Despite numerous announcements in the fashion of, “I’ll be waking up early and going on a hike tomorrow morning”, today was actually one of the first days I followed through with it. By 7am I was on the road heading towards the East side (what up!) of the island, but not before grabbing some food/water for the hike and a cup of coffee at the Coffee Gallery in Haleiwa (if you’re in Oahu and enjoy coffee, be sure to check it out).
And there she is in the distance with the rising sun shining through the clouds. To my surprise the hike ended up taking me all the way along the top ridge further to the right than this photograph shows. At 4.5 miles long it isn’t the length that gets you but the 2000’ of elevation gain going up and then coming back down.
“Pu’u Manamana is one of the most dangerous hiking trails on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Known for its spectacular yet perilous narrow ridge sections, Manamana is legendary and revered among Hawaii hikers.” [Source]
I’m generally very nonchalant when people make claims of a hike being incredibly dangerous or difficult, but in this case it was well deserved. It easily takes the gold for as the most dangerous trail I’ve hiked, and that’s ignoring the fact that it was a mudslide for the middle half of the hike. At times I found myself clawing my hands into the mud just to prevent myself sliding back downhill.
The views going up were spectacular despite the suns inability to properly defeat the morning’s cloud cover and made the pain that was to come further along well worth it.
Despite how much I thoroughly enjoyed this hike, I can’t particularly recommend it to many people. One blogger ended up turning back before he reached the top, and it only gets increasingly harder right up til the end. If anyone ever does want to attempt this I can’t stress having a good pair of hiking shoes (my running shoes were relatively inept) and would suggest waiting until it hasn’t rained for a day or two.
My full Flickr photo album of the hike (and other parts of Oahu) can be found here.
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For info on the hike and more photos:
Unreal Hawaii Article
Pu’u Manamana on Associated Content
Pu’u Manamana on Island Trails
