Hiking Mt. Olomana in Kailua

Tuesday was a federal holiday and Adam and I were both off work so we decided to go hike up Mt. Olomana in our town of Kailua. It was kind of an overcast day, but that kept the temperature pretty cool. It's a grueling hike straight up the ridge you see below, including some boulder scrambling and some areas where you have to use ropes to pull yourself up!


At one point in the hike we came across a grove of those strange Hawaiian pine trees with really long droopy needles that make a carpet on the forest floor that is thick and squishy. The wind was surprisingly loud whispering through the pines!

The virtual stair master of a trail we climbed.... we took lots of breaks on the way up!

View of the peak from the trail below... still quite a way to go at this point.

Some teaser views of the ocean as we ascended kept us motivated!

Looking back towards the mountains. You can see how steep the climb was as I was only a few feet ahead of Adam taking this picture.

And then we came to THIS:

Oh yes. Your eyes do not deceive you, that is a ROPE. Intended to be used to scramble up that steep face of rock. Needless to say, I was FREAKING OUT.

FREAKING.

OUT.
I almost didn't make it, but Adam talked me through it and stayed right below me, which I felt was silly since if I had fallen it would have knocked him right off the mountain with me on top. He insisted he wouldn't fall if I fell on him. Partly what got me up this was that I wanted to go back down LESS than I wanted to keep going up to the flat part!

I was really proud of myself. I conquered some fears that day! Adam had already climbed this before and he's fearless anyway....

View of our town - Kailua from above. At the end of that peninsula is the Marine Corps Base where Adam works and right to the left of it is where our new house is going to be.

Looking out farther into Kaneohe Bay.

What a fun day!