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.

Blast from the Past

My junior and senior year in college, I lived in a small two bedroom one bath apartment in PB (Pacific Beach). I had a computer in my bedroom, but I shared it with my roommate, Ryan.

While Ryan was on his summer midshipman cruise on a gator freighter (a.k.a. amphibious assault ship), someone introduced him to this game called Civilization. He ended up bringing the game home and installing it on my computer.

Many a night thereafter, I would awake in the wee hours of the morning and say to my groggy self, "Self, where is that bright light coming from???" I would lift my head up from my pillow and peer through my squinting eyes to see Ryan's butt firmly planted in my computer chair and his fingers on the keyboard. His face would be in a zombie-like trance, illuminated by the glow from the computer monitor as he played Civilization for hours on end.

"Dude. You. Need. Help. Go to bed."

I don't remember how long I resisted trying the game, but at some point, it sucked me in, too. I would waste HOURS upon HOURS playing Civilization. (You can imagine the STELLAR social life I enjoyed then, too).

There came a time though, when I had finally learned to beat the game and I got bored of it. Done. Fini.

Then the sinister powers-that-be declared, "Let there be Civ II." ...and it was good. And it did wasteth many more hours of my life.

I did learn an element of self control while playing Civ II though. I realized that hours would pass without my even noticing, and then I would be pissed off at myself for wasting the entire Saturday playing a useless video game. So I learned to set a timer. When the alarm would go off after an hour of playing, I would stop wherever I was and say, "That's enough, it's time to do something productive with my day."

No, really.

I hear you snickering. Seriously though, I really did set an alarm to limit my video game time, and I really did stop and save the game and move on with my life.

Believe it or not, LW also liked to play Civ II. After I installed our first home LAN, we used to play multi-player games of Civ II together back in Monterey.

Then we started having kids.

Civ II went by the wayside. Sleep was more important.

So what brought all this up, you ask?

It's amazing the things you find when you're moving. I happened upon the Civ II CD. It was calling my name like a siren's song. I couldn't resist. I had to play a game for old time's sake.

It sucked me in.

I didn't even hesitate to play the game in front of the boys. I thought it would be over their heads. There's no shooting or real action. You move pieces around on a map. You have to pay attention to food production and tax rates.

ES saw me playing and immediately there was a gleam in his eye.

"What's that?"

"Civilzation."

That was it.

No further explanation required.

It's as if that single word was explanation in and of itself of something magnificent.

The next thing I knew, I could hear the soft whispering noise of wood legs on carpet as ES dragged one of the dining room chairs over and sat down next to me. He just watched me play for a little bit. Then he started asking questions.

Now, we're in the midst of playing our first multi-player game together. I figured it wouldn't hurt to let him try it out. I reassured myself, "Self, he's QUICKLY going to see how incredibly boring the game is and he's going to give up and move on to something else."

That hasn't happened yet.

He keeps asking to continue playing our game, and we've been playing a bit every day for the past several days.

I'm not a terrible parent, am I?

Looking on the bright side:

a) It's time we're spending together.
b) It's not just mindless time, it's interactive.
c) He puts on his very best behavior routine, butters us up, and is super cooperative in doing things like taking his bath if he thinks we'll let him play Civ II.
d) He's been reading a lot. I have it set on the lowest difficulty setting with the tutorials turned on, so it keeps popping up windows explaining the rules of the game and how things work, and he's reading them all.
e) He's learning about different forms of government, taxes, and how to balance limited resources between defense, education, and building city improvements, etc.

I might need to start setting a timer for myself again.

*Footnote: Yes, I know they eventually came out with a few more sequels. LW actually really liked Civ III, but they changed too much of the game and I didn't care for it. Neither of us have tried Civ IV yet.