Hiking in Hawaii: Little Waimalu Loop

Hiking in Hawaii on the island of Oahu is an activity I enjoy. Recently, my wife Jacqueline and I went hiking on a route I will call the Little Waimalu Loop. I had hiked part of the route before, but a 45 minute section of our outing turned out to be a new experience for me. Although this area is not one of the more sought after or captivating parts of Hawaii, I believe it has beauty of its own.

The trailhead for this hiking trail is at the end of Onikiniki Place, which is situated in the upper reaches of Pearlridge and Kaonohi Street, a major thoroughfare in Pearl City, Hawaii. Pearl City is christened after Pearl Harbor, the famous United States Naval Base.

Compared to other Hawaii hiking trails, this one isn't widely known thus not readily hiked. I'd guess that most of the hiking traffic on this trail comes from local hunters. The bulk of hiker traffic probably comes from the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club, the biggest and best known outdoor organization in Hawaii after the Sierra Club.

The hiking trail into Waimalu Valley starts to the left of the entrance gate to the gated community at road's end. Unlike other Hawaii trails, there is no trail sign there if you go up to look for one. Simply look for a trail to the left side of the community's entrance gate. You'll see it.

Anyway, my wife and I made our way down the initial section, being careful due to slick muddy conditions. It wasn't raining that day (light rain is fairly common on most days in Hawaii) but rain had obviously fallen in the preceding days. Much of the trail we were hiking along was muddy, though not overly so.

After the initial descent, the hiking trail contours at a steadily elevation for about a mile. At one point to our right was a small cave that looked like a good place for a homeless person to hunker up in. To our left was a steep drop masked most of the time by a canopy of trees and other vegetation. If you hike this trail (called the Waimalu Ditch Trail), be careful.

At one point, the trail forked. To path heading down to the left descended to Little Waimalu Stream and then continued contouring around a broad spur ridge to eventually reach Big Waimalu Stream.

Instead of heading left at the fork, my wife and I hiked to the rightward trail. This took us into Little Waimalu Valley.

My objective was to hike into Little Waimalu for a half hour or so and then try to find a route that climbed up to the ridge on the right. Some hiking colleagues from the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club (HTMC for short) had forged out and marked (with ribbons) a route. I'd never hiked this route before but I knew it existed. Hopefully, I told my wife, I could find it.

And find it we did. Prior to the finding, my wife and I had crossed Little Waimalu Stream three or four times. The key indicator that we had found the route out of the valley was a pair of ribbons affixed to a tree. For those not familiar with trail marking protocol on Oahu (at least the protocol used by the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club), a double ribbon along a trail is an indicator of a significant junction. So if you happen to be hiking on a trail on Oahu in Hawaii and you come across a double ribbon, take stock of your whereabouts because you are at a significant crossroads, or cross trail, to be precise.

Having found our route to climb out of Little Waimalu Valley, my wife and I commenced our upward scramble. Recall that the conditions were damp and slippery. So we had to slip and slide our way up a fairly steep incline, helped often by trees and roots on the mountainside. We never were in any perilous situations and never was climbing overly strenuous. In fact, the climbing was fun. Note that my wife and I enjoy bushwacking and scrambling up mountainsides on our Hawaii home island, which might not be everyone's cup of cocoa.

I'd say that we needed about 45 minutes to complete the climb. Where we ended up is about a mile mauka (a term we here in Hawaii use to indicate "toward the mountain") of the gated community I had referred to earlier.

The rest of the hike was along a dirt road that took us back to gated community. Along the way, we came upon a lost hiking dog. My wife, a lover of animals of all kinds, fashioned a makeshift leash out of the cord for her Walkman earphones and led the stray pooch back to a hunter's truck which was parked at the end of Onikiniki Place.

In all, this Hawaii hike took us between two and three hours. If you plan to hike in Hawaii, I'd suggest a hiking trail that is more heavily traveled.