Spring Break Camping

For spring break, Joey and I went camping (can you really call it "camping" when you're in a nice cabin?). Anyway, my hospital has a cabin in the mountains of Koke'e and we were fortunate enough to get to go there.  The sign says, "Wilcox Hospital Associate Retreat" and it truly was a retreat for us.

 We loved the cabin, which has three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

The living room has a nice fireplace and there was plenty of firewood around.

One of the bathrooms.  A little rustic, but the water was nice and warm and the toilets flush.

The view around the cabin is beautiful.  It's weird for me up at Koke'e because it looks a lot like the mainland and I forget I'm in Hawaii when I'm up there.

The road to the cabin.

Joey and I took a very ambitious hike.  We started at Pu'u o Kila lookout and followed the Pihea trail 1.8 miles to the intersection of Alaka'i Swamp trail.  It was cloudy but the view was amazing, from inside a cloud on top of the world.

You can barely see the island of Ni'ihau in the distance.

 Joey toward the beginning of our hike.

See the cloud behind us?

The Napali coast is simply breathtaking, whether it's clear or cloudy, but I was hoping it would clear up on the way back so I could get some clearer pictures.

There were ferns everywhere and I loved how they looked before the leaves open.

After the intersection with the Alaka'i Swamp trail, much of Pihea trail has wooden ramps to walk on, to keep you out of the swampy ground.

We walked FOREVER!

We came to a place that did NOT look even remotely like Hawaii.  If I had been blindfolded and dropped by helicopter to the place where this picture was taken, I would have bet big bucks that I was in Colorado or Utah, not Hawaii.  Joey got hot with his long sleeved shirt, so he put it on his head, then we made lots of jokes about terrorists,.

We hiked another 1.75 miles, thinking we were going in a circle and would end up back at the intersection of the two trails (my fault, poor map reading and poor planning).  Instead of reaching the intersection, we came to a parking lot.  Some nice French people were there with a map and we realized we had  gone way further than we intended to and we had to hike all the way back.  The entire hike ended up being over seven miles, hardly ever on flat ground but up and down the whole way.  There were many places where we were literally climbing up and down rocks for long stretches of the trail.

 The good news was that when we got back to the Pu'u o Kila lookout, the clouds had cleared and the view was beautiful.  You can't really tell where the water ends and the sky begins.  I wish the picture did the real thing justice, but it doesn't.

 

We were two tired hikers, believe me!  I had blisters on my blisters.  I couldn't wait to get in the car and take my shoes and socks off.

I was so glad the cabin had a nice shower and food and bed waiting!