At the Waimanu Valley overlook along the Muliwai Trail.
To kick off the month of November Anna-Lisa and I headed back to Hawaii for a week, to the Big Island this time around. Generally speaking November is a great month to go to Hawaii and it usually also happens to be a great month to get out of Vail as well, so it’s sort of a no-brainer. While there we did our best to channel the island vibe and relax a little, but also made sure to get out for a couple adventures in between.
One of the main appeals of Hawaii, to us at least, is the diversity of activities the place has to offer. In addition to hundreds if not thousands of beaches and spots to get into the water, each island also boasts an impressive number of hiking and running trails, and even peak summits that range from 10,000 to 13,800 ft in elevation. Quite the contrast from a lot of coastal destination spots in my experience.
Crossing the Waipi’o Beach after the descent into the gap.
On that note, we decided to get out for a hike/run along the Muliwai Trail from Waipi’o to the Waimanu Valley overlook. It’s a neat trail that parallels the northern coast of the island and starts off by dropping from the top of a cliff down to the ocean, ascends back up to the top of the cliffs on the far side, then zig-zags in and out of about sixteen different jungle valleys before descending down to Waimanu Beach. Most parties seem to do the route as a backpack and camp on Waimanu Beach for a night before trekking back the next day. We figured we’d make a daytrip of it and see how far we could get.
Stopping to shoot the sun coming through the trees.
On the ascent out of the Waipi’o Valley.
Into the jungle.
Finally, we made it to the overlook.
At the overlook we elected to turn things around or else we would’ve risked having to finish the route in the dark. I’m all for dragging things out but, we are on vacation here after all…
Local flora.
The last climb back up to the car at the end of the day, capping off the ~18 mile, 4,600 foot effort.
A few days later we decided to head east and check out the sunrise from the slopes of Mauna Kea, and while we were at it we figured we should hike up the summit as well. The hike itself was uneventful and went down pretty easily by Colorado standards, but the views and position from 13,803 ft on an island in the middle of the Pacific isn’t exactly something we experience every day.
A Mauna Kea sunrise.
Looking southwest over towards Hualālai, another volcano that tops out at 8,271 feet.
Definitely one of the highlights of the year for us.
Mauna Kea is topographically unique in about seventeen different ways, most notably with regards to its “dry prominence” being second in the world only to Mt. Everest. Essentially it’d be a larger mountain from base to summit than Everest if the oceans were drained, which doesn’t mean much really but it was kind of cool to think about.
Moseying on up the south slopes.
Mauna Kea also stands out for its uniquely good conditions for astronomical observation, to the point where they’ve built several large observatories near the summit (thirteen telescopes built by eleven countries to be exact). The stargazing from the summit and even the ranger station below is world-class.
The Mauna Kea observatories.
On the summit looking out at the ocean far below.
Views across to the other big volcano on the island, Mauna Loa. We ate a lot of Mauna Loa brand nuts on this trip that’s for sure
A few more shots from the trip:
Checking out the black rock beaches on Halloween.
Akaka Falls on the Hilo side of the island.
Sunset ride at Kahua Ranch.
Cruising around in style.
Just running around the Waikoloa beaches made for a nice way to burn off the Mai Tais.
A parting sunset.
Until next time, Hawaii…
Big Island. So underrated. Glad you guys had a good trip!
It totally is. I think it may be my favorite island or at least tied with Kauai. It feels less crowded than the others, with arguably even more diversity of stuff to do, as I’m sure you know as well!