Koko Head

We really did not have anything planned for today.  But while talking during breakfast we agreed it would be nice to climb Koko head.  Koko head is like Diamond head — a volcano that collapsed, leaving a crater and a crater rim.  Koko head is the top of the rim of the crater.

While driving all around Oahu yesterday, when we had a car, I noticed that the City Bus seemed to have stops all over the island, not just in Honolulu and its surrounds.  It seems the bus is run by the city and county of Honolulu, and the county may be the whole island.  So we could take a bus just about anywhere — it just took time to get there.

So we took a bus to the Koko head trail.  We left Waikiki about 10AM and it took an hour and a half (bus #23).  By 11:30, we were looking at Koko head.


The “trail” to climb Koko head is a set of old railroad tracks.




One of the other hikers (or climbers) said there were 1057 steps.  An association that looks after the trail and the site had put numbered blocks next to the steps.  The first one we saw was 25 and they went down by one every now and then as you climbed.


So we started to climb.



The angle of climb started out low and at various points became steeper and steeper.   At one point there was a bridge, but it got washed away, leaving just the tracks and their attached railroad ties.  


But people just kept climbing up the tracks anyway. 

As you got higher, the view became better.



After about 2 and a half hours of climbing, we were at the top.


Well, not the “top”, but at least the end of the tracks.  Hiking up a bit further got you over the edge and then the view changed entirely.  Instead of looking South at where you came from, you were looking North over the crater and the East coast of Oahu.



There are a couple of heavily graffitied block houses, but there was no information about what they were for or from when.  Of course the same could be said about the railroad lines as well.  Once you got to the top, if you went to the left instead of the right, there was another, shorter tram line that went up closer to the highest point on the rim.

After looking at the view, and recovering some, we turned around and started back down, around 2PM.


Going down was almost as hard as going up, but in different ways.  We knew the variation in the trail — the changes in slope, the missing bridge, the numbered signs, the view.  But even more than on going up, you had to avoid slipping and falling.  Going up, you might fall forward but that would not get you anywhere.  Going down, a slip might through you forward which could tumble down and down.  But we saw no one who had that problem.  Some people trotted up and trotted down.  Others walked up and then came down slowly.  A couple people, especially on the steeper parts, came down on their bottoms, scooting forward from step to step.  We went down sideways, putting one foot down from one step to the next and then bringing the other foot down to it.  Repeat over a thousand times.

And going down, you were focused on where your feet were going.  If you just stared at the tracks, you couldn’t tell if they were going up or down.



Are we going up or down on this photo? (Down, but I know that from the order of photos in my library.)

Finally, by 4:30, we were down.  It took as long to go down as it took to go up.  Of course, we were really tired, all the way down, taking more frequent breaks.  It was a long day.  We took two bottles of water with us, but they ran out part way down the trail.  

And we still had to hike out to the bus stop and catch a bus back into town. During one of our bus transfers, I spied a convenience store and got a fresh cool bottle of water for Linda and a bottle of Gatorade for me.

It was 6:30 by the time we got home.  Too drained to do anything more, we just got a pizza take out to bring back to the room where we could eat, drink, and shower.  A long tiring day for “nothing planned”.


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