Saturday was sunny and unbearably hot all over Oahu, except for Pearl City, which was cloudy and unbearably hot… Root and Chris were on the side due to car and baby issues (respectively), so Jeff, Sara, and I rode up to where Root and I had seen the little side trail a few weeks ago. Descending steeply, the trail turned right and went from the open grass to beneath tree cover. With a slight downward grade, it countoured the hillside, passing scratchy ferns and strawberry guava. A little ways in, the trail dropped down onto an old graded doubletrack. It was overgrown and had been continually disturbed by the piggies, so it was pretty uneven. It seemed to go both back uphill toward the houses, or ahead and down. We followed the doubletrack in and it narrowed to singletrack width with all the overgrowth. It was not unlike Bowling Pin at Mililani. Quickly, we reached a clearing at the valley bottom. The way ahead was open but without an obvious, worn path. There was, however, a very obvious swithcback to the left backtracking up out of the valley along the opposite wall. This path gently ascended to a grassy clearing, where the trail turned right around a head into the next little valley. The trail rose briefly, then descended to the valley bottom. There were some loose, pebbley sections and a lot of deadfall along the descent, but the course was wide and evident.
There was a sharp but rideable descent at the very bottom of the valley, at which point, we went up a shortcut directly ahead, since the original switchback course further up the valley bottom appeared to be grown in. The doubletrack rose at a managable grade, but the surface was uneven, loose, and riddled with obstacles, so riding up was challenging. Breaking out into the light on the first ridge in, we could see the Wailuna ridge water tank – we had found the way to the mystery hills! For years we had seen this area from the other side, but didn’t know how to get over.
From this point onward, the ground was much more stable. Reaching the powerline tower, the doubletrack turned up the ridgetop and became clearer and more defined. After a climb up firm, weathered red dirt – mostly wide and flat, occasionally narrowing to undulating singletrack – the trail turned back out makai and went briefly under tree cover. The trail was a little overgrown and pig-rutted here, but was still rideable. After coutouring along the grassy hillside it returned to doubletrack, then became hard, flat dirt road again. There were bike tracks here, maybe 2 or possibly 3 bikes. There were no tracks before this point, so assumedly the bikes came from the opposite direction.
Passing in and out from under tree cover, the trail rose gently to the ridgetop, where the doubletrack continued down the ridgetop plateau or hairpinned uphill. We turned uphill to investigate further. The eroded dirt road was rougher and more grooved here. The surface was rock hard and rough, so if anyone had preceeded us, there were no tracks to indicate their presence. Again the route narrowed to singletrack near the top, but as the trail peaked turned seaward onto the third ridge, there was a level bare spot. There were remnants of old fencing from when this area was pastureland. Metal pickets indicated recent use, maybe until the late ’60’s.
We descended the third ridge. The trail was distinct and worn, but was starting to get narrower. Scratchy ferns were growing in from the fenceline on the right of the trail, but the left was mostly open. Passing over a ferny saddle, we reached the powerline tower. The trail continued further, but then dropped unrideably steeply down into the valley between this ridge and the next one. It looked like there were at least two more ridges to go to Waimano ridge. Backtracking to the bald spot, I inspected conditions beyond the fence through a gap. There was a piggy trail, but it was unclear whether we could continue up the ridge on bikes.
We began our descent of the second ridge. I was thinking it would have been fast and untechnical like the grassy plateau at Royal Summit, or the section between the swamp gum trees and the water tank at Wailuna, but an old cast iron bathtub that was recycled into a cattle watering trough caught my eye. It looked like if it were cut free from the strawberry guava and cleaned, it would be in usable condition. Shortly after the bathtub, there was a fork in the trail that was unobservable on the way up. I followed the twisty singletrack out for a bit, then it became apparent that it was leading to the downhill groove that is visible from Wailuna. Singletrack downhill sounded more appealing than gentle dirt road, so the mold was cast! Other than a drop-in yumpy g-out into a turn at the beginning, it was a simple wheel-groove downhill. Oh well…
At the bottom, we found ourselves T-ing into the trail on the second ridge at the tree cover before the bike tracks. Perhaps the tracks came from someone who had ridden groove like we did and rode up and out. Returning to the ridgetop and the junction, we continued in the downhill direction. The grass was grown in and obscured the doubletrack for the first few hundred yards, but opened up to wide, flat dirt. The dirt descent took us far down the ridge, but abruptly ended in a grassy field interspersed with thickets of Hawaiian holly. There wasn’t a visible disturbed course, but the front wheel found the path through the wheel-high grass back to doubletrack.
The track was clear here – graded gravel road – but was grown in and did not appear recently traveled. Perhaps we had made a wrong turn somewhere, maybe a missed turnoff before the grassy field or another route through it? There was a defined, road-width path before me: I went forward. Approaching a metal frame powerline tower, the road widened and became clear and recently regraded. We were bouyed by the realization that the end was in sight, and we probably didn’t have to backtrack – the gravel road led out somewhere. Following the road down into the valley, we passed another two power towers and a concrete waterbar before climbing out to the old training/experimental farm behind Pearl City High, where we were scrutinized by a lone, unattended, untethered, mango-eating tan horse.
8.72-mile loop; 1 hour, 34 minutes
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