My least favorite piece of equipment in a gym is the Stairmaster. I’ll never voluntarily use it.
I’ve been asked at least a dozen times to photograph the view from the lanai in our new home and while I’ve definitely instagrammed it a few times, I can’t quite capture it on film. We are just four blocks from world-famous Kailua Beach but we can’t see it. What we can see are the Ko’olau Mountains.
Which are breathtaking.
I know some of you are reading this from your beautiful homes at the foot of the Rockies and though I’ll always be a fan of, for example, a Colorado skyline, your peaks have nothing on these beauties. Someone much more skilled than I captured this incredible image which still doesn’t awe the way these mountains do in real life. This photo was taken near Bellows Air Force Base, just south of us.
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These aren’t the only amazing mountains on Oahu, either, and the natural response to being surrounded by such heights is to want to climb them. And so The Gentleman and I are doing just that. So far we’ve taken two great day hikes up the sides of these volcanic creations. The first was the Diamond Head hike and I’m not even going to blog about it. It’s covered in tourists. It’s worth the short climb for some great views of Honolulu, so if you visit do it.
I want to talk about Koko Head. We started calling this one “Cuckoo” Head about 3/4 of the way up because we decided one must be a little nuts to voluntarily ascend this trail. It’s affectionately known as nature’s stairmaster, which one realizes is an appropriate name, though an understatement, after finishing the climb. The “stairs” are actually railroad ties on a track that was laid during WWII so soldiers and supplies could reach lookouts atop the crater. There are 1048 of these steps and let me tell you, around about step number 784, after you’ve carefully cat-stepped across the open bridge and with the full sun mocking you and your lack of shade, you question the sanity of climbing the last 264 steps.
Here’s the “trail”. Forgive the random dude in the front… I lost patience waiting for him to finish his pictures. I’d say about half the folks on that hill didn’t finish the climb.
But you continue on and the view is worth it.
Hanauma Bay. We actually weren’t at the top yet.
Looking back east.
This is Hawaii Kai, a town South of us and Honolulu
Yes, our photographer did keep telling us to back up. Ha ha, photographer. Ha ha.
We loved this climb. We loved the view. We were convinced that we’ll need to also do this climb. So while I’ll never use a Stairmaster in a gym, I think Mother Nature’s version is just my speed.
