Kuli’ou’ou Ridge trail – what a view!

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Dave, Sam and I went up the Kuli’ou’ou Ridge trail today. The weather was cool and clear (70 and sunny) – we couldn’t have asked for a better day. Dave loved the trail as much as I thought he would – the woods, climb, views – and we had a great time. What we didn’t count on was today being SuperBowl Sunday. We wanted to stop at Kona Brewing Co. for beer afterwards (a ritual after hiking) but found they were closed. So was the second place we tried. Three’s a charm and we devoured lunch in Hawaii Kai at the Blue Water Grill. If you check out the picture above you may be able to notice some names scratched into the “End of trail” sign. We didn’t pay any notice to the scribbles until we told our waiter why we were so famished (I was, like, stalking him for food). When we told him which trail we’d done he was impressed Sammy went all the way up with us, and then mentioned he loved that trail as well. He went on to say that his name was on the sign, so we pulled it in close on our camera and he showed us “Scuttles.” (We didn’t ask.) So I took a picture of him as well (it’s in the Album).

For any hikers reading this and planning a trip up the ridge, my husband says on the absolute treachery scale (1-10, 9 being Angel’s Landing in Zion – if you’ve ever done that you know), this was about a 5. If you are carrying a child, tolerable treachery is a 6 for us, and this trail is about a 4 or 5 because the last 1/2 mile is steep, a little narrow and slippery due to loose dirt. Bring trekking poles. The trail is otherwise excellent – the first 2 miles in the 2.5 mi one-way trip are shaded and easy to navigate. Total elevation gain is 1800′, and elevation at the top is just over 2000′. The view from the summit over the windward side is awesome. There is a picnic table shelter at about 1.2 mi into the hike – we used that as our stopover on the way down.
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