Island Hoping to Kauai

The pre-vacation craziness started when Jonah nibbled Mallerie's ear in the middle of the night thinking I was Sam. The Boys woke up when were supposed to leave for the airport. Mal ran a red light trying to get to the airport on time. Sam caught up to us even though he left 15 minutes later. We literally flew through a cloud. Breakfast right when we landed at Daddios. Everything about that place was hilarious. Harry the owner is a goat, according to Sam. He straight up, laughed when a server dropped water all over the floor, and then legit sat down with us to talk. He gave us mountain apples that tasted like perfume.

Our first, stop, was Wailua Falls! Our own private waterfall. We went to Wailua and it stopped raining as we began to hike. The waterfall was beautiful and we got to go behind the falls to be up and close we loved the cold mist that sprinkled down on us. This is one of the wettest places in the world.

We drove up north to bath at Queen's Bath. We had Clearwater and the most amazing views of the mountains and ocean. 

The next day we headed up to Waimea Canyon. This was our first time seeing the Grand Canyon of Kauai! Wow, it was beautiful. Brayden, a local on the island sure hooked us up by taking us to all the good spots. 

We went and hiked Kelpa Ridge which gave us insane views of the Kalalau valley. We could have spent all day on the ridge.

We went off Roading that afternoon. To some waterfall that Braden said was so easy to get to. We had to drive through a river to get there. I almost fell off of the trail because it was so slippery. Thank goodness for the rock that I grabbed onto while I was sliding or I wouldn't have made it. Stacy lost her shoe on the rocks. Braden climbed like a goat down to get Stacy's shoe. Thank goodness or she wouldn’t have been able to hike the next day.

One of our days we went to an amazing waterfall slide. And we didn’t know what to expect. We walked down a stream at first. And then next thing we knew we were sliding down a 20-foot slide with an 8-foot drop into a fresh pool at the bottom.  The waterfall sits on private property so we were able to slide down four times before an uncle came out and got mad.

Okolehao hike! We made our trek up this mountain. And passed a lady with really hairy legs. Sam slept at the top for about 45 minutes. The views were unreal. We saw waterfalls going in between the ridges. The hike overlooked Hanalei Bay. Do you think Bethany Hamilton is down there? We were also muddy by the end because we fell so many times. 

The reason we came to Kauai was to hike the Kalalau trail. We squished seven people into the Jimmy, Eve, and Braden‘s car. And made the hour-and-a-half drive to the North Shore.  The girls killed it on the trail. We were hours ahead of the boys. Because Vili brought everything he owned. And Sam‘s backpack didn’t have a waste of support. Stacy almost rolled her ankle two times and we took a one-and-a-half-hour nap halfway through.

The end of the coast was beautiful. But nobody wanted to hike back. We set up camp at the Ranger station. Someone asked us how we scored that. Umm. We walked and put our backpacks on the steps? 

We had an amazing sunset, and ocean swim before rinsing off in the fresh waterfall. 

We woke up at 3 AM because Sam‘s alarm kept going off. But then Sam saw a fisherman out at sea. He waved him over and the guy came and offered to give us a ride back to Hanalei. For $100 each. Four of us jumped on the offer. 

Koa our boat guide was amazing! He probably offered us beer seven times. We kept declining but said yes to the fresh tuna wraps. We went through the sea caves and saw waterfalls coming off the coast. We saw a pool of dolphins including a baby. We were riding the boat with two other people one guy was getting super sick. The view of the Napali coast was probably the most beautiful thing I had ever seen! It's crazy it took us 8 hours to hike and only 45 minutes on a boat. 

There was a girl who was super grouchy on the boat with a tattoo that said little shit on her neck.  She was so grumpy. She was really ruining the vibe.

We stopped at the famous Hanalei Bay to jump off the pier. We hitched a hike back to the southside on the back of someone’s truck. We fell asleep because we were so tired. I am surprised we didn’t fall off.

We had a crazy game night with Braden and Eve. Sam got over 700 points in Cover Your Assets but was the butt clown twice. Braden and Eve made the most amazing açai bowls and we enjoyed watching the 90-year-old neighbor with a snake tattoo across his head from the window.

Kauai you were just as magical as I heard everyone talk about. What a beautiful precious island! 

Turning 22 and Stairway to Hell

You know that Taylor Swift song Twenty-Two? Well, I have been waiting to sing that on my 22nd Birthday! The night before my birthday June 2nd I was at Sam's house watching a movie and at midnight he had a Domino's pizza deliver a brownie cake and everyone there sang Happy Birthday and Taylor Swift's song 22. It was a magical moment and my friends made me feel really special. 

The next day was my actual birthday and it happened to also be National Running Day! Every so often my birthday lands on the first Wednesday of the month which is National Running Day! How cool is that? So of course I had to start the day off with a birthday run on the Laie bike path. What made the run even better was that so many of my other friends joined me. Some of my friends hate running (Aysia is the only one who likes running) but they came anyway to run with me on my birthday. I thought that was pretty cool. Everyone was huffing and puffing but they were all smiles which I really appreciated. After we celebrated with Acai! 

That afternoon we went to Sharks Cove for snorkeling. This was one of my first times really snorkeling for a long time. We dived through some caves and swam all morning long. Honestly, this was the highlight of the day. I was with all my friends in the ocean and we were swimming around and having a grand old time. We were all laughing and having the best time together.  

That afternoon Sam surprised me with parasailing! He drove me to the East side where I ran off a cliff and parasailed over the east side. It was honestly so thrilling and so beautiful. I could not believe how peaceful it was so high up in the air. My guide Doug was the best! He let me steer for a little bit as I flew all around. The water was so beautiful to see from so high up. I would say this experience was more peaceful than scary. I was one with the birds as someone would say. Thank you Sam for taking me on the best adventure and letting me check something off my bucket list! 

That evening I went to Aysia's house where we ate hot dogs and Cheetos my favorite summer food! We watched the sunset from the Barbie dream house. I have to say that my friend made me feel so special. From showing up on the morning run and throwing a party for me with all of my favorite food. I feel so incredibly grateful that I have so many amazing friends here in Oahu. They have truly become my family out here. 

I am excited to be a bit older and looking forward to my Taylor Swift year of 22! 

That weekend we decided the party wasn't going to stop there because we wanted to do another birthday campout. This time Sam wanted to camp on the top of Stairway to Heaven so we could start early the next day to get to Secret Stairway on the other side of the mountain. We all thought this sounded like a great idea. Little did we know that we were getting ourselves into a disastrous situation. 

On Friday night we started the stairway to Heaven in the dark with headlamps. We headed up the stairs and we somehow all got separated with everyone hiking at different paces. I was up in the front and my mind was playing tricks on me. I kept thinking that I was seeing the slender man. The Hawaiians believe in the spirits that live on the mountains and I did not want to be alone up there. I was praying so hard everyone would make it. I was too tired to hike back down. Sure enough, everyone showed up. Sam brought up a bunch of Doctor Pepper to the top to celebrate with. We set up camp in the bunker on the cement ground and tried to sleep. We couldn't because the wind was so loud and it was freezing in the bunker. We were sleeping in a wind tunnel. Somehow we survived the night. That morning we packed up and hid our camping gear in black trash bags in the bushes. We didn't want anything to hold us back. We started along the rest of the mountain with all smiles. I had a Zoom class that morning and believe it or not but I got service up on the mountain I just held my phone as I was walking along the cliff. Perks to covid and having online school right? 

Well, about 1 mile in there was a really steep part of the ridge where we were hiking. It required us to hold to a thin rope and basically slide down it like a flag pole. Sam went first and we saw him struggle a little. He stood at the bottom and told us what way to learn and how much further we had to go. At this point our day packs with our water were holding us back so we left them on top of the hill thinking we would grab them on our way back. Once I got down Villi and Stacy decided it was to sketch for them so they were going to head back and wait for us at the top stairway. Once we were at the bottom of this cliff we realized it was one way kinda trail. We weren't sure how were going to get back up. But we decided we would cross that road on the way back. 

We started making our way along the ridge realizing that we had gotten ourselves into a pretty big hole. We had no water, food, or sunscreen. We only had Sams's phone and had 30 percent left because he didn't charge it while we were sleeping. He was also very dehydrated because he only drank Dr. Pepper the night before. Saving his water for the hike the next day. We called Villi and Stacy and told them we wouldn't be able to come back up the way we came down because the trail was way too dangerous. We had no choice but to just keep hiking along the ridge above H3. The view was so beautiful from up there though. 

After a few hours and several sketchy steep hills, we realized the trail was going to take us a lot longer than we intended and we were all getting pretty dehydrated. We didn't want to lose daylight so we kept pressing on as quick as we could. We were sucking on damp leaves for water. Finally after 6 hours or so of hiking. We found another bunker and a bunch of military kits inside. But of course, everything in the kit required water to eat it or use it. So we had to leave it behind. We were pretty sad. We didn't find anything in the bag that was going to help us so we left it and kept walking. Finally late that afternoon we made it to the secret stairs. They were a total letdown. You could only walk down 4 steps before the stairs stopped. They were so rusty and eroded. And the clouds came so we didn't have any views. Sam said are you kidding this is stairway to Hell!! We laughed about that. We were so thirsty at this point and a little discouraged. We had no idea how we were going to get off the mountain. We tried waving helicopters down but I doubted they saw us. Were getting so dehydrated. The thought of drinking water was controlling our thoughts. We were also starving. We didn't eat any food that day. Sam looked at his phone and saw the only way down was to continue across the ridge to Aiea and have someone meet us there. Our legs were getting thrashed from the overgrown bushes and we were so scratched up and muddy. 

That didn't stop us though. We just kept walking. We thought every step we take is another closer to water. Somehow after 15 hours of hiking, we made it down and Villi and Stacy were there with food and Water. It was a miracle we made it. I can't believe how far we hiked without food, water, and no sleep. 

We were so beat that night. I don't think any of them said anything in the car the whole way back. We were just glad that we were alive and back in society. We decided that Stairway to Hell was not worth it and to never camp at the top of Stairway to Heaven again. We did however get a few amazing pictures to remind us of the time we did the most insane hike. We walked from Konaohoe to Aiea in one day on a steep eroding mountain. We felt pretty proud of ourselves! But never again!