Koko Crater Botanical Garden

Next up we're visiting Oahu's Koko Crater Botanical Garden, in suburban Hawai'i Kai east of central Honolulu. I seem to have made a project out of visiting all the tropical plant gardens on the island, which I guess is fine since there really aren't that many of them: Five run by the city-county government, one by the local university, and a handful of other assorted ones. This one is fairly distinctive in that it's located inside the crater of Koko Crater, the steep volcanic cone that looms over Hawai'i Kai. I wasn't really expecting a lot from the place, given a lot of reviews I'd read of it, but I really enjoyed it; it focuses on dry-climate plants from Hawaii and around the world, including some deeply strange plants from Madagascar. Maybe this just isn't what people are expecting to see in Hawaii, but the whole state is a collection of endlessly varying microclimates, from some of the rainiest places on earth to arid desert conditions and high-altitude moonscapes, so it shouldn't be surprising that plants you might associate with Arizona also grow really well here (but maybe not at all a quarter mile away). Don't miss the plumeria grove if the trees are blooming, and remember to bring bug spray; mosquitoes ate me alive while I was here & I didn't realize it until later.

If you look up toward the rim of the crater you might notice tiny specks of people looking down at you. There's a trail up to the top, which I'll cover in the next post since a.) you can't easily get to it from the botanical garden, and b.) I did that trail on a later trip, well after visiting the garden. During the garden visit I had sort of concluded the trail looked insane and I'd probably never attempt it, but a bit later I did it and it was fine, and I hadn't quite gotten around to publishing this post yet so I didn't have any hasty opinions to walk back. I suppose that's one of the rare advantages to my somewhat... slothful approach to getting posts out the door these days. Hey, I take wins where I can find them.

Pu'u O Hulu

In the previous post, we did Oahu's famous (and crowded) Lanikai Pillbox hike. This time around we're doing a similar but much more obscure one. Pu'u O Hulu is an isolated ridge on the leeward side of the island, separating the towns of Nānākuli and Mā'ili, and like many elevated areas on Oahu near the ocean, it has several WWII-era pillboxes on top. The location is pretty remote (by Oahu standards) if you're coming from Waikiki or central Honolulu, which is probably why it isn't swarmed with tourists; I think the long bus ride through the suburban sprawl of Kapolei took longer than the actual hike. This spot did gain a bit more prominence some years ago when one of the pillboxes was painted pink for cancer awareness, and since then it's become known as the "Pink Pillbox Trail".

A couple of quick trail advice tidbits: First, this part of the island doesn't get a lot of rain, so the trail is dry, rocky, and has very little shade. So use your sunblock, wear actual shoes (not slippers/flip-flops), and bring more water than you think you're going to need, because you'll need it. Second, the trail climbing up onto the ridge is steep but not scary if you have a heights issue. The only part that got my occasional heights anxiety thing going (which is really more of a heights plus no handholds thing) was the part after the first pillbox, where the top of the ridge is quite narrow with nearly-sheer drops on either side, and a steady wind constantly pushes you toward one of the edges. That part wasn't my absolute favorite, and if you don't like heights it might not be your favorite either. In any case, I gritted my teeth and got through it and it was fine. I keep hoping that if I do this enough, the primitive lizard part of my brain that overreacts this way might finally get a clue that it's fine, I'm being careful and know what I'm doing, and it was fine all those other times, and sending out a jolt of adrenalin right now is really not helping, thanks. It hasn't exactly worked yet, but I still hope it might at some point.

Lanikai Pillboxes

Next up we're doing the Lanikai Pillbox Trail, along Ka'iwa Ridge in Kailua, a suburban beach town on the windward side of O'ahu. You're hiking from close to sea level up to a series of WWII pillboxes along the top of the ridge, so the initial part of this trail is fairly steep. But it's also a very short hike with amazing views, so it's usually packed with people; by some accounts the first couple of pillboxes are the most popular Instagram spot in all of Hawaii. I have no idea whether that's true, or how I'd go about finding out, but it seems at least believable. The trail continues on along the ridge top after the second pillbox, curving away from the ocean, and the crowds quickly thin out after that. I did the full length of the trail, which ends up at a second trailhead on Kamahele St., just outside the gate for one of those gated communities built around a golf course. I did meet a handful of people on this part of the trail, mostly going the other direction, like maybe they were taking the back way to the pillboxes. There was one group of Japanese teenagers that I remember quite clearly, not because of the serious hiking gear they had, or the very polite way they asked me to verify they were going the right way, but because one of them was lugging a boombox along, blaring dubstep of all things. Dubstep has never struck me as ideal hiking music, exactly, but whatever gets you up the hill, I guess.

I haven't seen anyone else remark on this, but there is one spot along the trail where you can (and I did) take a wrong turn. On the map above, see the little kink in the trail where it stops heading south and heads due west to the second trailhead? At that point a side ridge joins on to the main ridge, and it's big enough that an unwary hiker might think it's the main ridge and continue along what certainly looks like a ridgetop trail, albeit not as well maintained as the previous parts of the trail. I think I went a few hundred yards in that direction before checking GPS and noticing I was nowhere near the official trail, and was pointed directly away from it, and decided to backtrack. It was a nice and scenic bit of trail, I have to say; I just have no idea where it goes or how long it is, and the fact that it appears to head straight toward a nearby Air Force base was a real disincentive to go blundering around aimlessly in that direction. I've searched the interwebs since then to see if anybody has at least mentioned this deceptive little side trail, but I haven't come across anything like that so far. If anybody out there knows, feel free to leave a note in the comments below; I'd kind of like to know where I would have ended up if I hadn't had that gut feeling I was headed the wrong way.

Updated (12/15/19): Ok, I found a couple of old pages (as in, circa 1997) about the side trail I briefly wandered off onto. Seems the trail heads along the side ridge back toward the ocean, going over Pu'u o Lanikai and ending up at Wailea Point. So apparently it's fine, or at least it was 22 years ago, in the previous century, before 9/11 happened or Instagram existed. Those are the only references I've come across, so I'd still be interested in knowing whether anything's changed since then. Anyway, those two pages are linked from the author's old-school home page, which says it was last updated in April 2001. Surviving home pages from the early interwebs are a rare species these days, and I feel kind of nostalgic wandering around his site; I see at least one Gopher url so far, and one of his hike reports (dated 1995) mentions asking for advice on Usenet (!). I mean, some would argue that surviving personal blogs from the mid-2000s (like the one you're reading now) are also weird relics of a bygone age. I do kind of miss those days -- less surveillance, fewer walled gardens run by vast mega-corporate monoliths, fewer Nazis, almost no Russian or other state-sponsored trolls. I imagine today's net will also be a weird bygone era at some point, but I have no idea what's going to replace it (hence my ongoing non-billionaire-ness). I just hope it's not even worse.

Wahiawa Botanical Garden

A photoset from Wahiawa Botanical Garden, in a flash flood-prone ravine in the town of Wahiawa in central Oahu. The town's home to a huge army base & is otherwise surrounded by pineapple and (I think) sugar cane farms, so the garden is one of the very few reasons to visit if you don't live there. Apparently the garden began as a hobby of local plantation oligarchs who had nothing better to do, and eventually the county inherited it & has run it ever since. It's actually a very peaceful & scenic spot, if you can ignore all the signs warning that you might be swept away to your doom if it rains (and it rains a lot here).

Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden

Photoset from O'ahu's Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden, in Kane'ohe on the windward side of the island. It's not actually that amazing as far as tropical gardens go; if you want to go look at some tropical plants exactly once, the Foster Botanical Garden is the place to go. It's also quite car-oriented: It's a long walk from the closest bus stop, and within the park you mostly have to walk along the main road and hope drivers see you in time. Which I guess isn't surprising given that the place began as a 1980s Corps of Engineers flood control project (hence the big lake in the middle, behind a barely-disguised earthen dam.), so aesthetics and visitor-friendliness were not really the main drivers behind the project.

All of that said, I thought it was worth visiting anyway; it sits almost directly at the foot of the Ko'olau Mountains, and it was worthwhile just for the view. If you also think things can be worthwhile just for the view, you'll like this place, otherwise not so much. One surprising detail is what you don't see: There's actually a busy freeway between you and the looming sheer cliffs, along with a couple of golf courses, but somehow you don't see or hear any indication they exist, so maybe the Corps of Engineers gets credit for that particular detail. Or at least I didn't notice any freeways or golf courses. But I live near a busy freeway and am rather good at not noticing freeway noise, so your mileage may vary, I guess. A late great aunt of mine -- who had lived in Honolulu since the early 1930s or so -- once explained to me that the H-3 freeway was not only a pointless waste of money, it was also cursed, and she was determined to never drive on it. She got her wish, in a way, in that construction dragged out literally for decades (wiping out at least one species of bird in the process), and in the end she died of old age several years before the thing ever opened. I am not superstitious by any means, but she was generally a rather wise person, so I've never driven or ridden on the H-3 either.

Lahaina Pali Trail

Here are a few photos from earlier today while hiking Maui's Lahaina Pali Trail (ok, the west half of it), on the dry, windy SW corner of the island. The trail follows the route of a ~200 year old road, as a way of reminding present-day locals that their ancestors had knees and ankles of steel, ascending to about 2/3 of the way up a row of enormous wind turbines.

A couple of quick travel tips:

• The articles and all of the comments say to bring more water than you think you need. I'm going to go way out on a limb here and tell you that everyone who says this is right. Rule #1 is you need more water. Rule #2 is that, taking rule #1 into account, you still need more water.
• Standard advice also says to go early, without defining what that means. I am here to tell you that 10am was not early enough.
• The landscape looks a lot like some arid parts of the western mainland US, places like Oregon east of the Cascades (but hotter and more humid). So I found myself scanning the ground constantly looking for rattlesnakes. I kept reminding myself there are no snakes to look out for, but it hasn't helped yet. Your mileage may vary, so here's your reminder there are no snakes to watch out for here.

Herman Creek & Nick Eaton Ridge

Ok, so next up we're taking a look at a few trails at Herman Creek, in the Columbia Gorge at the east end of the town of Cascade Locks. This is of the lesser-known corners of the Gorge; it doesn't have any waterfalls close to the trailhead, so it gets overlooked. On the other hand, the Eagle Creek fire didn't completely incinerate this area, so the trails are open, while more famous spots like Eagle Creek and Wahclella Falls are still closed indefinitely. I had visited once before sometime in the early 90s, but bailed out early due to a combination of not enough instant gratification, and not having a good map and worrying about getting lost. Going back hadn't been a top priority, but it was open, so I figured it was worth another look. I came away really pleasantly surprised; I keep wanting to describe it as "Eagle Creek without all the waterfalls", if that description even makes any sense. I mean, there are a couple of waterfalls there, albeit not on the main creek, and my plan was to visit both of them, even though this involved a bit of backtracking. Leg one involved most of this route, as far as Pacific Crest Falls, and then backtracking to the Herman Bridge Trail - Herman Creek Trail junction. Leg two starts from there, following the main Herman Creek Trail to Nick Eaton Falls.

That was the original plan, but I was ahead of schedule and didn't feel like going home quite yet, so I added a little side trip on the way back. The trails so far had been fairly flat and mellow, and I decided I was up for something a bit more challenging, so when I got to the junction with the Nick Eaton Trail, I took it and headed uphill. And by "uphill", I mean that the trail gains 2000 feet over two miles, climbing up out of the Herman Creek watershed and onto Nick Eaton Ridge, where the trail sort of flattens out, relatively speaking. The steep part also features a very narrow trail with steep dropoffs most of the way, for a bit of added interest. I was mostly interested in the steep part and the viewpoints toward the top, but I continued along the ridge for a bit just to see what it was like (Mostly burned, unfortunately.) I eventually turned around when I came to a trail junction, as a convenient way to track how far I'd gone, and went back down the same way I came up, which was much easier, and not as scary as I'd expected based on how the trip up went. So let's call this leg #3; if you're following my route for some reason, this leg is even more optional than the first two. It was fairly brutal and I was sore for days afterward, to be honest, but I thought it was fun and I'm glad I made the side trip. Your mileage may vary greatly, of course.

On the initial part of leg #2, the trail is unusually wide and graded like a road, which is because a few decades ago it was a road. This stretch is part of the old Herman Creek Road, which began somewhere east of the present-day trailhead and ended up at Herman Camp, which is still a campground and doubles as a big multi-way trail junction a few hundred feet shy of the Nick Eaton trail junction. So at one point visitors were driving large midcentury cars and trucks all the way up here, on what for them would be a narrow, windy Forest Service road. I can't say I'm surprised they eventually closed the road off. The Oregonian database doesn't indicate there were any gory car accidents along the road (and doesn't even say when the road was finally closed), but the possibility must have been in every driver's mind on the way up and back down. Yikes. All things considered, I'd much rather walk it.

Mount Defiance

Ok, next up we're off to the Columbia Gorge again for a hike up Mt. Defiance, a few miles west of Hood River. This is the highest point in the Gorge at 4960 feet, or at least that's the most common number I've seen, though Wikipedia now says 5010 feet, based on 1988 survey data. Either way, the views near the top are incredible. This is as good a time as any to go page through the Flickr photoset above to see what I mean.

The problem is that the trailhead's basically at river level, about 130 feet above sea level, and reaches the top in under six miles, which should give some idea why the trail's widely regarded as the toughest day hike in the area. I had done this trail once before, about 25 years ago, because I was 23 and it seemed like a good idea, and I wanted to be able to say I'd done it, on the off chance I met someone who'd know or care what I was going on about. I was sore for about a week afterward. It occurred to me recently that it had been a quarter century since I'd done this, and I wanted to know whether I could still do it -- because this is the sort of thought that occurs to you a lot in your late 40s -- and I was annoyed at 23-year-old me for not bringing a camera last time (which would have been a clunky old film camera, because 25 years ago). And truth be told, I did it because I'd originally planned to do the Larch Mountain Trail but left too late, and the Multnomah Falls parking lot was full & closed off when I got there, and for some reason this seemed like a reasonable Plan B. Once again I was sore for about a week, but I pulled it off, and now I'm set for another 25 years or so, I guess.

Anyway, the trail starts at the Starvation Creek rest area off I-84. A short path takes you to Starvation Creek Falls, just steps from the parking lot. It's not really part of the trail to the top, but it seems kind of silly to skip it since it's right there. This is the first of four waterfalls you'll see during the hike, and they're all during the initial part so if you're just interested in waterfalls you can bail out early before things really get ugly. The first part of the trail follows part of the old Columbia River Highway, so it's pancake-flat and recently repaved. Along the way you'll pass Cabin Creek Falls. Eventually you'll hang a left at the "Mt. Defiance Trail #413" sign, and at first it's also flat and paved. There's even a little picnic area with benches, recent signage, and some stonework, and just beyond that is Hole-in-the-Wall Falls, which was constructed back in 1938 (long story). After that, the uphill part begins. Switchback up to the BPA powerline corridor and turn right where the Mt Defiance trail splits from the equally tough Starvation Ridge Trail (which is still on my todo list; I tried it once, a bit before I did Mt. Defiance last time, but bailed out part of the way up). Along this stretch you'll come across Lancaster Falls. It looks kind of puny from this standpoint, but apparently this is just the very bottom of a 250 foot waterfall. That's what the internet says, anyway. It seems that if you want to see the whole thing, your best bet is to pull off at the ODOT weigh station on westbound I-84 and take your photos from there. Note: I have never done this and am just taking the word of internet strangers at face value here. In any case, you will appreciate this waterfall a lot more on the way down, especially on a hot day.

After leaving the powerline corridor, it's time for steep and seemingly endless switchbacks through dense forest, typically with steep dropoffs next to the trail, and a couple of viewpoints so you can confirm that you really are making progress uphill. You're doing all of these switchbacks to get up the side of a ridge, and once you're on top of it the trail flattens out (relatively speaking) for a while, which is the little break that makes the trail tolerable, as far as I'm concerned. Then it kicks back up to Excessively Steep for Excessively Long, but this time you're going straight up along the ridge top, and there aren't any dropoffs next to the trail, so it's physically tough but mentally you can kind of do this part on autopilot. Views are few and far between, but part of the trail passes through the Eagle Creek burn zone, and there will likely be amazing views at some point once some of the dead trees fall over. The burn zone was actually a lot less depressing than it was on other recent hikes, since the forest floor was covered with flowers and other new growth. I'm sure it helped that I visited in late spring instead of midwinter. And maybe I'm slowly getting used to the Gorge's new normal, I'm not sure.

In any case, eventually the vegetation sort of peters out into a rocky area with mostly smaller, gnarled trees. This is the point where you can see forever* (*on a good day, and figuratively, not literally or mathematically) and you can start telling yourself that the last few miles were totally worth it. Looking north you can see Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Rainier in the distance. If you squint a bit, just to the right of Mt. St Helens you can just make out even more snowcapped mountains in the distance, which far as I can tell would have to be the Olympics. This really surprised me; Google says the Olympics are 176 miles away, which seems kind of far, but it's not like there are a lot of other snowy mountains in that particular direction, so who knows?

As you approach the top there's a fork in the trail. As of spring 2019, a temporary US Forest Service sign explains that going straight ahead is the easier trail, and going off to the right is the more scenic route. I hope they continue this on the sign's permanent replacement; it reminds me of the late, lamented "Difficult/More Difficult" sign at a Hamilton Mountain trail junction. I am honestly not sure why there are two trails here; it's a bit late in the process to start picking easier trails, if you ask me. The scenic route curves around the mountain, and for the first time in the whole hike you get amazing views of Mt. Hood to the south, while to the east you can see the entire Hood River Valley and behind it the beige desert country of Eastern Oregon stretches off to the horizon.

At the very top of the mountain, you're in for a little surprise: Radio towers, humming and buzzing, fenced off, with signs warning trespassers to keep out or else, and more signs warning of RF radiation hazards. And then you realize all of this is here because there's a service road to the top, and the crazy thing you just hiked up is somebody's occasional commute. One sign even lists "Top of Mt. Defiance, Cascade Locks OR" as the summit's street address. Still, this makes for some interesting photos, so you do that for a bit but soon realize that horrible little black flies are attacking you, and it's intolerable, and it quickly dawns on you that the journey was the reward, and the real summit was the friends we made along the way, and/or it was in our hearts the whole time, and it's time to head home.

So you can head back the way you came, or take a side trail over to the Starvation Ridge trail I mentioned earlier, or -- as it turns out -- you could take another side trail heading south that goes to a different trailhead, just 1.6 miles away and 1145 feet below the summit. But, I mean, doing it that way is obviously cheating, somehow, and it can't possibly be any fun anyway, plus my city-slicker midsize sedan hates rustic gravel roads, and I'm not about to buy a giant SUV no matter how outdoorsy the commercials are. Sunk cost fallacy? I have no idea what you're talking about.

Anyway, the way down is a lot faster than the way up, but not necessarily easier, since you don't want to go too fast, especially on the sketchy bits with the dropoffs. I am still kind of amazed I didn't blow out a knee or two on this part of the hike, and your mileage may vary, and hiking poles may be really helpful here no matter how goofy they look. You might meet a few people slogging their way up the hill on your way down. I just smiled and kept moving; I was actually kind of worried someone would ask how much further it was to the top, or whether the hard part was over, since there's just no way to be both truthful and encouraging on those questions. Luckily I was just greeted with thousand-yard stares, one after another. Come to think of it, I may have been doing that myself on the way up, since my recollection of the really steep parts is... somewhat less than vivid.

Anyway, I made it down the hill and back home, this time with photos, and have now started wondering whether I need a tent, sleeping bag, and so forth. I mean, I already know I don't have that kind of free time, and I haven't forgotten what the weather's like here 9 months out of the year, but it still has a certain appeal. So who knows.

Haleakala

Next up on our tour of Famous Maui Places is Haleakala National Park, where I had the singular experience of driving from sea level to the top of an enormous 10,000 foot shield volcano and then hiking down into the mountain's wild, eroded crater. The deal with the hike is that it's downhill into the crater, then uphill to get back out, with less oxygen thanks to the altitude, and no familiar landmarks to help judge distance, plus it's always about 30° F colder at the top than at sea level. The usual advice is to budget twice as much time on the way out as on the way in, so I did that, and chose a point to turn around based on that. It turned out that it took me the same amount of time on the way up, I think because I kept stopping to take photos on the way down, so time & distance budgeting was not the exact science I'd been led to believe. Also the altitude didn't seem to bother me at all; the thing that was a problem was the sun. You'll see warnings about this, explaining that you need extra protection due to both the high altitude and low latitude. I thought I had taken extra precautions, but my SPF 30, coral reef friendly sunblock was no match for the sun here, and I got burned a.) through my sunblock everywhere I had sunblock on, and b.) right through my hair, where I didn't think I needed sunblock. I probably ought to have worn a hat, honestly. Which is not something that usually occurs to me, since I've never found a hat that looks good on me, and some years ago I concluded I just don't have a hat head. I couldn't tell you what a hat head is, but I'm quite certain I don't possess one. Still, an ugly hat is better than sunburn. An ugly brimless hat preferably, since it's also really windy at the top. I'll remember next time, and there's going to be a next time, because this time was amazing. Highly recommended, except for the sun part.

There's more to the trail than endless volcanic ash and cinders, despite what most of the photos would lead you to believe. I saw a bunch of the iconic silversword plants on the way, along with a couple of baby nene (an indigenous goose, the official state bird) that I didn't get any good photos of. Nene are often described as flightless, but that isn't strictly true. They're still physically capable of fligh; it's just that they usually sort of neglect to fly, whether out of laziness or sheer stupidity, even when that means getting hit by a car or eaten by a mongoose. Some years ago I narrowly avoided running over a whole group of them at the other national park on the Big Island; I remember they just stood there in the middle road, staring blankly at me, I suppose trying to puzzle out what sort of fellow nene or edible plant my car was. I don't want to sound like I'm blaming them for being critically endangered, and I'm sure they were doing fine before people showed up on their islands; it's just that -- like pandas -- they don't really give off a vibe of vigorously struggling for survival.

Speaking of cars, it's too bad I don't have any photos of my rental car in this photoset. I used to roll my eyes about tourists of a certain age and gender who came to Hawaii and insisted on renting a Mustang or Corvette to zoom around on whatever tiny island they were visiting. It turns out that's not quite how it works. I though I had reserved a nice, practical, reliable Toyota sedan, but the agency took one look at me and I was issued a shiny new silver Mustang instead, no extra charge (beyond the additional gas it drank, obvs.) They even apologized that they were out of convertibles. I quickly realized the whole island was packed with late-model Mustangs and similar midlife crisis cars, most of which (I assume) are rentals. So now I wonder if Ford hands out Mustangs to Hawaii rental agencies at or below cost and writes it off as a promotional expense. I dunno. Not that it was the world's most practical island car, exactly. It's fast in a straight line, but there are only a couple of stretches of flat, straight, mainland-style divided highway on Maui, and they cross the narrow central part of the island and are only a few miles long. On narrow, windy roads I kept thinking a car that wasn't quite as long or wide would be nice. It reminded me a lot of the old 1980 Mercury Capri (a rebadged Mustang) that I once owned. More rumbly and more gadgets, but still with blind spots you could hide an oil tanker in, I suppose because the classic Mustang look and feel requires it. It all felt a little silly, to be honest. Overall I don't think Hawaii has been well served by importing mainland car culture, eating up valuable land with sprawling car-centric suburbs and short (but weirdly congested) freeways. On the other hand, the islands were also not well served by the previous model, in which you built juuust enough infrastructure to meet the needs of colonial-era pineapple and sugar barons, and then stopped, which is why rural roads around the state have so many narrow one-lane bridges even today.

I don't really want to wrap this up yammering about cars, so let me also recommend the park's gift shop at the ranger station, just beyond the main entrance to the park. I mostly stopped to sit in my car for a while as an altitude sickness precaution, but the shop had stuffed animals of various endangered species native to Maui, enabling me to play Cool Uncle again when I got home. I say again because I did this when I went to the Everglades last August, which reminds me that I never got around to posting those photos. I'll probably get around to doing that sooner or later; I swore up and down that I was going to focus on posting new stuff, and while I've been doing that, I haven't been doing it anywhere close to often enough to keep up, such that I now have a backlog of new photos to work my way through. On the bright side, my current software project wrapped up earlier today, so just maybe I'll have a bit more free time in the upcoming few months, and just maybe I'll devote some of it to Ye Olde Humble Blog, versus all the other things I wish I had more free time to do, like reading actual books, or more travel... although that leads to more photos, and me falling even further behind on them. Oh, well. I do the best I can with the time and attention I can spare, that's all I can really guarantee. For blog posts, or anything else, really.

Hoapili Trail

Ok, next up are some photos from the Hoapili Trail along the desolate and volcanic south end of Maui, just down the road from the Kihei/Wailea/Makena area -- and I think it may be a continuation of that road. The trail is a former royal road from the early 19th century, and where the parts further north were paved and widened and eventually surrounded by golf courses and surf shops, apparently nobody has wanted or needed a better road than this south of La Perouse Bay over the last two centuries, so it's survived in its original form and now serves as a rather unique hiking trail. I was kind of impressed by it as an engineering feat: They managed to build a largely flat and ruler-straight road across an endless lava plain of fist-sized rocks, strictly with manual labor and no modern construction gear. I mean, it's still made with fist-sized rocks; there's nothing that can really be done about that. In several sections of the road to the trailhead, you can see where the state tried to sort of just pave over top of the piled lava rocks, and the resulting road is not fabulous. So expect sore feet after hiking this trail, and expect to not go as far or as fast as you usually would on a flat trail. On the other hand, the trail itself is a unique experience, and it offers great views of the lava fields trailing down from the south face of Haleakala, along with four of the other major islands (Hawaii, Kahoolawe, Lanai, & Molokai) as well as the tiny island of Molokini. The navigational light shown on the trail map is just that, an automated light, not a picturesque lighthouse or anything. It's useful as a landmark to stop and turn around at, in an area without a lot of landmarks, but you aren't going to get a viral Instagram photo out of it, or at least I didn't. I did attempt sketching the island of Kahoolawe on a cool tablet computer I bought recently, only to be reminded I never could draw worth a damn, and I'm not any better at it on eInk than I am on paper. Oh well.

'Iao Valley

Here's a photoset from 'Iao Valley in the West Maui Mountains. It's kind of an amazing place: Lush green canyon, impossibly steep hills, clear rushing stream flowing through it. Apparently if you visit on a rainy day (which is most of the time), there are also a few waterfalls cascading down the sides of the canyon. The only disappointing thing is that there isn't much of a trail system here; there's a short paved path around a small garden of tropical plants, and 133 stairs to a small viewpoint with a view of 'Iao Needle.

Oh, and at the viewpoint there's a fence, a stern sign warning you to not go beyond this point, and an obvious trail leading off into the forest behind it. I've got a few photos of the sign but sadly didn't go any further; it's not that I'm intimidated by official signs, rules, and regulations, and I've hiked enough in Hawaii to know that these signs are usually just a CYA move on the state's part, because they're scared of getting sued if anyone gets hurt. I kind of wanted to hop the fence and keep going, but there were lots of other tourists there, and it seemed like most were there with small children (who seemed to enjoy running up and down the steps, to much adult dismay). And, well... I couldn't quite bring myself to blatantly violate The Rules in front of someone else's kids, being a bad example and corrupting the youth and whatnot. Maybe next time I'll go earlier, to avoid the crowds. Supposedly there isn't that much to see on the "secret" trail that you wouldn't have seen already on the official mini-trails; mostly I was looking to stretch my legs a bit after a 6 hour flight from Portland.

In keeping with my new policy of trying to post new photos sooner, these were taken the day before yesterday; I'll try to get to yesterday's photos (from the Hoapili Trail on the south side of Maui) later, but first I'm off to go drive up Haleakala and see the volcano, and I'll try to get to those photos within a day or two as well.

Angels Rest - Devils Rest Loop

Today's outdoor adventure is a photoset from when I did the Angels Rest - Devils Rest Loop back in late December. The photos are in roughly reverse chronological order because the weather was truly miserable in the morning, the first time I went by the Angels Rest viewpoint. Nothing but fog, wind, and rain then, and that continued for the trip further uphill to Devils Rest, which is a weird pile of mossy rocks in an area of dense, misty forest. More fog and rain on the trip east, and then down the seemingly endless switchbacks down to the top of the Wahkeena Falls area. It may have started clearing up along the lower trail back to Angels Rest from there; I was getting a bit tired at that point, and had forgotten there was another stretch of seemingly endless switchbacks -- this time going up -- gaining 500 feet or so in a fairly short distance, on a trail I had misremembered as basically flat. So that part was kind of... unwelcome.

By the time I arrived back at Angels Rest the weather had finally cleared up and suddenly the view was incredible. And then my phone decided to drain itself from 60% to 0% in a few short minutes, as punishment for trying to share the amazing view on Instagram or Twitter, I forget which. Maybe both. And -- I am not exaggerating -- not ten seconds after my phone keeled over, a huge bald eagle soared right over me, with a pair of (I think) ravens close behind trying to scare it off. I would've led this post with that if I'd gotten a photo of it. Oh well.

Which brings us to the last bit, the way back down from the viewpoint to the parking lot. I'd figured that would be easy and probably boring since I'd done the same stretch of trail in the morning on the way up. But no, even in the dead of winter the trail attracts enough visitors that it gets churned up into a slippery pudding by late afternoon. So I slowly and gingerly made my way downhill and managed to avoid slipping and taking the quicker way down. This was after 3pm and as it was late December, it was getting rather late in the day, so I was surprised to encounter a lot of people heading the other direction. I mean, I'm sure the sunset from Angels Rest that evening was phenomenal. But I have no idea how any of those people got back downhill afterward in the dark. There wasn't anything on the news the next day about rescue/recovery operations in the Gorge, so it must have all worked out somehow. I'd love to know the secret to pulling that off, if there is one. Crawling down on all fours with night vision goggles, maybe? Beats me.

Anyway, the hike was amazing; the view at the end was amazing; the windy and rainy and foggy parts in the middle and even the unexpected switchbacks were amazing; the mud at the end was, ok, we won't discuss that part any further, but overall the whole thing was amazing and I'll happily do it again, maybe next time on a sunnier day with a later sunset.

keepalive (january 2019 edition)

Ok, so I have 40 minutes to put some sort of blog post together to avoid breaking the at-least-one-post-per-month streak dating back to December 2005. I had meant to post some recent hiking photos (which I have quite a few of), but I couldn't seem to find enough time for the writing part, so here we are. As is often the case when I post these 'keepalive' posts, most of my waking moments are once again devoted to an Important And Very Stressful Software Project, this time one that's supposed to ship in just a couple of weeks if the stars align properly and the river don't rise. If you just come here for the photos and don't like waiting for me to type some words about them, may I direct you to my most recent (or most recently-created) Flickr photosets, where there's plenty of scenery to look at and basically zero complaining. Or at least that's true at the moment. Future photosets will push the current ones off the page and at some point someone will click that link and be mildly disappointed by whatever happens to be there at that point. Can't be helped, sorry. That's why you're supposed to click the links while they're still fresh.

Anyway, I have lots of recent material waiting as soon as I have time to do something with it. This year I'm trying (or I intend to try) to post new stuff ahead of old stuff, rather than sending things to the back of the Drafts queue to wait in line behind forgotten half-finished posts that have been there since... yeah, no, let's not even look at the dates on some of those drafts. Anyway, I'm down to 9 minutes to keep the streak alive, and I can't think of any substantive topics to yammer about that would fit within less than that, and I don't feel up to explaining the one thing I learned today (how to mount a Solaris NFSv4 share to an AIX box, in order to verify how ACLs behave or misbehave there) so I suppose it's time to hit that big orange Publish button again. Here goes...

2018: The Year in Instagram Cat Photos

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A post shared by brx0 (@brx0) on Jun 14, 2018 at 12:17am PDT

I had almost forgotten that, per recent tradition, I'm supposed to wrap up the year here with some Instagram cat photos. Upon checking IG I realized that I'd pretty much used it exclusively for vacation photos this year and had posted precisely one cat photo. However the recent tradition specifies photos, plural, so I dug out a recent one and added it a few minutes ago. He highly recommends that particular brand of catnip banana, btw, and he's not just saying that in his role as a globetrotting celebrity and Instagram #brandfluencer.

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Just realized I'd only posted one cat photo to IG in 2018, and I have 20 minutes left, and he's not holding still for a fresh one right now, so here's one from the archives (by which I mean a couple of weeks ago)

A post shared by brx0 (@brx0) on Dec 31, 2018 at 11:42pm PST

Multnomah-Wahkeena Loop, July 2016

The previous post showed what the Multnomah-Wahkeena Loop trails look like now. It just so happens that I did the same hike back in July 2016, so here's another photoset showing what the area used to look like before the big forest fire. Granted this is also a comparison of July and December photos, and the latter would seem rather grim in comparison even without the stumps and ashes. Still, this is the closest thing I've got to an apples-to-apples comparison, and I imagine that most viewers will enjoy these photos more than the previous set. I know I certainly do.

Multnomah-Wahkeena Loop, December 2018

Back on November 23rd, several popular trails in the Columbia Gorge reopened for the first time after the Eagle Creek Fire. So a couple of weeks ago I did the 4.9 mile Multnomah-Wahkeena Loop trail to see what the area looks like now. Some parts were surprisingly ok, with signs of a "good" forest fire that swept out underbrush and let the trees survive. Other areas were kind of grim and spooky, notably along the Vista Point trail above Wahkeena Falls. The most positive spin I can come up with is that some parts of the Gorge now look like vintage postcard views of the area from a century ago, around the time the historic highway was built. Back then it was due to logging rather than fire and a changing climate, but the visual effect is more or less the same. In an old post from 2014, I pointed out that rock formations around the Gorge tend to have silly melodramatic Victorian-sounding names ("St. Peter's Dome", "Pillars of Hercules", "Bishop's Cap", "Thor's Crown", etc.), and explained my theory that the names reflect the era when there was the least vegetation around to obscure all the weird rocks. So maybe that should be the tourism plan for the next few years: In our lifetimes there may never be a better time to nerd out over Gorge geology, so come see some cool rocks before the forest grows back. Hey, it's worth a try.

There's one experience I want to relate that the photos don't capture. Imagine placing your hand on a tree for support, at a steep or tricky spot in the trail. You've hiked this trail regularly since you were a kid, so you've likely put the same hand on the same spot on the same tree dozens of times. But this time your hand comes away covered in charcoal. To me this was the most upsetting part, more than any of the images. After the first time, I tried to avoid touching anything scorched, not really because of the charcoal; it just felt wrong somehow, verging on unclean. As in, you don't want to touch it for the same reason you don't touch the body at a funeral. Obviously you can't catch a disease from a burnt tree, and you won't be assaulted by angry relatives of the deceased; it just evokes a visceral reaction that some sort of line is being crossed that shouldn't be crossed. It's odd: The very same wood, burnt in a campfire, would be cozy, a source of warmth and happy memories. But when it's burnt and still standing amidst a forest of other burnt trees, and bits of it are rubbing off and marking you as you pass... well, it was more unsettling than I had expected.

some vacation photos

Consider my situation:

• It's the end of the month, and the rules say I have to post at least once a month, and I've kept it up since, er, 2005.
• I have a drafts folder full of unfinished posts, none of which are ready to post, otherwise I would have done it already.
• I'm in this no-posts-yet situation in part because I was on vacation for a reasonable chunk of the month, and spent a lot of that taking photos, some of which turned out ok.

Given these circumstances, I'm going to go ahead and post a slideshow of assorted vacation photos, without researching & writing a whole long blog post about each place I visited. I mean, those will show up here too sooner or later, but I'm not going to give even a rough estimate of when that might happen. So, briefly, here's what's in the slideshow: Everything's from the island of O'ahu, with locations including Makapu'u Point & its lighthouse; Ulupō Heiau, an ancient Hawaiian temple in the middle of suburban Kailua, now weirdly surrounded by churches; Kawainui Marsh, a large & scenic wetland area that I'm told is habitat for native Hawaiian birds, although I don't think I saw any; Waikiki Beach, mostly around sunset; and assorted brewpubs, restaurants, and food trucks here and there around the island. Oh, and Santa Claus riding in an outrigger canoe on a parade float, as one does.

Perhaps I'm showing my age here, but I sometimes wish Flickr slideshows had an option to make vintage slide projector sounds between photos, as if you were looking at these in your aunt & uncle's rumpus room in 1978, trying to stay awake because these have been going on for over an hour. And occasionally a slide is upside down, or there's a slot without a slide and it blinds everyone, and your little brother somehow gets a huge glob of gum in the shag carpet, which will never really come out, and most of the grownups are smoking and it's gross. I can't simulate the full classic vacation slideshow experience, unfortunately, but I did shuffle them randomly and then reorder them a bit, as if Uncle Steve had dropped the slides on the floor partway thru his fourth glass of jug Chablis and failed to reassemble them properly. So with that vivid image, enjoy the slideshow!

Civic Drive Iris

So next up on our ongoing public art tour is Civic Drive Iris, a kinetic sculpture at Gresham's new-ish Civic Drive MAX station. TriMet's description:

Civic Drive Iris, 2010, by Pete Beeman is a colorful, kinetic sculpture that functions as a landmark for the new Civic Drive Station. Artwork was funded primarily by the Portland Development Commission.

• Tall, brightly colored sculpture evokes a blossoming flower or radiating sun
• Hand crank invites pedestrians to interact with sculpture
• Turned crank causes sculpture top to illuminate and simultaneously expand and contract like an iris valve

To be honest I just sort of stumbled across this one. I was trying to solve an annoying software problem at the office, and decided to go for a walk and think about it (which works surprisingly well). But I felt lazy that day & decided to go ride the train and think about it instead, so I did (no bright ideas, though, unfortunately). Eventually I got off at this new stop to turn around & go back, thinking it was the downtown Gresham stop, which it isn't. So I saw the art, thought "hey, at least I get a blog post out of this", and searched the interwebs when I got home, which is when I realized it was kinetic and had a crank I could have tried out. I was about to claim there was no longer a crank and grumble about vandals, but the photos insist there really was a crank & I just didn't see it somehow. I'm just not getting any better at this "noticing basic things" business, apparently. Anyway, this is the third Beeman kinetic sculpture we've visited on our neverending art tour, the others being Pod, the big stainless steel wavy thing across the street from Powell's, and Waving Post at the SE Fuller Road MAX station.

Basket of Air

So next up on the grand tour we're taking a peek at Basket of Air, the sculpture in the center of the Hoyt Arboretum's new bamboo garden. The RACC description explains:

Artist Ivan McLean spent a few of years in the southern Philippines as a member of the Peace Corp and used this experience to inform his sculpture, which sits in the middle of the Hoyt Arboretum’s Bamboo Forest. The sculpture’s posts mimic the basic segmented structure of bamboo while the central sphere, a form often explored by McLean, reflects the idea of bamboo baskets he encountered during his travels.

While in the Philippines, “I built a nipa roofed house with various types of bamboo used as structural members or woven into the wall panels. During my travels I also watched in awe as workers created scaffolding rising hundreds of feet around modern buildings in Hong Kong and then a short time later hiking for days through bamboo forests in Northern Thailand and staying with families in simple homes made from the ubiquitous plant… I was constantly impressed by how skilled people were in using bamboo to build a variety of objects, including baskets.”

We've seen a couple of other McLean sculptures here previously: work previously seen here: Flying Salmon in 2014, & Rational Exuberance back in 2012. (The latter one was relocated north of the Fremont Bridge a year or two after I posted about it). I snarked a little about the salmon one, it being something of an overused motif in Pacific Northwest art. I feel I may have been unfair; undoubtedly the customer (an upscale, super-Northwesty grocery store) insisted on salmon. Salmon have the unique ability to be both an eco-feel-good regional icon and a delicious meal at the same time. Maybe not exactly the same time, but you know what I mean.

In any case, since we're more or less on the topic of bamboo forests, here's a fight scene from House of Flying Daggers (2004):

Parker Solar Probe launch, August 12th 2018