Enjoying Sunset Hills

Sunday, 06 October 2013

The promise of the undiscovered frontier brought everyone except the stand-up crew out of the woodwork, even under the threat of possible heavy thunderstorms. We met at the end of the road in Sunset Hills in Pupukea to explore the much-storied Pupukea-Paumalu trail network. Briefly, the area had been considered for development, but the community worked together with the landowner and State to get the land preserved as a multi-use wilderness area. The weather was fine when we arrived, and there was no hint of muckiness at the parking area. Ckucke had taken a photo of the trail map at a local bike shop with his phone, so that was our only reference, other than topographical information from my GPS.

Starting into the trail past the fence, the direction was fairly clear, but at the bottom of the first hill, several trails went off in every direction, so out came the map. Passing a fence opening closed by a strap, we went out along the main perimeter doubletrack. We stuck to the road out past a moonscape and some collapsed agricultural sheds to the main trail network junction at the picnic table and signpost. The foliage was reminiscent of the adjacent Kahuku Motocross park, and the terrain was reminiscent of the flatter parts of Kahuku and the Mililani outlaw recreation area. The trail network appeared to be old ranch/military doubletrack access roads with new singletrack cut in. We planned to stick to the perimeter road and look for any interesting singletrack that branched off of it. We almost instantly found what we were looking for.

The trail we found was labeled “Hula Girl” and the end we were at was labeled “exit only”. It was an alternating wallride berming trail down a small mini-halfpipe valley with a jump at the bottom. From what we could tell from the map, we had to continue around the perimeter road, and then find one of the trails that ascended to the top of the plateau where Hula Girl started. We proceeded along the contour-cut doubletrack, passing an evil double-and-a-half overhead wood stunt and under a treefall. Passing one, then another sidetrail, Chris and I decided to backtrack and take the first trail up, and Ckucke, JT, Kevyn, and Root took the second. Actually, in a fit of super-concentrated Cytomax-induced energy overload, Ckucke bolted up the switchbacking trail before anyone could really say anything. The trail that Chris and I took was a straight shot with a steep, but rideable pitch. It was sort-of like the trails that take you up out of the valley at Mililani where they’re a little painful, but if you just settle into a rhythm, you can clear the pitch in one go. It put us out on the plateau near some old bathtubs probably used to water cattle back in the day, whereas the switchback trail the others took came out across on the other side of the plateau. Regrouping, we wandered the fun, generally level trails through the ironwood forest, working our way generally toward where we figured Hula Girl started. After consulting the map a few times, we navigated through the various trail junctions that lead to the signage at the top.

Fun. Really. The top was the gravity-fueled rollercoaster ride of Upper Dumps stretched out for more speed and better transitions in the turns. The berm turns toward the bottom were abrupt and a little square-edged, with a lot of roots on the crowned ascending faces. By nature of nature, the little valley that the trail snaked down wasn’t the “U” of a man-made halfpipe, but was more a “V” with rolled peaks – sort of like the bird silhouettes we all drew as kindergarteners. We continued past the jump and road crossing to another berm and a couple of momentum-sucking rollers and surprisingly ended up popping out at the picnic table again. Awesome! The berms had managed to bottom my suspension front and back, so I borrowed Chris’ shock pump to increase the pressure a bit.

After another break at the picnic table, we explored the trail that led back into the valley behind the signpost area. That was totally like the wetter muddy bottom strawberry guava trails at Mililani. Again we ended up at an “exit only” trail bottom. From the map, the back side of the perimeter road was up above us, so another go at Hula Girl was possible if we found the road. We found a trail marked as the hike out, but it looked as if it was built and never used – the trail cut was square-edged, but not packed down, and there was a heavy layer of ironwood needles all over it. After spending about half-an-hour struggling up the heinous push-up to the top, we couldn’t find the road, so we dropped down a well-traveled trail and ended up coming out at the exit only sign. Backtracking toward the picnic table, we took a side trail we had seen earlier that gently climbed up to the perimeter road and actually put us out near a connector that again gently put us on top of the far end of the plateau from the top of Hula Girl. Since this was the second go, we were able to ride the plateau trails at rippy speed instead of explorey speed. Chris and I had fallen behind to play on a drop-in knuckle, so when we caught up to everyone, we found Root scraping poop off his tire. I still managed to nearly bottom the suspension, even with the increase in shock pressure and being conscious of weight transfer at the transitions. Back at the picnic table, we bumped into Nippleman and his crew. We were hearing voices here and there all day, but never crossed paths until then. Our brief conversation was cut short as the darkening sky opened up and a steady rain began. The weather forecast had been correct!

In an amazingly short time, the trail had gone from dry to rainslicked. The first part of the return leg was a climb up to the moonscape. I had forgotten that the part past that point was a climb on the way in, so it would be a downhill on the way out, so I needlessly took the high line at the moonscape and climbed out to the fenceline trail along the back boundary of the area. That popped me out at the top of a descending doubletrack that paralleled the trail through the ironwood forest that everyone else took. We regrouped and made our way down the last stretch to the horse exclusion strap. The climb back up to the street was evil, especially on spent legs and over slippery roots. The rain unfortunately let up, so the bikes wouldn’t get a free wash from Mother Nature on the way back home.

We stopped at Foodland for some post-ride grub, but ended up also getting a front row seat to the North Shore Circus. It would be impossible for me to adequately describe the freakish mix of burned-out locals, seasonal South American surf rats, semi-transparent tourists with insufficient clothing coverage, weird Euros, and stinky mountain bikers, so I’ll leave it up to you to go and experience first-hand the visual and cultural train wreck that is the Foodland parking lot. I really wanted to get some coffee drink form CB&TL, but after my Endurox and sandwich/wrap, I was too full, and I didn’t want any issues on the long drive back home.

It’s a long drive, but go enjoy it – it’s like Kahuku and Mililani without the motorcycle mud-wallows and motorcycle-steep ups! The distances and terrain are somewhat similar to the Makawao area on Maui (which shares the “bike trails built by bike riders” concept), but the climate and foliage are different.

D = 13.7km (8.5-miles), Vavr = 6.6 km/h (4.1-mph), Vmax = 28.5 km/h (17.7-mph), T = 2-hours, 04-minutes (about 6-hours total trail time), Climb/descent 129m (423’) (Min elevation 123m/Max elevation 252m)

Pictures here