mt. olympus

 ya know, just cruising down the highway on the back of a truck bed.

it's legal here, believe it or not.

starting out- rebekah and i. :)

 after a bit of hiking we came to this. while the sign says:

"CAUTION: end of maintained trail!"

"notice. end of trail."

"do not go beyond this sign- please turn back."

all we read was:

JUST keep climbing and

mt. olympus. 

always read between the lines, or in our case, the graffiti. 

because from what i could tell, the trail was very well maintained with fresh shoe prints and passing people.

we parked behind that ridge in the left-ish/middle of the pic. i think. 

 diamond head from a different angle. 

 the point of diamond head on the left and downtown honolulu in the middle. 

 random peacock x-ing. hello, peacock.

 there's a trail, i promise!

stephan's a little dot. i think this was the second to the last summit.

zoom in.

 these ropes were a lifesaver. literally. 

clouds traveling over the ko'olau mountains. such a cool thing to experience!

the other side of the island: kaneohe (ah!)

we were quickly engulf in the clouds. kaneohe is behind us, can't you tell? 

 and back down again. the weather was wonderful: overcast but not rainy.

(it did sprinkle a tiny bit, but it was over shortly.)

 a bad picture of koko head. i still need to do that hike. :)

delicious strawberry guava

 i had more than my fill of these little guys. 

 it's safe to say that this hike was successful. 

to start off, i have no idea why the name mt. olympus. it's not hawaiian, and we didn't spot any olympians like michael phelps or gabby douglas; it's not the olympic mountains in washington (although, that would've been cool) or mt. olympus in greece. 

*sigh* i will always be in bewilderment. 


this hike had a lot of similarities to the royal summit we did last month. both were along a mountain ridge, up and down summits and all, but this one was A LOT more steep than the royal summit. 

the internet said it would take 4- 4.5 hours roundtrip (from the parking lot to mt. olympus), so we gauged our whereabouts on the time. accurate, right? haha no. we came to a pretty good looking summit overlooking honolulu on one side and kaneohe on the other. amazingly beautiful sights up there! no signs, but we're guessing it was mt. olympus because we made it there in exactly 2.25 hours. yes... the trail keeps going, but we turned around.

getting back down seemed to take forever, but we were able to make it back 10 minutes shy of four hours- jell-o legs and all! woohoo. 


hike stats:
-it's just under 6 miles (according to my phone)
-elevation starts at 1,050 ft & gets up to 2,332 ft
-i drank 3 liters of water, and sweat 3 liters of water (i kid, mostly)

botanical jungle

 cacao :D pretty much the best plant ever.

 not the best hiking attire. it's a garden, they said. 

 lots of fishies

 most trees are great support while hiking through a forrest. not this one.

 where's the exit? we're tired.

 he was obviously tired too.

:)

the wahiawa botanical garden, or as kai calls it, botanical jungle, was 300+ acres of exotic plants, animals and views. it's gorgeous, but bigger than we needed. we walked down to the lake and then our curiosity got the best of us, and we kept going. and going. then a swamp stopped us. we turned around, and tried going a different way, got turned around again and finally found the visitor's center. our one mile stroll through a garden turned into a 3ish mile trek through a jungle. the day was memorable (in a good way), but if you ever plan on going (and exploring), be prepared! know that 1. it's not the denver botanic garden 2. bring real shoes (not slippers), water and bug spray! lots of it. water & bug spray. 

pali puka

do you see the tiny people up there?

 ashley and i at the pali lookout (before the craziness)

 no railing!? are we still in america?

for those of you who are wondering, puka means hole in hawaiian.

so now we can say we've been all the way up there!

we came.

we saw.

we conquered.

i've known ashley (and her fam) since elementary years. our families went to the same church, and her parents taught us in sunday school. when we got older, we helped in the toddler/preschool classrooms. i moved away after 6th grade, and hadn't seen her (in person) since. 
so glad to be back together again! 

at the beginning of this summer, ashley, nate and i co-led the games at vbs. ashley did most of the leading though. :)

now, about the hike. our church planned this event, to hike from church to the puka. but at the last minute, they decided to start from the pali lookout. it's "midpoint" between church and the pali puka (~2.5 miles from the church). but since i had hiked up to the lookout before, ashley and i hiked from the bottom and actually met up with the church, because 1. we were super fast (not really) 2. they were having difficulty finding parking. 

i wish i could have taken more pictures of the cliff and sheer drop-off, but my main concern was getting up and down without dying. so that meant keeping my phone in my backpack and using my hands and feet to climb up... should have had a gopro. :) some parts were super steep, gravely and sketch, and at other parts, the path was a foot and a half wide with a cliff two inches to our right. all we had to hold on to was a couple twigs and bushes.  i've texted on trails before (not recommending it), but this one was a different story. haha no texting here. 

oh! i found a youtube video of the hike; i didn't need a gopro after all! :)  
as i was watching this video, my heart rate increased by a lot, and yours will too. 
oh my goodness. it might be hard to imagine, but watching the video is scarier than actually doing the hike.

 umm and, did you see the ropes he's using? well, we didn't have that luxury. someone must have taken them down. :\

if you don't have seven minutes, go to 1:25 & 3:06.

but seriously, it's worth watching!

north shore (beach & farmer's market) with my cousin + other things

favorite street name ever.

hermit crab!

my cousin introduced me to coconut water mochas. delish.

we accidentally held up traffic when we were looking at the local peacocks. they got mad and honked (the people, not the peacocks... i don't think peacocks honk). oops. at least i got a picture. :)

fruit leather + chapstick. a fraction of the farmer's market finds. 

mangos, mangos, so many mangos... in our yard. 

i call this the caramel macchiato run



i left mid morning to meet amanda, and i took 20 (give or take) wrong turns before getting on the right road towards the north shore. i basically toured the whole island and went everywhere except where i needed to be. thankfully, there was no traffic or it would have taken half the day to get up there. ok, so we finally met up and she shows me her favorite beach. we hangout, read, i go explore the tide pools and we take a dip. you know, basic beach things. we stopped at a grocery store where we got coconut water mochas (yum), then we headed over to the waimea valley farmers market. it's tucked away in a valley (just like the name suggests); we got there at the perfect time because we got a parking spot right away. i bought apple bananas, kale, green papaya, sea asparagus, and the stuff in the picture: fruit leather & chapstick- one peppermint, the other chai tea. 
call me a hippie. 

later that evening, the family went on a walk while i did this crazy run on mapmyrun through a soccer field. (mapmyrun is an awesome free app. if you have it, friend me!)