Kauai Ramblings

I've been wandering around Kauai the past few days.  Wendy and her family were on the island with me for several days, so I played tour guide a bit.  Here's the cove at Kilauea lighthouse.

Wendy near the lighthouse...Secret Beach in the far, hazy distance.

Nene hang out near the lighthouse.  They are the state bird of Hawai'i.

Hanalei Bay on a stormy afternoon.  There were three waterfalls visible on the mountains above town.  Three days later the falls were gone.

Wendy at Waimea canyon.

Nice canyon shot.  It's always amazing to see such a large gorge...half a mile deep...on such a small island.  Often, you can see several waterfalls in the canyon.  But now, at the end of the dry season, no waterfalls running.

Is dis da moke and da tita??  Naw, just a couple crazy haole tourons.

Classic shot of Kalalau Valley.  I remember hiking the trail, 11 miles each way, three times in the 1980s.  30 years and 60 pounds ago.  Skinny dipping in a pristine pool in the valley with a pretty Danish girl...

Wendy at the Kalalau lookout.

Remember the old TV show Fantasy Island?  Wailua Falls opened the show.  Here they are!

The ruins of the Coco Palms hotel.  It was once THE place to stay on Kauai.  During my visits in the 1980s, the Coco Palms was hopping; but I never stayed here.  Elvis Presley filmed Blue Hawaii here.  Bing Crosby and Duke Kahanamoku hung out at the Coco Palms.  It all came to an end on September 11...1992, when Hurricane Iniki trashed the place.  Insurance claims were never resolved and the Coco Palms never reopened.  There are tours of the ruins now...no other plans as far as I know.

Aaaahhh.  I'm back at my beach in Haena.  Spent seven hours here today...never drove the car out of the Hanalei Colony Resort.  Kepuhi Beach is beauty, tranquility, nature, peace...personified.  I have been here many times.  It is home.

Took this pic lying on my back on my beach mat.  You do have to be sure you're not lying directly under any coconuts, especially on a breezy day!

Tunnels Beach, just west of Kepuhi. 

Shells can be had at my beach.  It's not always easy to get them, though.  The two gems on the far left (the larger cowrie is about two inches long) were obtained by surf shelling.  I stand at the surfline where there is a large amount of debris, washed back and forth by the waves.  In the second or two between breakers, you try to spot a shell, then grab it before the next wave comes.  Sometimes the shell is spotted a few inches below the surface at slack water between waves.  Such practices require concentration, vigilance, and even some physical quickness at times.  But you can find treasures, often more easily than on the dry beach, where jetsam is quickly picked over by the folks wandering the sand.  I would say that the majority of really nice shells I have found in Hawaii and Florida have come from surf shelling.  You find a great shell and it's like hitting a jackpot on a slot machine...a woohoo moment.

Return to Kauai

I'm back on Kauai for the first time in five years.  This is a long absence for me; I can count at least 13 visits here since 1980, and I've probably missed a couple.  I always tell people that if I could live anywhere, but had to stay there forever, I''d live on Kauai...specifically on the north shore.  But the rest of the island is fine, too.  I'm currently on the south shore, in Poipu, in an absolute oceanfront condo.  This is a famous rock at the east end of Shipwreck Beach, near my place.  Daring people jump off it all the time.  The young woman here provides a sense of scale.  Her boyfriend/husband/significant other has just made the leap, and a few seconds after I snapped the picture, the wahine also made a successful descent.

Green vegetation, red rock, blue sea.  I took a picture very similar to this in June...on Prince Edward Island!  PEI and Kauai are seven time zones and 25 degrees of latitude apart, but the scenery features similar colors!

Limahuli/Gillins Beach.  A couple miles east of Poipu.  In 2000 I easily hiked here from Shipwreck.  I made it this time too, but it was much harder.  Age takes its toll.  Also, after the perpetual cool of Monterey, I wasn't acclimated to the heat and humidity of Kauai in my first full day on the island.  But it was a beautiful trek nonetheless.

This sunset pic was taken from the patio of my condo.  Not shabby. 

Being September, the south swell from Antarctica and New Zealand is running, bashing the rocks in front of my condo.  This pic was also taken from my patio.

Spouting Horn, a couple miles west of my condo.  The water rises into the air with a whooosh!

Now I'm in Hanapepe Town, crossing a swinging bridge.

Kauai is famous...or notorious...for its chickens.  They run loose all over the island.  The roosters, like this fellow here, aren't much good at keeping time...they crow all day and most of the night. 

From the mid 1800s to the late 1900s, Kauai was a big sugar producing island.  But alas, cane farming became uneconomical...I think it's done mostly in the third world now...and the sugar mills here have all closed.  This big one is in Kekaha.  I remember when it was still operable in the 1980s.

Kauai is only 555 square miles in area but has a massive canyon!  Waimea Canyon is close to 3000 feet deep, about half the depth of the Grand Canyon.  The rocks and vegetation constantly change hues as clouds pass by.  I was up here once when the weather was showery, and my friends and I observed a continuous rainbow for the better part of an hour.  Although we've had some showers today, this is the latter part of the dry season here, and I couldn't find any waterfalls in the canyon.  During wet periods there are several. 

The canyon with an ohia tree on the right.

A classic shot of Kalalau Valley from the lookout, four thousand feet above.  The ocean in the distance.  In the 1980s I backpacked into the valley three times along the Na Pali Coast.  11 miles and 2500 feet elevation gain/loss each way.  That was 30 years and 60 pounds ago, alas.  It's beautiful in the valley.  You can hike to pristine pools in the jungle.  Went skinny dipping with a Danish girl there one time. 

The Kalalau lookout is near Mount Waialeale, one of the world's wettest spots.  Waialeale is apparently getting drier...the average rainfall has decreased from 450 inches a year to a mere 393.  It's still a misty, mystical area, though.  This is not at the mountain, but at the start of the Pihea trail, which leads to the Alakai swamp on the slopes of the mountain.  Last hiked the Alakai in 2000. 

A pretty flower near the Pihea trailhead.

These unprepossessing fellows are zebra doves.  Though they're not striking to look at, they to me are the sound of Hawaii.  They hang out all over, and coo in a medium loud, staccato, melliflous manner that is somehow relaxing.  I'll be watching a show on TV and hear the doves, and I visualize the warm, soft air of Hawaii that I love. 

A fine rooster at Koke'e State Park in the mountains.  At about 3500 feet, it's perpetually spring here.  Imported redwoods grow.

And a last shot of the Waimea Canyon.

Ah, being retired has its advantages.  After a leisurely weekend in Portland, I ambled home to Monterey, arriving last Friday.  It's a rather easy two day drive, but I took five.  I took two days just to drive from Bend to Red Bluff,  a distance of only about 310 miles via the shortest route.  But there is so much to see that you could take a week to make the journey.  The most direct route would be US 97 and I 5.  But I took the Cascade Lakes highway out of Bend instead.  The first stop was Sparks Lake, a neat blend of volcanic and alpine scenery.  Lava in the foreground, South Sister peeking out of the clouds.

Broken Top looms over the forest.

Another detour off 97 that's an absolute must is to go to Crater Lake.  It's a power spot.  I love to sit high above the lake and simply gaze upon it and soak up its beauty and uniqueness.  The day I visited was not ideal, though...only about 60 degrees and very windy.  Blow up this pic and you'll see many whitecaps disturbing the azure surface.

Gnarly whitebark pines struggle for survival above the lake.

Phantom Ship.  It looks tiny, but is actually longer than a football field and 160 feet high.

This shot is looking almost straight down from the rim to the lake.  The deep blue color of the lake is derived from blue light in the spectrum, which is retained far below the water surface while other colors are not.  In the shallows, such as at the water land interface in this pic, some of the other colors of the spectrum, like green and red, are apparent.

The next day out of Klamath Falls I visited Lava Beds National Monument.  Like Crater Lake, it is also a surreal scene, with the added historical attraction of the Modoc War of 1872-73.  I need to spend at least one entire day here, instead of  just passing through like I've done on all visits so far.  This is Schonchin Butte, a cinder cone.  You can hike a trail up to a fire lookout on the summit.

One of the fine aromas of the West is that of sagebrush.  You rub your fingers against the leaves and inhale the strong, semi-sweet scent...beautiful!

Late August and the sage was in full bloom at Lava Beds.

Passing through the town of Adin, in southern Modoc county CA, I came upon this relic...a wigwam burner!  50 years ago these were common on the west coast, used to burn slash wood left over from logging operations.  They put a lot of smoke into the air and were phased out in the late 1960s and 70s.  But this one endures...no longer in use, of course.

There is a lot of natural smoke in far northern CA these days anyway, due to numerous lightning caused fires.  Blow up this pic and you'll see the summit of Mt Shasta rising out of the terrain like an apparition.  The rest of the mountain is shrouded in smoke...evidently there's an inversion layer topping out around 10-12 thousand feet that keeps the smoke confined below that level.

In Lassen Volcanic NP I came upon this unusual feature...a rock whose age is precisely known!  This rock was born on May 14, 1915, when Mt Lassen erupted and sent a mass of lava into the mountain's crater.  This rock was part of that lava.  It was deposited here, about 3 miles east of the mountain, five days later, when an explosive eruption shot it out of the crater and down the slope in an avalanche of snow, water, and rock.  Three days later a photo team found it here, still hot.  A few hours later the mountain erupted again. 

The previous rock, 97 years old, is black dacite.  This is a closeup of red dacite.  It is 27 thousand years old, the product of an earlier Lassen eruption.

A gnarly whitebark pine rises near timberline at Mt Lassen.  These are tough hombres in the tree world.

The lizards are hangin' out on my car, with Lassen in the distance.  Elevation here is a little above 8000 feet.

Lake Helen, with Lassen.  The first time I visited this spot was in early July 1967.  It was 100 degrees down in the central valley, but the lake was still frozen!  I was impressed. 

This is a bubbling mud pot in Lassen NP.

Thermal areas always have cool colors from the minerals. 

At the end of the day, a smoky sunset in Red Bluff.  Most of the rooms at my Best Western were taken by fire crews.