Guide Blogs

I've been busy the last few weeks.  Cindy and I attended a Hula seminar hosted by the Friends of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (www.fhvnp.org).  After touring some sites at the park associated with hula, we sat under the shade of a Koa tree and had kumu Ab Valencia deconstruct a hula.  We ended with a short hula performance at the edge of the caldera overlooking the steaming Halema‘uma‘u. I learned more about hula in one day than I have in nearly twenty years of being in the islands.

Land Board meetings, document reading, and conversations have seemed to been especially heavy recently. I’ve also been spending much time on interpretive tasks including our continuing work to retool HFT’s tour experience, fleshing out an interpretive plan for one of our landowners, and other consulting work. 

 I visited Chicago for the annual Motivation Show.  This tradeshow for corporate meetings and incentive travel at McCormick Center is always a great time to network and catch up with all our  Hawai‘i partners that bring us group business at Hawai‘i Forest & Trail.  Over a hundred travel industry professionals from the islands manned the HVCB booth for three days.  I also did a sales call to Apple Vacations, one of our wholesale partners based just outside of Chicago.  I spent four hours giving 30 minute presentations to their call center agents on our tours.  I got the strange sense I was repeating myself!

Most exciting for me was a birding trip I recently led where we spotted an ‘Ākiapōlā‘au in a place they haven’t been seen in ten years.  Pu‘u La‘au once had a small population of this endangered honeycreeper and despite biannual surveys and lots of tours, no birds have been reported since the late nineties.  At first I couldn’t believe my eyes, but we got great looks and there was no doubt it was an Aki.  We’ve notified the researchers in the area and they are going to try and re-sight the bird.  I’m anxious to hear how it goes.  Garry and Lisa our birding guides will also be on the lookout on our Rainforest/Dryforest Birding Adventure.

I’m off to Volcano tomorrow for a private tour and then have a family weekend planned with in-laws visiting, our granddaughter coming over from Kauai with Ben and Violet, and Katy’s birthday on Saturday.  Laters.

Shortly after lunch this afternoon I noticed quite a bit of commotion. Everyone of our Mauna Kea summit guides were huddled around 4 stout boxes. What would draw in Merrit, Greg, and Jon on their days off? Why was Blake so giddy? And what was making Buck stand back and nod in sublime approval? I ventured down out of the perch to investigate, because, as my office-mate often notes, I am nîele.  Chris: Buck, what’s going on? Buck: We’re discussing...

Read More "New Telescopes - Up and Running"

If wormholes can really provide access to time travel or alternative universes, then a small group of HFT employees, friends, and I spent several hours last Sunday in a wormhole.  The conduit of our time travel was the historic Kohala ditch.  Damaged in the October 2006 earthquakes, the repair work is finally coming to an end in the next month or so.  Soon water will be flowing in the ditch again and the opportunity to hike in the (almost) dry ditch will be gone.  So ten of us met at the Mule Station around 7a.m. last Sunday to make the ten mile roundtrip hike from Niuli‘i Flume #3 to the Honokāne Nui dam intake.  It was a hike that we may not ever be able to do again.

I use the metaphor of the wormhole because, despite it’s name, the Kohala Ditch is mostly tunnels—16 miles out 23 to be precise.  Most of the tunnel’s height is well lower than my 6’ 3” stature.  Along with normal hiking gear we were all wearing caving helmets and headlamps since most of this is completely dark.  Most of us hit our heads numerous times on low ceiling spots and were glad to have the head protection.  It’s hard to describe hiking for several hours stooped over, with standing water several inches deep in places and thick mud in others.  In one tunnel the humidity was so high, the passage was foggy.  It was a hard, hot, dirty hike.  But oh, was it fun!

The Kohala Ditch was built in about 18 months from 1905 to 1906.  Around 600 laborers were needed for construction of the ditch and trail system.  Seventeen workers died building the system.  For a hundred years the ditch brought water from the windward valleys of Kohala to the drier country of Kohala waho.  Even after the demise of sugar, the reason the ditch was built, water was still used for agriculture and even a popular tourist activity called Flumin da Ditch.  When the earthquakes in ’06 heavily damaged the ditch, all that stopped in an instant. The ditch is nearly 23 miles long with 16 miles of tunnels, a mile of flumes, and around five miles of open ditch.  Our hike was mostly in tunnels.  We did cross the newly rebuilt Pololū flume which is less than a hundred feet, and a short section of open ditch in the back of Pololū at Kāne‘a‘a. Hiking in these tunnels gave us all a great appreciation of the effort it took to build them.  Every foot of passage was carved from rock.  And it seemed as we made our way through we were travelling back in time.

The first stop in time for us came at the addit (an opening from the tunnel to the outside trail) near Kapoloa falls.  Kapoloa falls is a spectacular waterfall that drops 500 feet across the Kohala Ditch trail.  Our tour to Kapoloa was Hawai‘i Forest & Trail’s most popular hike until the trail was destroyed in the earthquakes.  I’ve been on sections of the trail since then, but never back to Kapoloa.  As I crawled out of the addit and stood on the ledge looking out into the great ravine, it brought back many memories.  We had taken thousands of guests behind the falls over the years.  The trail was clear of debris for only a few dozen feet.  Otherwise, is was piled high with fallen rock from the cliffs above.  Just as I began to believe that it might be possible to restore the trail and open it back up again, a rock the size of a football came whizzing by us from above.  Only a couple of us saw it, but we all heard the loud report as it crashed below.  A few minutes later another rock fell.  After nearly two years the walls are still dangerously unstable. The trail will not be open any time soon. We spent about 20 minutes at Kapoloa, taking pictures of each other under the falls and checking out the damage.  I felt like I was leaving an old friend behind as I climbed back down into the darkness of the ditch and continued on our way. 

After another half hour of walking we came out at the Pololū flume.  The blue sky and fresh air were mighty welcome.  The valley here is very narrow, at this point, you would call it a slot canyon if it was in Utah.  The flume is really neat because it has a workers cabin built over it.  The cabin survived the earthquake without any major damage.  It would be a wonderful place to spend a night our two. Not too far from here we came out onto the only portion of open ditch we would see.  There was also one of the two campsites that the current work crews are using here.  Instead of hiking in, the work crews are using ATVs.  The vehicles are just small enough to fit in the tunnels.  What took us over an hour to walk in, the ATVs do in about 20 minutes.  The campsite is well-equipped:  outhouse, large canopy tents, cots, chairs, generator with lights, microwave, radio, and a few cases of Coors Lite.

After the campsite at Kāne‘a‘a we entered the Honokāne tunnel.  This tunnel was our longest and most difficult.  It would take us from Pololū Valley into the west branch of Honokāne Nui.  One reason the walking was so hard here is because over the years Kāne‘a‘a stream had washed an incredible amount of material into the tunnel.  All of it had to be removed by Bobcat loaders.  Nearly two-thousand feet of tunnel had to be cleaned which took a couple months to do.  The Bobcats did a good job but there is still nearly a foot of muck on the floor.  So we had to slop through this mess, plus, with the added material, we lost a foot or so of tunnel height.  Walking in sloppy, sticky mud while bent over in two gets old really fast.  After an hour of hiking we finally made it to Honokāne Nui.

It is here that the greatest amount of damage occurred to the ditch.  Flume #1 was completely destroyed by rockfall and is being replaced.  Once this flume is fixed, water will again flow in the Kohala Ditch.  Massive helicopter support from the National Guard, Safari Helicopters, and a military contractor from the mainland is the only way this repair is made possible.  The worksite is just about ready to have the pre-fabricated sections of flume flown in and lowered into place.  If all goes to schedule, water should be in the ditch by the end of October.  We’ll see.

From the west branch we just had one more short tunnel and some beautiful open trails to get to the dam intake site on the east branch—our turn-around destination.  We crossed the Honokāne river at the old pump site.  This is an impressive display of engineering.  A giant diesel engine housed in a concrete sump box ( the sump is about twelve feet by twelve feet across and around twenty-five feet deep) used to pump water from the Honopue/Awini section of the ditch up to the Honokāne tunnel.  I’d heard stories about how this engine was disassembled, wrapped in grease and burlap, loaded onto ditch boats, and then pushed upstream in the ditch by workers where it was reassembled and put in place.  After walking in the ditch on the same route those workers took, but without having to push boats loaded with engine components against a current of 4 foot deep water, I was in awe of those ditchmen of old. 

After the pump site we had a twenty minute walk to the dam site.  Here we checked out the workers camp (not as nice as the first one, but still livable,) looked at the repairs to the dam, had a relaxing lunch and enjoyed the rushing river, towering valley walls, and remote beauty of Honokāne.  It would have been nice if we could have gotten a helicopter flight back out or even walk out of there on a nicely maintained ditch trail, but our only way back out was the same way we came in—in the wormhole.  We made it back to Flume #3 around 3:45 p.m., eight hours after we started. 

(Check out this link for more info: http://www.flumindaditch.com/recent_events.htm) 

One of the great joys of my job and life in Hawai‘i is the fellowship I get to experience with kama‘āina.  Kama‘āina literally means “land child”.  Though it has several modern usages, traditionally kama‘āina refers to the native born.  As a malihini (foreign) interpreter in Hawai‘i, the thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and meanings shared by kama‘āina profoundly inform my own familiarity and relationship with Hawai‘i nei.  Their mana‘o greatly enriches both my personal and professional life.  Thanks to The Kohala Center www.kohalacenter.org  I was recently able to spend the day with several kama‘āina at Ka‘ūpūlehu. The day was planned to explore the mid-elevation dryland forest and then work our way down to the coast to the new interpretive center at Kalae Manō.

Hosting our small group of TKC members were Yvonne and Keoki Carter, chief stewards of the Ka‘ūpūlehu Dryland Forest restoration project. Yvonne and Keoki have been tireless advocates for native forests and outdoor education for our island’s youth.  Joining us for the day were Wilds Bronner and Hannah Kihālani Springer.  Wilds is a young man raised on the island, educated at Cal Poly/San Luis Obispo and now returned home to work as the field technician in the dryland forest.  Hannah’s family genealogy spans multiple generations in the ahupua‘a and her wonderful aloha and precise considerations have inspired and guided me for many years. 

The dryland forests of Hawai‘i are one of the rarest habitats on the planet.  Dryland forests worldwide, especially tropical dryland forests, are critically endangered.  Some estimates state there is only about 5 to 10% of these forests left globally.  In Hawai‘i that number could be less than 5%.  The Ka‘ūpūlehu restoration project is an intensely managed 70 acre fenced forest remnant.  It has around 40 native species of plants, several of which are federally listed endangered species.  It is significant, Hannah tells us, in three ways.  First, it has a great diversity of native species.  Second, it has a tree canopy cover.  And third, it has been cleared of invasive fountain grass allowing for the all but disappeared understory shrubs to come back.  It’s a rugged, steep landscape of old ā‘ā, intense sun, and ancient beauty.  The mature trees here are hundreds of years old and for Hawaiians it’s an opportunity to “stand under the shade of elders”.   The native plants that people this landscape are also kama‘āina. 

The connection between the human and the plant community for Hawaiians is one of family.  To hear Hannah speak of the ‘Aiea, a small rare tree with less than 200 individuals left in the wild, is to listen to someone speaking of a cherished and precious kūpuna.  As the ‘Aiea has been nurtured in restoration projects such as Ka‘ūpūlehu (and with the help of an exotic relative, wild tobacco,) the ‘Ōka‘i, or Blackburn’s Sphinx Moth, has made a dramatic comeback.  One of Hawai‘i’s largest native insects, this nocturnal moth was thought to be extinct until it’s recent rediscovery.  The ‘Ōka‘i larvae eat the leaves of ‘Aiea and the adult moth pollinates as it takes nectar from the fragrant blossoms.  As a young woman growing up in the drylands, Hannah had been introduced by her elders to many of the neighborhood trees such as Kauila, Uhiuhi, Halapepe, and Elama.  The ‘Aiea had never come to her attention though.  One day, Hannah recalls, she and her husband were hiking the trails and a wonderful scent greeted them.  Finding the flowers responsible, she realized it was a tree new to her. Just as the ‘Ōka‘i moth is led to the blossom, the ‘Aiea’s fragrance attracted Hannah .  She and the ‘Aiea have been friends ever since.

After our morning discovery in the forest we made our way makai to Kalae Manō.  On the way we passed Puhi a Pele, the impressive spatter rampart formed during Hualālai’s last eruption in 1801.  Greeting us at the Interpretive Center near the ocean were Leina’ala Lightner and her sister Shirley.    After a brief introduction and lunch at the brand new interpretive center we hiked out to the coast.

Kalae Manō is another place undergoing a great restoration.  Over the last several decades the entire coastal strand was completely overtaken by Kiawe trees.  Work there has removed most the Kiawe on a half-mile stretch of coastline revealing the numerous archeological sites of the area.  The sisters were  raised mauka at Pu‘u Anahulu, a place that didn’t get electricity till 1959, but the lands makai played an important role in their family life.  Lei talked to us about her father and grandfather’s commerce of selling dried ‘ōpelu.  There were three valuable resources used by her kūpuna at Ka‘ūpūlehu makai.  Off shore of Kalae Manō was a very productive ‘ōpelu fishery. To catch the fish, fisherman gathered ‘ōpae’ula, a native red shrimp, to make bait balls from brackish ponds to the south of Kalae Manō.  And finally, the pāhoehoe flats at Kalae Manō were transformed into kahekaheka or salt pans.  The salt was used to cure the ‘ōpelu.  Kalae Manō was famous for its salt production. Besides the salt pans there are numerous burials, habitation shelters, and the possible remnant of a canoe shed.  Our afternoon was filled with stories of families and their life on the land.

Lei wanted to walk us over to the large ā‘ā flow of Ka‘ūpūlehu so we could climb up and see all the way down the coast.  We made our way carefully up the centuries old foot trail, now a part of the National Historic Trail—Ala Kahakai.  Once at a good vantage point, Lei first introduced us to a visiting guest on the rocky shore, a resting monk seal laying just out of the splash zone.  As Lei spoke, the surf crashed onshore, the ‘Eka breeze blew gently at our backs, and the ‘īlioholoholoikaauau soaked up the sun’s warmth.  It was then I actually felt envy for a moment.  I wondered what it would be like to be able to look back and connect with a place as Hannah and Lei are privileged to do? 

In so many ways the kama‘āina have lost so much and still there is much posed to disappear forever, like the ‘Aiea; but what a gift to still have the connections so direct and immediate to your ancestors and the place that was home to them.  My envy was fleeting.  I know I am blessed just to have kama‘āina share those connections with me.  Mahalo nui loa nā kama‘āina. 

For more information about the Dryland Forest visit: http://www.hawaiiforest.org/reports/dryland.html

rob p.  

Thirteen hours, State Forest Permits, National Wildlife Refuge Permits, and keys to private property all add up to an epic day of island adventuring.  The pre-dawn to dusk day came about from a client request for a full day of private birding.  He wanted to see as many of the native birds as possible and only had one day.  A few minutes into the trip a Barn Owl flew across the road in front of us--a good birding omen. The sun was just beginning to lighten up the Hāmākua sky and we already had a bird on our day list. 

Our first stop was at 7400’ elevation on Mauna Kea.  A beautiful hoar frost squeaked  underfoot as we searched for Palila and the Mauna Kea race of ‘Elepaio.  My guest was amazed to be freezing and walking through frost in Hawai‘i. I bent down to rub some in my hands, a rare frosty treat.  The birds didn’t disappoint, we found both birds quickly along with dozens of mewing ‘Amakihi.  After a quick bit of breakfast, we travelled back down to the Saddle Road and made our way to Hakalau NWR.

When I left HFT headquarters a little before five a.m. that morning, I wasn’t sure about the weather.  There was a chance strong trades would bring mauka showers.  But, what greeted at us Keanakolu Road was one of the most brilliantly clear days I can ever remember on the windward side.  The air had a clarity and crispness to it that made it seem possible to view individual homes in Hilo twenty miles below.  Most spectacular though, was the scene across Mauna Loa’s east rift towards Kīlauea.  From right to left, rising into a completely cloudless horizon where three great plumes of fume.  At the far right was the great mass of gas emitting from the vent in Halema‘uma‘u, the middle plume rose as magma continues to degas from Pu‘u Ō‘ō crater on its way down rift, and finally, the large laze cloud climbed from the ocean as lava explosively collided with the sea.  Pele’s impressive display stretched over a dozen miles across Kīlauea’s flank.  Watching all three columns of volcanic gas rising up and carried away by the trade winds made it very, very obvious why we’ve had such voggy days in Kona over the last few months. 

Seduced only for a few minutes by Pele’s sulfuric show, we quickly pressed on to the wet Koa/Ohia forest of Hakalau.  Greeting us at the barn parking area was a lone Nēnē who was soon joined by five others who circled us twice before settling into the kikuyu grass. And before we had loaded our packs with lunch and water, a dark phase ‘I‘o glided through the eucalypts.  We slowly made our way down Pua Akala meadow ticking off birds and enjoying the perfect weather and spellbinding forest of Hakalau.  I‘iwi, ‘Apapane, ‘Ākepa, Hawai‘i Creeper, ‘Amakihi, ‘Elepaio and ‘Ōma‘o all paid us very kind visits with great viewing.  It was just a little after 11 a.m. when a male ‘Ākiapōlā‘au sang.  Soon we were watching a pair of Aki’s up close, completing our task at Hakalau.  Figuring we could eat lunch on the road, we hiked back uphill to the truck and our next destination.  I locked the gate on our way out at noon exactly, the earliest departure I’ve ever made out of the refuge.  Next stop, Pu’u ‘Anahulu home to the Big Island Country Club.

The water features at the Big Island Country Club are always a productive birding stop.  Five minutes out of the truck and we’d picked up ten new species including the native Hawaiian Coot who was paddling around the dreaded 17^th island green.  From there we travelled makai to Kīholo Bay hoping to find that the Bristle-thighed Curlews had returned for the season from the arctic.  We didn’t see any curlews but the walk was redeemed by the gorgeous setting and no less than 25 Green Sea Turtles along the beach.

We finished our day in North Kohala.  First at the staggering viewpoint known as Moku Lani Kila where commanding views from Pololū to Waipi‘o are had by those with keys to the private lands.  And finally, with the last light of day, at Keokea Beach park we were treated to dozens of Black Noddys skimming the water on their way home for the night, and far out at sea the unmistakable flight patterns of Hawaiian Petrel and Wedge-tailed Shearwaters.

It was a great day of sightseeing, birdwatching, conversation, and walking.  My guest was very excited and appreciative about his list for the day.  A satisfied customer always makes me feel great, but the long day finally hit me once alone.  As I headed back into Kona and saw the great gauze of vog enveloping the coast, I remembered that tremendous sight of Pele’s exhortations from earlier in the day.  I think it’s the only time the sight of vog has brought a great smile to my face.

Tired yet content,

Rob