Sunday, December 15, 2013

ʻAihualama Falls

Here are a few photos of ʻAihualama Falls, the little waterfall at the far end of Honolulu's Lyon Arboretum. A couple of people on the trail told me not to bother since the falls weren't running, and it's true that it wasn't that impressive to look at, with barely a trickle of water flowing over it. There'd been a huge rainstorm about an hour earlier, so I went to check it out anyway in case a surge of runoff from the storm had made it to the falls yet. Obviously I was either too early or too late to see that. Or maybe hydrology in Manoa Valley just doesn't work that way at all. It's outside my area of expertise and I honestly don't know.

In any case, I figured I'd go ahead and do a waterfall post about it anyway. I've already done waterfall posts about one that's been dry for thousands of years, and another that's been submerged by a dam for half a century, and a seasonal one in the Gorge that's never running when I visit. So it's a bit late to draw the line at a twenty foot rock face with a garden hose's volume of water flowing over it. I understand the falls are like this a lot, so keep your expectations modest if you visit, but even if the falls are totally dry you still get a nice walk through a tropical botanical garden on the way there. If you're only interested in waterfalls, you'll want to go to Manoa Falls instead.

Here are a few other trip reports in case you're curious:

No comments :