Maui Memories - March, 2010

I'm not sure if other airlines name their fleet, but Hawaiian Airlines does. This is something I've noticed over the years as I've visited home. As you board the plane, its Hawaiian name is painted in purple to the left of the door. The one carrying us to Maui was christened "Kioea".
I think this is a really sweet touch which makes the flight more bearable somehow, to be able to have a name to pray to when the turbulence hits. "Please, Kioea, keep your wings up!!!" Instead of, "Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" As I entered the cabin, I suddenly got the idea to start keeping track of the plane names to see if I'd ever hop on the same one in the future. Kind of like how people write their names on dollar bills with the hope that their spent cash would someday be returned to them after having been stuffed into numerous wallets, vending machines, and exchanged through countless hands.

Liane and I camped five nights out of the eight we had planned on Maui. The remaining three nights were spent at my mom's house Up Country. Mom actually moved from her cramped studio apartment into a spacious and furnished two-bedroom deal while we were there, how's that for accommodating?! Her new place is about 2500' higher at 3500' elevation on the western slope of massive Haleakala. Its 10,023 foot summit can be seen from her living room window, as well as a far-reaching glimpse of South Maui and Kaho'olawe island beyond. Along with these incredible views comes the brisk temperatures of living that high up the mountain. We were freezing! I'm sure it got down to the 40's at night.

Down at sea-level it's always warm. Warm enough that taking a cold outdoor shower at dusk can be summed up as, "not bad." Olowalu Campground sits at the base of deeply carved gulches in the West Maui Mountains and only about fifty yards from the calm shoreline. Most of the sites are shaded by tall, crooked keawe trees whose fallen branches litter the hot, dry dusty paths with thorny landmines. Even with careful navigation it's hard to avoid the 1/2+ inch thorns that easily drive right through any hardy slipper and you're left staggering on one foot trying to pick out the pesky heel stabbers. Sometimes the whole branch gets tacked on to the bottom of your slipper! Our tent neighbors were a delightful family of five from Vancouver, BC. Impressive parenting was made evident when the three kids acquired a nasty looking cupcake frosted with bright St. Patty's Day colored radioactive-looking goop from another camper down the way. Instead of eating the free sugar snack with typical childlike abandon, the siblings carefully brought it back to camp as a specimen of "bad" food. One of the girls proclaimed something like, "It probably contains hydrogenated oil and white flour which isn't good for me." They instead found more creative use for the green frosting as finger paint.

Snorkeling is kind of like birding except that while birding, you're having to crane your neck up at the sky and trees peering through binos for our feathered friends, and when snorkeling, you're the one gliding above looking down at the tops of fish and reef through a mask plastered to your face. But searching for and identifying different species is the name of both games. Some fish even have bird name associations, like the Black-sided Hawkfish that perches stoically on finger coral, the darting blue-green Bird Wrasse whose long snout indeed resembles a beak, and the psychedelic-colored Uhu, or Parrot Fish, that noisily scrapes algae off coral with its huge "buckteeth." Unlike birding, however, it can be a bit of a challenge calling out fish names underwater with a snorkel jammed in your mouth! All you can do is point vigorously and exclaim, "HAWW-ISSHH!" "ERRD-ASSS!" "OOH-HOO!", and hope that your snorkeling buddy can share in your discovery. And those are relatively easy names to decipher, but what happens when you come upon a bright yellow nauwiliwilinukunuku oi oi? I suppose that snorkeling can also be akin to mammal-ling, since there are Goat Fish, Squirrel Fish, and Unicorn Fish! One of my favorite fishes is the Dragon Wrasse, which is a juvenile Rockmover Wrasse. It's reddish-brown with white spots and a star pattern radiating from its eye. Its fins have long leafy extensions that camouflage it as seaweed and the fish even swims near the seafloor in a swaying and flipping motion mimicking the plant. Absolutely adorable!

November through March is humpback whale season in Hawaii. These beautiful beasts come here to breed and give birth in the warm shallow waters during winter, and West Maui is one of the best places to spot them. You can often see them way out on the horizon, blowing and splashing, a fin here, a fluke there, and if you're lucky you can see one breach the surface in all its 44-ton and gravity-defying splendor! Maybe even more remarkable is that if you dive down into the water near the shore you can HEAR the whales singing! We discovered this while snorkeling on the afternoon of our seventh anniversary at Kahekili Beach. The whale song is eerie yet wonderful with verses of long low moans and vamps of high-pitched squeals. We kept diving down just to listen to their magical melodies for as long as we could hold our breath.

A southern swell came in over the weekend which rendered most beaches useless in terms of snorkeling visibility. Alternatively, Po'olenalena Beach in South Maui offered up some nice pipelines to play in... and get pounded on! We waded in nearby a handful of kids bobbing in and out of the waves, enjoying the dynamic rise and fall of wet weightlessness. Plunging through oncoming waves and resurfacing out behind their crests is not only deliciously addicting to the senses, but it also saves you from being tumbled in its wash cycle and scraped along the sandy bottom. But sometimes it doesn't always work that way. We somehow managed to enter the ocean right before the biggest set rolled in because suddenly the little 4-footers we were frolicking in grew into 8-10-footers and I found myself completely unprepared (and unable) to bore through a rapidly advancing thick wall of water! I tried to duck under but my little limbs couldn't propel me through to the other side and I got pummeled and knocked about like a heavy duty load of beach towels, only when the spin cycle finally ended for me, I was still thoroughly covered in sand.


For a stunning change of scenery we headed up the mountain to hike in Haleakala's crater, a landscape more suited perhaps to a travel blog entitled "Martian Vacation" rather than "Maui Vacation." Haleakala's original summit was probably about 3000' taller than it is today which would put it in the slightly higher "massive" category reserved for its sister island peaks Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, both towering above 13,600'. But hundreds of thousands of years of erosion from streams in the Keanae and Kaupo valleys eventually gouged out the large depression at the summit and the volcano's east rift zone awakened once again to violently erupt an impressive lineup of cinder cones along the crater floor. The explosions left a mess of scattered lava bombs sprinkled over the slopes of black, brown, gray, and bright red oxidized cinders. Rivers of lava (whose cooled surfaces always remind me of the broken top of a pan of brownies) wound around the cones' bases and flowed down the large valleys creating the flattened floors of the Ko'olau and Kaupo Gaps.


The endangered Silversword plant somehow ekes out a living in this barren windswept alpine region. Their blade-like leaves are arranged like a spiky ball and are covered with tiny silver hairs which make them gleam from the cindery slopes. We hiked down Sliding Sands Trail several miles to the first cinder cone Ka Lu'u o ka O'o and peered into its steep red pit. It was exhilarating to walk the lip of the pit and imagine the fury that Pele once belched forth here!

Wet and cold Hosmer Grove at 7000' was our home for the night. The cloud forest supports native Hawaiian birds, like the bright red i'iwi whom I've heard so much about when I was growing up. Its chance of survival always sounded so grim that I regarded it as a mythical creature I would probably never see in my lifetime. So when we saw almost twenty of them near camp (some right in the parking lot!!) I entered seventh ornithological heaven! Along with its thick curved beak, i'iwi's other distinct characteristic is the loud fluttering sound of its wings. In the early morning we could hear them circling our tent!


It had rained quite a bit and we heard there were flash flood warnings and landslide hazards on the long and winding Hana Highway, our next destination. The locals in town tried to steer us away from the rainy east side but we zoomed out there anyway. Turned out that not a single drop of rain fell that night and we had the entire Waianapanapa campground to ourselves! What? This place was an overflowing village of tents the last time we visited Maui, but that night it was just us, some mongoose, a feral cat, and all the spirits that lay in the cemetery across the lawn. Waianapanapa is known for its black sand beach and rugged coastline where wicked waves pound the basalt cliffs into sea caves, stacks, and arches, and offer up mesmerizing blue stews of frothy finesse.


The tiny town of Hana sits in front of Ka'uiki Head, a 386' cinder cone at the easternmost edge of the island. A narrow sketchy trail leads you around to the back side of the cone to reveal Red Sand Beach. WOW. Angry wave action breached the cone's east slope and scooped out a sweet secluded cove protected by a natural lava rock breakwater (an intrusive igneous dike, in case you were dying to know).

One of our favorite hikes on the island is Pipiwai Trail in the Kipahulu Valley that leads you to two towering waterfalls via the hollow stalked hallways of a bamboo forest. Liane took a dip in Infinity Pool at the top of 200' Makahiku Falls. It's pretty dang amazing to sit in the pool, peer down the waterfall, and follow the stream's course out to the ocean in front of you. There must have been some tragic incident here since they've erected numerous NO JUMPING and FATAL DROP signs at every ledge along the trail.

At the sweaty top we were rewarded with the cooling mist of 400' Waimoku Falls, and on the way back down through the bamboo Liane noticed a strange red object off-trail on the decaying leafy ground. Was it trash? Was it a flower? Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be some kind of mushroom - a monster mushroom with a mud-covered mouth and tentacles! Seriously, we had never seen anything like it before and it seemed so out of place. As we continued descending the trail our eyes scanned the bamboo base for more of the freaky fungi and surprisingly we hunted down four more of its tribe. Later research pinned it down as the Starfish Fungus, and the mouth of "mud" was its spore mass.


It is rumored that the road past Kipahulu that skirts Haleakala's south face and reconnects to the Kula highway is unpaved and impassable in a regular car but ours did fine. It actually is paved most of the way and alternates with stretches of hard-packed dirt pocked with numerous but insignificant potholes. The landscape is dramatic and raw and if it's clear you can see the Big Island across the Alenuihaha Channel, as well as receive its radio stations! (We were rocking out to LAVA 105.3!) Deep gulches scar the slopes and the gargantuan Kaupo Gap looms above at 8000'. Not much else out here except for the Kaupo Store which serves as a place to stop for a refreshing popsicle, look at their rusting collection of vintage cameras and radios, or talk story with the shop keeper. Rectangular stone-walled ruins of heiau, or temples, can be seen along the coast here, a testament that this barren span of land wasn't always devoid of community.

The road eventually winds up back in civilization in Up Country, full circle to Mom's house. Mom would have accompanied us on some of these adventures if it weren't for her recent knee surgery. I look forward to next time!

The plane that flew us from Maui to Oahu was named "Elepaio." A bird! I suddenly made the connection that Hawaiian Airlines named their fleet after native Hawaiian birds - awesome! I was even more excited now to keep track of which wings flew me where and when. "Akeke" was the plane that carried us 2000 miles back across the Pacific to Portland.


A couple hundred miles to the east I could see the dark peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa emerging above the white cumulus clouds like mighty backs of humpback whales slicing through white-capped waves. Though unlike the magnificent migrating mammals who will eventually move on, my beloved mountainous homeland islands will remain anchored in the center of the Pacific awaiting my return.

For full photo album click here

Kelley Point Park, Portland, OR

The first essay assignment in my writing class was on travel writing. We were to go somewhere that we had not been to before, sit for about an hour, and take detailed notes on everything that we were experiencing through our five senses. Then we had to turn that into a 1200-word essay. The following text is what I turned in, but I get to illustrate with photos on the blog. Enjoy:

Pray For Osprey

Oregon has the most fickle weather I have ever experienced. For instance, last weekend in one day, we had a cold gray morning, light drizzles, periods of intense sunshine, and a brief hail storm that melted into rain, followed by more sunshine, then rain. Usually Portland’s spring is a soggy season requiring a raincoat and puddle-friendly foot gear. To keep my Hawaiian bones warm I have to suit up in long underwear, a fleece pullover, and my cozy hat fashioned out of recycled wool sweaters.

But today, none of those garments would be necessary. Earlier in the week the weather forecast said sunny and seventy degrees for the weekend, and it looked like the Meteorology Gods were going to deliver on that promise. Shorts! Could I actually wear shorts today? In Portland? In early April? Still leery, I settled for thin Capri pants, a t-shirt under a light hoodie, a cap, and the crowning summertime accessory: sunglasses. I grabbed my camera and headed out to Kelley Point Park.


View Larger Map

I have lived here for eight years but have never been to this park. If you look at a map of the city, the peninsula that makes up North Portland looks like a profile of a giant thumb pointing to the left. To the west it caresses the Willamette River’s last bend, and along the east side the mighty Columbia flows by. At the very north corner of the peninsula, the tip of the thumbnail, if you will, is Kelley Point Park digging into the armpit of the confluence of these two busy waterways.

I had expected to photograph ships and piers, or beautiful industrial rust, seeing as two major terminals of the Port of Portland were nearby. But I had also hoped to see some birds: gulls, geese, hawks, or herons since the park was also sandwiched between two wildlife refuges.


I entered the park through tall bare-branched trees which looked caught off guard, naked and without leaves to shield the sun. The vista widened as I approached the Columbia’s edge where logs were strewn about the gray sand beach. I sat on a large one facing the river with my back to the warm sun. To the east I saw Mount Hood’s full form pointing into the cirrus-streaked sky. To the north was Mount St. Helens’ unmistakable mound of white behind the thin veil of deciduous trees that lined the far side of the river. Even the nearby foothills were covered in snow, still donning their winter wardrobe.

The port terminal upstream was a mess of buildings and barges, cranes and cargo containers, large ships and steel. Airplanes roared overhead, coming from my left if they were landing at PDX, and from my right if they had just taken off. Old pier pilings stood just off shore, lonely and stuck.


A large bird flew overhead from the trees behind me. In a flash I tried to identify it: white underside, dark feathers near wingtips. It could be a gull, although I thought I saw a dark mask on its white head which would suggest it was an osprey. Oh I hoped it was an osprey! It had already flown out over the water and I cursed that I had forgotten my binoculars. Other birds that soared overhead were definitely gulls. A small flock of cormorants barely grazed the water with their rapidly beating wings. Their long sleek necks pointed straight out when they flew, but once they landed on the water they created shapes of question marks. They were all black except for their bright orange cheeks. One by one they dove down and resurfaced with small fish shimmering in their bills.

Small boat wakes queued up from across the river and made frequent wavelets lap on the shore. A large boat motored by and minutes later its wake created miniature pipelines. The sound of the splashing was comforting and reminded me of home, but the view was incongruous with that sweet memory. Instead of an idyllic white sand beach peppered with shells and chunks of coral, there was dull gray sand littered with twigs, bits of tree bark, and scraps of green moss.

I strolled down the beach passing couples with dogs playing fetch, families with kids, sunbathers, and other photographers. They were all enjoying the day as if it were the middle of summer, the middle of a string of gorgeous fair-weathered days. I made eye contact with a passerby and we exchanged a knowing glance that this day was exceptional, a seasonal fluke, like a crisp white sheet hanging on a months-long laundry line of dreary wet rags.


At the corner of the park I stopped to eat lunch. I sat on a high retaining wall made of rough-hewn lumber. Two long rows of pier pilings jutted out into the water from here. Almost every stump was capped by a black cormorant or a white gull sunning itself. I thought it would make a great photo, so I planned to snap one after I had eaten. While I enjoyed my turkey sandwich and cassava chips, an enormous green barge materialized out of the gentle Willamette and merged into the bustling Columbia. At the same time a couple of jet skis buzzed by, disturbing the rows of birds and foiling my photo opportunity. They took to the air in a spectacular pattern of black and white.

As the birds settled back to their posts, one flew toward me. I assumed it was another ubiquitous gull, but I gasped when I spotted its eye stripe, that distinctive Zorro mask of the osprey. It was clenching a fish in its talons, holding it in line with its body instead of across – another osprey trait. To my delight it landed on a nearby tree branch maybe forty feet up. The top of its wings were dark brown, and its belly white except for a speckled band across the breast. I wondered if this was the osprey I thought I saw earlier. It was exhilarating to see a large raptor in such close proximity.


The fish it caught was about ten inches long and already headless. After surveying the scene, the osprey resumed eating its meal safe from the scavenging gulls at the old pier. While its left claw pinned the fish to the branch, it would reach down with its neck cranked to one side, planting its bill into the fish to torque and tear off tiny bits of flesh. Before taking each bite it would scan for scavengers. Every once in a while, perhaps at the slightest glimpse of a greedy gull, it would give a loud call and ready its wings, but would settle down again and continue eating.


After several minutes it gave another cry and threatened to take flight, but that too was a false alarm. I wondered at how such a magnificent bird, with its discerning eye and sharp bill, could have such a vulnerable voice. After another mouthful it cried aloud again but this time it shook out its wings deliberately, and with a few strokes it leapt off the branch and soared away, its translucent wings resplendent against the sky.

Southeast Oregon 2008

--SOUTHEAST OREGON - Fall, 2008--

Liane and I left Portland Friday night, September 19th, and headed three hours down to Redmond to our friend Mary's house. A sudden lightning storm flashed overhead revealing the change in landscape, but even in the pitch black I could tell we had rolled into Central Oregon just by the scent of sage and nose-jolting juniper.

We both love this area of Oregon; the volcanic rock formations, the wide open spaces, the crisp air... But further southeast of here was uncharted territory for us, and we were ecstatic about exploring it over the next nine days.

--Malheur National Wildlife Refuge--

We invited Mary to join us for the first couple of nights for the Malheur portion of our trip. Another three hours from Redmond to Burns, the last big "town" before you enter a more remote Oregon, and then another half an hour to Malheur Lake. The 187,000 acre refuge is a sanctuary for over 320 bird species and 58 mammal species, and is an important stopover for migrating birds on the Pacific Flyway in the spring and fall.

I figured photographing birds would be pretty challenging, much like photographing tropical fish; they're either too far away or they never stay still. So I was thrilled to get this Great Horned Owl on our first morning at the Refuge Headquarters. Granted, it was just sitting there trying to sleep. The museum had beautifully mounted specimens displayed in a way that let you see the similarities and differences of various species in context. Plus it was a way to see these amazing creatures up close, though dead.

Making our way south on gravel Central Patrol Road in the scenic Blitzen Valley, the peaceful Donner und Blitzen River (Thunder and Lightning, in German) wove through the marshes like a snaking mirror of the sky. A large black bird was shuffling around in the middle of the road maybe 50 yards ahead of us. As we approached, it took to the air and we saw its other sky-high Turkey Vulture friends circling above what we soon found out was a fresh jackrabbit carcass. Mmmm, lunch! During a short walk we startled a huge flock of ravens - blue sky between black wings like something M.C. Escher would draw.

Being newbie birders, we got a satisfying eyeful of many birds both common and rare. We'll not forget how to identify the Northern Harrier now, a white-rumped low swooping raptor we saw in abundance! However, passerines (songbirds) may take a long time to differentiate.

--Steens Mountains--

The Steens is a 30-mile-long fault-block mountain where the east edge was forced upward by massive internal pressures. The 52-mile loop road takes you to the edges of deep glacier-carved gorges: Kiger, Little Blitzen, Big Indian, and Wildhorse. At the top the East Rim overlook awards you with jaw-dropping views of the Alvord Desert almost a vertical mile below. This is the highest road in the state, near the Steens summit at 9,733 feet.

We found one of the prettiest camp sites ever on the aspen-lined Pate Lake at 7,500 feet. We couldn't have timed our trip better to witness the vibrant yellow and orange fall colors stain the quaking aspens. I didn't expect to see pronghorn antelope, but we saw several herds throughout the trip. Also a fun surprise were our coyote sightings.

From the South Steens Road we hiked into the magnificent Little Blitzen Gorge. Tall jagged cliff walls, pinnacles, handsome boulders, and colorful desert shrubbery. We could hear the Little Blitzen River flowing, songbirds hidden from view, and the constant clacking of grasshopper wings as they jumped out of our way. There were tiny black grasshoppers with yellow inner wings, and 2-inch straw-colored ones with black inner wings which made them look like large butterflies in flight! And there were actual butterflies as well - I thought I was seeing the endangered Oregon Silverspot, but my butterfly expert friend said it was a very close relative that is common in that area.

Back on paved road until the little "town" of Fields, we stopped near Roaring Springs Ranch for some impromptu wildlife viewing. In one binocular glance there were ravens sitting on a fence in the foreground, a large flock of Canada geese feeding in green grass behind them, several pairs of Greater Sandhill Cranes cruising the mowed field behind them, two coyotes pouncing about in an adjacent field, and then a resting herd of antelope in the field beyond! Incredible.

--Alvord Desert--

We ventured 8 miles over sandy alkali roads to Borax Lake Hot Springs named so because of the Borax industry that was in operation nearby in 1900. Chinese laborers collected and processed the white crystals and shipped it to Nevada by mule. The main soaking pool was a perfect temperature and a welcome treat as the sun started to dip behind the Steens and dusk brought chill. Although I don't know how anybody actually soaked IN the pool. Wearing nothing but my slippers and a towel over my shoulder, I took one step into the seemingly shallow 3-foot water and watched my entire leg go plunging into thick dark green/gray mud. Good thing I had my hands anchored on the bank, or I would have been swallowed up whole! I literally couldn't move and Liane and I had a good laugh as she extracted me out of the nasty goop. We decided that using buckets to scoop out the hot water to pour over our bodies was good enough. Sheesh!

That evening we set up camp on the hard alkali flats of the Alvord Desert Playa. The wind kicked up and the sun had set making the cooking of canned soup and tent building way more challenging than usual. Everything was getting covered in white dust and I thought maybe camping here was a bad idea. But I really wanted to wake up there and experience sunrise in such surreal surroundings. We didn't stray far from the road and set up near the edge of the playa, but we watched two other cars drive right out into the middle of it. There was only one other camp several hundred yards away with a small RV, a truck, and two land-sailing rigs. In the evening Liane and I went for a walk out on the playa with no headlamps, just navigated using the stars. It felt like we had the entire 6- by 11-mile expanse to ourselves.

The next morning we noticed the back tire of my car had lost a bit of air. Darn it! We had to scrap our hiking plans that day and backtrack 20 miles to Fields to get it fixed. But we couldn't get the tire off so we had to ask the land sailor dude, Dennis, to help. After seeing that even HE was having a tough time loosening the nuts, we didn't feel like such wimps. Got the spare on, but even that was a little flat (oops), so we had to drive super slow on the already slow-going gravel road. Dennis offered us land sailing lessons if the wind was up when we made it back through that way!

Got the tire fixed at the Fields Station while having one of their "World Famous Milkshakes" and gut-bloating chicken strips and fries. (All extremely BAAAD for my condition, but hey, what else do you do in Fields, OR?) Chatted up the funky locals and visitors, bought some beer for Dennis and headed back up to the playa for a possible land sailing lesson!! Dennis and his wife Sally come up from Mt. Shasta maybe twice a year for this sport. There aren't many places to land sail, especially not as magical as this. Their respective rigs fit us perfectly (well, Liane had to use a pillow) and it was super easy to get the hang of it, controlling the sail with the hands and steering with the feet. I only went out once and had the guts to get up to maybe 15 mph, but Liane went way out for a while and got up over 25 mph which is a thrill when you're that close to the ground. The only thing is, you could be miles out in the playa and the wind could die. So you either wait, or you start pushing the boat back to camp in the hot desert.

After all that excitement we took a nice soak in the Alvord Hot Springs a few miles up the road. A tangled mess of pipes from the springs fills two concrete pools, one open-air, the other surrounded by tin walls. Old washer drums were made into seats. It also had a nice deck with a bench, and a changing area. Wow! What a gorgeous place to soak!


The next day we hiked Pike Creek Canyon on the steep east face of the Steens Mountains. Ooh, I rank this as one of my favorite hikes in Oregon. (Most of Leila's Favorite Hikes are in Hawaii, so this is pretty special) Rugged canyon walls, spires, shale clanking underfoot, mysterious gold mining remains, pretty pretty rocks, more pretty rocks (hmm, I think I should have been a geologist, no?), hefty junipers growing out of boulders, and three beautiful snakes all appearing within half an hour of each other. The first was a 5-foot long Gopher snake that slithered across the path, the second was a black and red-tinged Garter snake poised almost vertically on a wall, and the third was a big fat Rattlesnake which zoomed across the path and hid inside a dark shrub so I wasn't able to photograph it. We also got to watch at least fifty Chukar scale the canyon wall opposite of us. We met three vibrant women in their 70s and 80s camping there with their cute old-school van and tent. Carol, Melba, and Pat had been doing trips together every summer for 30 years and they had the best stories to tell! Like the one where they tried to bring their husbands on a trip but ended up sending them home early on the Greyhound out of Baker City! haha

We tried to soak at Alvord Hot Springs again after the hike but this time it was scalding and the water level was a foot lower. Someone messed with the pipes and plugs. It would take hours for that water to cool down to soaking temp. Bummer. Instead we went to explore the boiling Mickey Hot Springs which are not meant to be soaked in, but provided memorable and stunning scenery.

On our last morning we were on the road by 9:00am - a full day of driving all the way back to Portland from Mann Lake. Still on gravel, enjoying the scenery, suddenly the bumpiness got REALLY bumpy. I elbowed Liane to steer the car back onto the smoother part, but she said, "I think we have another flat." No slow leak this time. Major blowout. It was only 9:30am. We sprang into action and changed to the spare in fifteen minutes; yes, we rock! The tire had a couple small punctures and five huge gashes - whoa! What's crazy is that once we got rolling again, the evil gravel road became paved only 100 yards away. grrrr

The nearest Les Schwab was in Burns, but it was Sunday and they were closed. So we made it to Crane and spent our last day at the Crystal Crane Hot Springs cabins instead! How convenient. :)

All in all it was a wonderful adventure, including the flat tires, which brought experiences we might not have had otherwise. Definitely a must-do again. LOTS MORE PHOTOS HERE.

Beacon Rock and Hamilton Mountain

Columbia River, Beacon Rock far left in distance

I-205 north across the Columbia River, then east on Highway 14 for 28 miles. The eastbound highway view of Mount Hood is way better on the Washington side for some reason. I guess when you're on I-84 you're at the base of the Oregon side Columbia Gorge cliffs, and so Hoody is hidden.

Beacon Rock. Hamilton Mountain in the rear.

This was my first time hiking 848-foot Beacon Rock. Claimed to be one of the northern hemisphere's largest free-standing monoliths, it is the throat of a former volcano. Oooh! The rest of it got eroded by the Columbia River millions of years ago. It's just shy of a mile to the top on a paved and railed trail. EASY. I made the mistake of bringing my entire pack though, so I had a rougher time than the regulars overtaking me with just a small Evian in hand. I should have figured it would be a quick trip to the top.


Looking northeast I could see the peak of Hamilton Mountain, at 2,400 feet; my next stop. Back down Beacon Rock and across the street to the Hamilton trail head. Nice and shady trail, with a steady 600-foot climb for the first mile. Then it descends to a beefy wooden bridge spanning Rodney Falls.


Above the bridge a side trail takes you right up to the fall's first tier where you can watch it furiously plunge into a small pool creating a misty whirlwind within its circular rock walls.


The trail from here leads you up to Hamilton Mountain via 2 miles of very steep switchbacks. Definitely not for the couch potato. Even though I've been working out a bunch lately, I still had to take numerous breaks to catch my breath.

I finally got to a clearing, a nice rock outcropping with a view of just the tip of Mount Hood to the south. Breezy up there. The guttural call of a raven sounded excitingly nearby, and suddenly three of them soared up right in front of me, acrobatically, in the hot updraft blowing against the cliff face a few feet away.

Bonneville Dam

I found a little path around to the front of the cliff and a tiny place to sit, so I sat. Perched there only inches away from a sheer 2,000-foot drop, I could see the whitewash of the river far below pushing through Bonneville Dam, and a bird's eye view of... well, a bird's eye. This time three turkey vultures came soaring down to check me out - I wish I had my camera ready for that, as one of them came within 15 feet! Awesome!!

Looking down on Beacon Rock from Hamilton Mountain

I didn't make it to the tippy top, several hundred feet higher. I figured this was good enough, and besides it was late afternoon. The way down went pretty fast, though hard on the toes and knees. All in all, a very good hike. I'd do it again. Somebody join me next time? :)

I was somewhere on the edge of that cliff to the right

Bye bye Big Island

Aloha - I'm going to summarize our last 4 days on Big Island in one entry. We went to visit Grandma Yoshimura at Aunty Donna's house Saturday morning. My mom happened to be visiting from Maui that weekend, yeay! Grandma is 83 and sharp as a tack. She works out at the gym 3 times a week! dude... We enjoyed hearing her talk story in her precious Japanese-Pidgin English and then she taught us how to play Hanafuda.

Liane and I drove south around the island to meet up with our friends Rowan and Shannon in the tiny town of Volcano. The vog (volcanic smog) on the Kona side was the worst I've ever seen it but as soon as we reached South Point the weather was gorgeous. Big news: the current lava flow which sprung up from a fissure to the east of Pu'u O'o vent back in July '07 finally reached the ocean last Thursday. A blessing was made and an access road to view the lava was opened to the public on Saturday. We tried to go that evening but the road was closed due to an overwhelming amount of visitors.

Every Sunday morning Volcano Village hosts a bustling farmer's market which has the best produce I've seen in the state! Very pleased to see this kind of healthy/eco/artist community exists here - I wanna live there! Took a tour of the beautiful house Rowan and Shannon are building then we did a hike in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The Kilauea Iki Trail hugs the rainforested rim of the crater where we could hear the red and black Apapane honey creeper's bird song-chirp and wing whir. The trail then drops down, traversing the flat wide-open lava rock crater floor punctured with sulfur steam vents.

That night the four of us decided to try to see the active lava flow again despite rumors and signs that it had suddenly "stopped flowing". Millions of other people had the same idea and the parking area was still full. After driving an hour, we had to walk 2 miles past all the parked cars, finally reaching the trail. Spent another half an hour hiking over undulating lava rock in the dark with flashlights. It was a pilgrimage of Pele, the Hawaiian Fire Goddess. The flow had indeed slowed down but was still sending small streams of molten rock into the ocean and there were large hot glowing cracks along on the trail. We could see several patches of firey orange higher up the slope. The sky was clear with a setting crescent moon and STARS galore, and we could hear the waves crashing on the nearby cliff. F*ing Awesome.

Monday morning we were treated with a helicopter ride OVER the lava flow! My dad's partner won a gift certificate and gave it to us - Thanks Linda! Although it was very brief we got incredible views of Hilo's numerous waterfalls, the steaming Pu'u O'o vent, the lava-damaged roads and houses, and the lava pouring into the ocean. WOW! Unforgettable for sure.

Can you see the red lava?

Drove back to Kona side via Saddle Road between 13,000+ ft snow-sprinkled Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Sad to leave clear skies to enter the vog and rain. Checked into historic Manago Hotel in Capt. Cook.

We spent our last days hanging out and snorkeling at Honaunau, one of my favorite places in the world to be. I love the energy down there, so calm but exciting. It's a popular snorkel and dive spot with super easy access giving it its "Two Step" nickname. We saw several eels swimming freely and a small octopus! Octopi are so rad - we watched this one put on a psychedelic light and texture show on its skin and whip its tentacle out at fish. Saw a turtle get cleaned by fish on the reef floor. You could tell it was a regular cleaning station as the coral was all broken and flattened there, and the turtle was literally backed in to a garage-like coral opening!
We soaked up the last of our Hawaiian sun and surf and flew out Wednesday. Back to 50-degree Portland. Wahhhh! But it's good to be home.

dad and I watching sunset at 69 beach

like father like daughter!

Puako

They say you could dive at Puako every day for the rest of your life and still not see it all, and I believe 'em! This incredible reef with canyons and caves has a depth varying between 20 - 90 feet and extends about 150 feet from shore then drops off into the abyss. We scoped out an easy entry spot over the rocky shoreline (accessed by telephone pole #115 off Puako Beach Rd. for future reference) which was also cluttered with turtles.

female bird wrasse

Cauliflower and lobe coral dominate creating a high-rise city for schools of black and yellow tangs, masked raccoon and threadfin butterfly fishes, lau wiliwili nukunuku oi oi (rare long nose butterfly fish found only on Kona Coast), blue-green pointy nosed male bird wrasses always speeding by, tiny fluorescent rainbow cleaner wrasses, pinktail and lei triggerfishes (cousins of humuhumu nukunuku apua'a), orange-eyed goldring surgeonfishes, enormous shy peacock groupers and graceful sailfin tangs, razor sharp looking orange-spined tang, bloated striped-belly puffers and miniature Hawaiian whitespotted tobies, creamsicle colored arc-eye hawkfishes and freckle-faced blackside hawkfish perched on the coral cliffs.

yellow tang

Liane has a knack for spotting eels and was lucky enough to see one swimming freely across the bottom. I did get to see a different eel, a large whitemouth moray opening and closing its jaws.

We swam to the edge of the reef, to the deep blue abyss, which is pretty freaky. There's something about being surrounded by lots of deep water far from shore that makes you look around to see if there are any sharks. eek. But we went out there because we could HEAR whales singing. I'm serious. There was a low groaning moan interspersed with a higher pitched voice. Wow. This area is now in my top 3 snorkel spots. The other two are Honaunau (City of Refuge) on Big Island, and Honolua Bay on Maui.