Night #5 Kualoa Ranch

Sunday was Tim's Love Ride (4 hr mountain bike race) at the Ranch, and some of us had a chance camp on Saturday night. Totally different than Night #4, just the previous night. Saturday's camping adventure was a full on party.

As I set up camp, the sunset was extraordinary.


I made a shelter out of one of Sideburnz's handmade tarps and two poles we recently bought at Soul Trex. It frequently rains at the Ranch, so I thought it would be prudent to have a cooking shelter. We only had a few drops of rain, so I didn't get to really test it out.



Here's another view of camp.



Sideburnz made a surprise appearance on Sunday morning for the race. He was supposed to be firing the kiln at the potters guild, but there was some sort of miscommunication. Team Salty had a good showing (Me, Sideburnz and Ed): 3rd place in the Expert category.



The deal with this race was that everyone on your team had to finish for the lap to count. Sideburnz and I were on our SS bikes, so we were a bit behind Ed. On lap 7 of 7, Sideburnz and I kicked it into high gear to secure our 3rd place. Now we're paying dearly- Sideburnz is still passed out napping.

Camping and bikes, doesn't get much better! 5 down, 25 more nights to go!

Night #4 Kuliouou Ridge

After a crazy week of work, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go camping. However, on Friday morning, the only thing I wanted to do was sit in the woods, even though I still had to go to work. That made my decision easy- I would go camping. I hadn't camped at Kuliouou ridge yet, and that was a nice, close-to-town camping spot. I knew I could find easy camping places in the dark, as I had biked and ran the trail several times. Friday's trip was a bike-hike adventure. I left the house at 6:30pm on my Cross Check. I'm not sure why I chose that bike instead of the Xtracycle. In retrospect, the Xtracycle would have been more comfortable. I suppose, I wanted to get the Cross Check out for a camping trip for olde tymes sake. We logged lots of great miles in Finland and Sweden. I opted to bring the tent this trip because the wind was strong enough to blow our front door shut, even with the Dr. Stewart rock.

The 10 mile ride to the trail head was a little slow because of the headwind. I locked my bike to a sign at the start of the foot trail and reloaded my gear. My Jandd day pack was surprisingly comfortable with the tent strapped to the bottom. The ~ 1.5 mile hike to the picnic shelter took about 40 minutes. I had to switch my brain into tent mode instead of hammock mode as I looked for good place to set up camp. By 8:30 my camp was set up, I was in dry clothes and it was time to enjoy nature. The mauka clouds were moving fast, so the view of the stars was actually pretty good. By 9:15, I was tucked in bed. I unfortunately dressed for hammock camping(wool long underwear), and I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat.

I slept late (almost 7!) so I didn't have a lot of time to hike around. I figured the hike to the top was at least 30 minutes, and it looked pretty Gargamel today (dark and gloomy). I decided to enjoy my coffee at the picnic shelter and save the hike to the top for another day. I brought the Esbit stove for try number 2. Refer to Night #2 for a recount of my futile attempt to make coffee with this stove. I brought matches and the MSR whisperlite to make sure I had coffee this morning. The esbit stove lit with the second match, and heated 12 oz of water to almost boiling (perfect for french press coffee). I wouldn't count on that stove to do anything more. However, due to its small size and easy of use with matches (not a striker), I will likely take it on my 14 hr camping trips more often.

I took my camera out to document my successful coffee making only to find my batteries were finally dead. I charged some rechargable batteries about 2 weeks ago, and found that those too were dead. No photos of the coffee, campsite or scenery today. Darn. I packed up my tent and scampered down the hill. I passed about 20 people walking up the trail. Some of them looked very confused, as they should be... why would someone be walking down at 8:00am?

The ride home was fast with the tail wind. I even used the big ring for a while. I returned home at 9am, 14.5 hours after I left. When I got home, I used the big camera to document my rig (tent and thermarest strapped to the rack, pannier for shoes, lock, and flatkit, backpack with everything else):



Another fun Friday night in the woods! 4 down, 26 more nights to go!

Night #3 Kahana State Park

This morning's sunrise.

Night #3 brought me to Kahana State Park on the Windward side. Matt and Nick from the bike shop came with me. Matt and I decided to hammock camp, even though flat ground was availble. On the ridges like Wiliwilinui, flat ground is a rare commodity, and guava are abundant, so hammocking is ideal. Kahana State Park's campground is on a sliver of sand and ironwoods between Kam Hwy and the beach. Not exactly pristine, but its nice enough.

We successfully roasted brats and marshmallows on our little Smokey Joe grill. This is the first time in close to 2 years that we got the grill to stay lit. It must be the Manoa dampness that makes it go out when we're at home. I was surprised how many stars we could see, even with the highway street lights just 100 meters away. I guess the light pollution from town can't reach that far.

Just after we went to bed, the winds picked up, which meant some hammock/tarp readjustments. I finally found a configuration that would keep me dry and was quiet enough to sleep (no tarp flapping in the breeze). Tarp inside of my bugnet. Yup, I made myself a little Maria burrito with my sleeping bag, thermarest and hammock inside, wrapped up in my tarp, all secured with my bugnet.

Regretfully, I don't have a close-up photo of this curiosity. It kept me dry, toasty, and I managed to sleep most of the night. I'm thinking this might be a usual windy-night set up. I slept well enough that a medium sized branch fell from the tree above, hit the foot-end of my hammock, and I never noticed. A little scary if you ask me.

Matt's night was less successful. It went something like this:
1. Attempt to sleep with regular setup- hammock under tarp (too noisy).
2. Ditch tarp and hammock, sleep on beach. Successful for a little while
3. Realize the tide is coming in, and relocate to stay dry. Back to hammock, no tarp. Also successful for a while.
4. Rain starts. Must rehang tarp. Tarp still flaps in the wind. No more sleep.
Matt estimated he got 3 hours of sleep. Based on his brain functioning and demeanor, I think he was right.

I "slept-in" until 5:50am, and then proceeded to roam around, make coffee, and take photos. Here are some photos:

Morning coffee- learning how to make my "automatic" camera more manual by increasing the exposure time.


Camp: Matt's last sleeping attempt on the left, the Maria burrito in the middle, and Nick's 1-man tent on the right. Although our bikes are here, we drove the jeep. After camping, we continued up the windward side for a bike race near Laie.


Camp from another view, facing the bay.


Lush green mountains.



Time to pack up.

3 nights down, 27 more to go.

Night #2 Wiliwilinui Trail

This might become my friday thing: escaping to the wilderness for 14 hours.

On Friday morning, camping seemed like a fun idea, but I hadn't made any plans. I began to reconsider my camping idea around 5:00pm when I was still working and had made no effort to pack/plan/etc. I briefly thought about Sand Island as an easy after dark option. The hazards of getting there are no worse at night than they are during the day. However, the thought of sitting under the 747 flight line was less than appealing. After this week of work, I really wanted peace and quiet. Then Laukahi St popped into my head. The ridge is only 30 min from our house. The climb is tough, but do-able, and although I hadn't camped there before, I knew there was lots of hammock potential. I decided to eat dinner at home, so I didn't have to bring dinner items with me. I opted for the new Esbit stove, since I only needed to boil water for coffee. I squirreled out about which bike to ride for a while- handle bar bag or not, knobbies would be nice, but probably not necessary because its dry. I settled on my CX race bike since is has a crazy 2x10 set up with mountain bike gearing. This would be good for climbing.

My initial departure was at 7:15. Fortunately as I rode through campus, I remembered that I never saw tent stakes with my tarp. I made a quick return home for stakes and was back on the road at 7:30. The ride to Laukahi St was phenomenally fast: 23 minutes! On my road bike without a pack, its usually a 20 min ride. That was when all of the fastness ended. The climb up the ridge starts with ~ 2.5 miles through a neighborhood with ~ 1100 ft elevation gain. Towards the top, the neighborhood becomes a private, gated community. I wish I had a photo of the security guard's face as I rolled through the gate at 8:15pm. I gave him a wave and was completely prepared to show him my camping permit. He gave me this look of total confusion and disbelief and then a slow nod. Guess they don't see much night-time camping traffic on bike. When I got to the trail (access road), my legs were pretty spent, so I elected to walk my bike up the hills to my camping spot.

My camping spot was ~ 1 mile in on the access road (1600 ft) in a stand of mature guava. Guava are a funny tree. They are really sturdy despite their small branch diameter, so they are pretty good hammocking trees. However, you have to contend with guavas dropping all night, sometimes hitting the tarp, thud.

I set up camp in about 10 minutes, changed into dry clothes, and hiked up to a spot with a view to enjoy a brew.


I'm looking a little wiley here.

I slept fairly well- 8 hours, but not solid. There were a lot of chirpy critters in the forest last night. The wind was nearly calm, so I was toasty warm. Actually a little too toasty at one point. Definitely didn't need to sleep in my hat! In the morning, I pushed my bike to the end of the access road where the hiking trail starts, and hiked to the radio tower for coffee, breakfast, and sunrise.


Pre sunrise


Sunrise in the clouds

The morning was perfect except that I couldn't get the Esbit stove to light. After an hour of trying, I finally gave up. Even without coffee, the views were worth it. I like the long shadows at dawn.



Looking Ewa. You can just barely see the reef runway.




The windward side- K-bay and Kailua.




Straight down the ridge, looking in to Diamond Head crater. You can see the telephone poles on the ridge, the trail and access road follows the poles.




Ohia Lehua in bloom, something you don't see all the time on Oahu.





Almost time to head back to camp and return to civilization.



Camp.

My ride home only took 40 minutes. I was relieved to get some coffee into my system. I was unpacked and showered by 9:45am. Not a bad way to start the day!

2 down, 28 more nights to go!

New Years Resolution 2012

I resolve to spend 30 nights camping this year.

Camped New Years Eve, which technically counted towards this year's resolution because I didn't go to bed until 2012 (after the fireworks at midnight).

29 nights to go.


Sideburnz admiring the view, 2011


Manoa in the morning, 2012

Its the little things

You've heard the phrase... "Its the little things that count."

Yes, its true. Some of the little things really DO matter.

Exhibit 1: Coworker wanted to "just catch-up" today. This isn't a usual behavior. However, it counted.

Exhibit 2: Friend gave me 4 beers and a puzzle christmas. Why only 4 beers? Well, despite the fact there were originally 6, two were missing...because he wanted to try them. I'm glad he took 2 and gave me four. It counted.

Exhibit 3: I got a weird package in the mail at work today- Global Express Mail from Japan (WTF). Enclosed was a card- Thank you Dr. Maria Stewart, we think you're great, a CD of photos, and most importantly a scrap book. This was a Christmas/thank you gift from the exchange students I taught this summer. Each page of the scrap book has a student's photo on the front side and a personal message on broken English on the back. Wow. I though my thank you poster from the 1st graders was something. This is a totally different category of "little things." This was way better than any purchased item they could have sent me from Japan. Its the little things that count.

Exhibit 4: I was baking up a storm in preparation for the holiday- Gingerbread cookies, pie, tortillas. Baking of this nature requires serious music, so I turned on the record player. Records jammin'. Then I put on Guero by Beck. This is a 45. I set the record player to 45 in preparation for more jammin'. Record starts while I"m in the middle of managing melting cookie dough (this is what gingerbread cookies do when you're kitchen is 95 degrees, prior to baking) and burning cookies. Gee something sounds weird, did I forget to switch it to 45? Wash hands. Check record player. Record player is at 45rmp. Ok, scientist in action. Get a crayon and make a mark on the record label. Timer. Go. 1, 2, 3, 4.... 42 rpms on a 45. Hmmm... lets abort Guero and switch to Leo Kottke (a 33). What? Leo Kotke just woke up? 31 on a 33rpm. Uh oh. I'll roll with it. Then it starts getting all won wooon woooooooooon won won woooon on me. Consult with the 'rents yields a suitable plan- dust and lube. Dismantle record player. No dust, lube still intact. Figure I was on crack. Put on Jack Johnson, To The Sea- I have this on my iPod also. Oh Dear. Jack is singing in 2 totally different keys- one key on my record, a totally different, higher key on my iPod. Record player is on the outs. Almost cried. Then I decided it didn't matter. So I put Jack on, head phones in. Life is good. Long story short... Record player is obviously a member of the fam, but its just a material object. Time to think about what really matters, like the little things... and make 'em count.

Merry Christmas.

This is why I don't have any patience at the end of the day.

This is an email I received from a student today:

Student: Hello. So I register for classes tomorrow and I was wondering how I could get instructor approval for FSHN 181 and Lab.

Me: You need to contact the instructor.