificaton is making the food taste... merely good.... So this restaurant probably sucks. 🤣
We started the trek down the mountain after spending a while at the top.
The view back down the tram line wasn't as imposing as looking up from the bottom... or even looking up from a third of the way up. Still, it was like looking down from the top of a hill on a tall rollercoaster— one with an 880' drop— except with no rollercoaster. You have to walk down the tracks.
Coming down the mountain was "easy" only in comparison to the effort of ascending. Walking down the steeply inclined tracks, stepping from crosstie to crosstie, involved over 1,000 bone-jarring steps. On the way up I wrote about pacing ourselves by climbing 10-12 crossties between rests.... on the way down we had to pace ourselves, too, taking standing breaks every so often to let our leg muscles stop quivering.
On the way down we both avoided the bridge with angry bees. Our legs were getting rubbery and we worried that we lacked the stability to balance exclusively on the crossties. Plus, word of mouth on the trail was that someone a bit ahead of us had fallen right near the beehive (fallen = feet slipped and landed straddling a crosstie), riling up the bees to be angry at all intruders.
The sun was in and out behind clouds as we descended. In the pic above, where I'd reached the bottom of the tracks, the sun's behind a cloud. When it was out strongly it was hot on trail. I'm glad we began the hike before 10am, reaching the top around 11:30. People climbing up the mountain as we were coming down were drenched in sweat.
BTW the bottom of the rail was not the bottom of the trail. There was still a quarter mile or so of walking on dirt trails and an old road. Except it felt more like a full mile. I shuffle-stepped the whole way; my quads were already feeling fried. I know I'm going to be wrecked tonight.
Update: Yup, I'm wrecked pretty bad.
Hawaii Kai, Oahu - Mon, 11 Apr, 2022, 3pm
We're back from atop Koko Head now, eating a late lunch/early dinner at a Greek restaurant in Hawaii Kai. Taste amplificaton is making the food taste... merely good.... So this restaurant probably sucks. 🤣
We started the trek down the mountain after spending a while at the top.
The view back down the tram line wasn't as imposing as looking up from the bottom... or even looking up from a third of the way up. Still, it was like looking down from the top of a hill on a tall rollercoaster— one with an 880' drop— except with no rollercoaster. You have to walk down the tracks.
Coming down the mountain was "easy" only in comparison to the effort of ascending. Walking down the steeply inclined tracks, stepping from crosstie to crosstie, involved over 1,000 bone-jarring steps. On the way up I wrote about pacing ourselves by climbing 10-12 crossties between rests.... on the way down we had to pace ourselves, too, taking standing breaks every so often to let our leg muscles stop quivering.
On the way down we both avoided the bridge with angry bees. Our legs were getting rubbery and we worried that we lacked the stability to balance exclusively on the crossties. Plus, word of mouth on the trail was that someone a bit ahead of us had fallen right near the beehive (fallen = feet slipped and landed straddling a crosstie), riling up the bees to be angry at all intruders.
The sun was in and out behind clouds as we descended. In the pic above, where I'd reached the bottom of the tracks, the sun's behind a cloud. When it was out strongly it was hot on trail. I'm glad we began the hike before 10am, reaching the top around 11:30. People climbing up the mountain as we were coming down were drenched in sweat.
BTW the bottom of the rail was not the bottom of the trail. There was still a quarter mile or so of walking on dirt trails and an old road. Except it felt more like a full mile. I shuffle-stepped the whole way; my quads were already feeling fried. I know I'm going to be wrecked tonight.
Update: Yup, I'm wrecked pretty bad.
