Ya know, going to Hawaii is just another excuse to get out and about on the trails. Luckily, I was traveling with some people who really wanted to do this hiking with me. On this day, it was the four of us once again of my beautiful wife Jacqueline, her dad Tom, and my dad Roger. We chose to go to the Iao Valley which was famous for its Iao Needle. This was one of my number one places to visit on the list of places on Maui, but when we got these, my dad informed me that we had been there before. I did not remember it at all so this seemed like a first visit for me. We paid a ridiculous parking fee and headed up the paved path. This lead us to a viewpoint of the Iao Needle. It is quite an impressive formation and it gets a lot of tourism activity. We checked it out and took some pictures. This was a short trail, so I was happy when we were able to locate another trail that went down by the creek.
This trail started out very good leading to swimming holes that the locals were enjoying using. Kind of a funny notion in Hawaii because every beach is a local swimming hole. We were not after the swimming holes, but it was still enjoyable being next to the creek. This trail wandered along for some time before starting to get much worse. We wondered how long it would last and whether it would be worthwhile to continue upon. It soon took an abrupt turn and went away from the creek and up into the woods. The trees were rather thick and the trail in not very good shape, but it was easy enough to follow the path. The trees were crazy being long and skinny similar to bamboo in the straight up nature of the trees.
This path lead us further up higher into the valley. There were not many other people up here, but we did run into some French folks who told us about the berries up ahead. We found some and ate a couple, but since we had no idea what they were, we did not eat much. Considering the fact that our trail was not much of a trail, we soon decided that the remnants of it were not enough to continue to follow. So with our last really good view up canyon, we took a good look at the Iao Valley and turned around.
We did not have to go the same way back, though, because where our trail popped out of the trees that we climbed up to from the river, there was a trail going down valley from there. No one particularly wanted to climb back down the really steep trail to the creek, so instead we took the other path. We were glad that we did, because this was a much better section of trail. The views were great giving us a great perspective on the high cliffs. We even got a good view of the Iao Needle from the backside. The trail was not quite in wonderful condition being somewhat steep and slick, but we were able to handle it just fine after taking our time. We did see some young guys hiking up the trail as fast as they could who asked us how far, but we let them know that there was not really any destination on this hike. It was true, the whole hike was just great to be in the greenery with all of the vegetation.
The trail eventually circled back around to the viewpoint of Iao Needle with a sign that said not to use it. Oops, well maybe they could use our parking fees to bring someone in and obliterate it. It seemed to me to be a soft closure trying to keep people without any plans to keep hiking away rather than a hard closure keeping even the most prepared adventurers like ourselves away.
We took one last walk down to check out the botanical gardens. This turned out to be a great way to spend an afternoon in a beautiful state (hard to believe this place is a part of the United States) and on one of its most beautiful islands of Maui.
Ya know, going to Hawaii is just another excuse to get out and about on the trails. Luckily, I was traveling with some people who really wanted to do this hiking with me. On this day, it was the four of us once again of my beautiful wife Jacqueline, her dad Tom, and my dad Roger. We chose to go to the Iao Valley which was famous for its Iao Needle. This was one of my number one places to visit on the list of places on Maui, but when we got these, my dad informed me that we had been there before. I did not remember it at all so this seemed like a first visit for me. We paid a ridiculous parking fee and headed up the paved path. This lead us to a viewpoint of the Iao Needle. It is quite an impressive formation and it gets a lot of tourism activity. We checked it out and took some pictures. This was a short trail, so I was happy when we were able to locate another trail that went down by the creek.
This trail started out very good leading to swimming holes that the locals were enjoying using. Kind of a funny notion in Hawaii because every beach is a local swimming hole. We were not after the swimming holes, but it was still enjoyable being next to the creek. This trail wandered along for some time before starting to get much worse. We wondered how long it would last and whether it would be worthwhile to continue upon. It soon took an abrupt turn and went away from the creek and up into the woods. The trees were rather thick and the trail in not very good shape, but it was easy enough to follow the path. The trees were crazy being long and skinny similar to bamboo in the straight up nature of the trees.
This path lead us further up higher into the valley. There were not many other people up here, but we did run into some French folks who told us about the berries up ahead. We found some and ate a couple, but since we had no idea what they were, we did not eat much. Considering the fact that our trail was not much of a trail, we soon decided that the remnants of it were not enough to continue to follow. So with our last really good view up canyon, we took a good look at the Iao Valley and turned around.
We did not have to go the same way back, though, because where our trail popped out of the trees that we climbed up to from the river, there was a trail going down valley from there. No one particularly wanted to climb back down the really steep trail to the creek, so instead we took the other path. We were glad that we did, because this was a much better section of trail. The views were great giving us a great perspective on the high cliffs. We even got a good view of the Iao Needle from the backside. The trail was not quite in wonderful condition being somewhat steep and slick, but we were able to handle it just fine after taking our time. We did see some young guys hiking up the trail as fast as they could who asked us how far, but we let them know that there was not really any destination on this hike. It was true, the whole hike was just great to be in the greenery with all of the vegetation.
The trail eventually circled back around to the viewpoint of Iao Needle with a sign that said not to use it. Oops, well maybe they could use our parking fees to bring someone in and obliterate it. It seemed to me to be a soft closure trying to keep people without any plans to keep hiking away rather than a hard closure keeping even the most prepared adventurers like ourselves away.
We took one last walk down to check out the botanical gardens. This turned out to be a great way to spend an afternoon in a beautiful state (hard to believe this place is a part of the United States) and on one of its most beautiful islands of Maui.
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