Wiliwilinui Ridge Hike

Ow, my feet.


The Wiliwilinui Ridge Hike has been on my to-do list for almost as long as we've been on the island, because I wanted to go find this geocache. In spite of raw and blistered feet from going to the pool the past two days in a row, I really wanted to do this one before we left.

ES and I headed out this morning and we were both really glad we went. When I said to him, "This is the best cache I've found in Hawaii," ES said, "No! It's the best cache EVER!"

The trail was mostly hard-packed dirt, with some moderately steep slopes and lots of up and down and up and down again.

Altitude Profile for our Hike
X-Axis is Elapsed Mileage in 0.2 mile increments
Y-Axis is Elevation in 50 foot increments

This was probably the steepest hill we've climbed out hiking. It's hard to say if this one or the Twisted Kitty cache was steeper. That would require math, and I'm too tired to do math right now. Today's hike was definitely the longer of the two.

Aside: Two-thumbs up to ES on the hike today. I was sure breathing hard and really worked up a sweat. He was a trooper and never complained a single time over our 3.6 mile trek.

Today was one of those days where I got to have a lot of awesome, meaningful one-on-one conversation with ES. We started off talking about the Revolution and the War of 1812 - why the wars were fought, when they were fought, how and where they were fought. Then we talked about the House of Representatives and the Senate, the differences between them and why we have both of them. We talked about how a bill goes through the House and Senate and goes to the President to become a law. Because of playing Civ II, he's been asking a lot of questions about different types of governments like democracy versus communism, and he keeps picking random names of countries out of his head and asking me what type of government they have. I'm going to have to start studying the CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia more so I can answer his questions.

My little camera could never do justice to the spectacular views we had at various spots along the trail. In this image, you can see the top of Koko Head poking up on the left, and the ridge over Hanauma Bay on the right.

I don't want to put too much spoiler info here in case anyone else goes searching for this cache, but it ends up taking you through a WWII era bunker with two 8-inch gun turrets.

The cache is down there somewhere.

Lost GPS satellite reception. ...now what???

If you plan to hunt for this cache, make sure you take the HINTS with you on the hike. (Yes, I took the hints with us, and yes we found the cache.)

Of course, to polish of an AWESOME morning of hiking, we stopped for tacos for lunch on the way home. How do you like that mortified look on ES's face? Yes, I embarrassed ES by taking a self portrait in the restaurant. When I went back to the table, he just dropped his head and slowly shook it back and forth in shame for his geek father.

WILIWILINUI RIDGE HIKE (PARTIAL) SUMMARY: I know when I'm trying to decide on a new hike location, I search for an overview about the hike that will help me judge if it's doable with two little boys. For anyone else looking to do this hike, here's a quick summary:
Note this summary is more for the hike to this particular geocache and back, not all the way out to the end of the trail and back.
Map: There's sort of a map at this website. When I get my Stuart Ball book back, I'll tell you what chapter this one is.
Mileage: For the geocache we were seeking, it was 3.6 miles total including a side trip to get the geocache. I think if you go all the way to the end of the trail, this website says it's 3 miles out.
Elevation Gain: The parking lot at the trailhead was full, so we parked down the street a little ways at 1183 feet, the top of the trail for the geocache was about 1812 feet, so total elevation gain was approximately 629 feet of elevation gain.
Terrain: Mostly hard-pack dirt with some moderately steep slopes. Lots of ups and downs. It looks like it gets pretty muddy when it rains, but it's also on the top of a ridge exposed to sunlight, so it dries pretty quick.
Time: It took us 2 hours 38 minutes, including stops at each of the four stages of the geocache.
Facilities: None. There are several spots with little side trails where you could step off the trail to water a bush and not be in eyesight of people on the trail.

There was a good amount of foot traffic on the trail. Like I said, the parking lot was full (only like 10 parking spots). We passed several individuals, couples, families and large groups of all variations of age and gender walking in both directions on the trail.