Tennessee Valley Trail; Sublime Concert

   

Tennessee Valley Hike

Sublime Concert

On Saturday, I ventured out for another solo hike. My intention was to check out one of the waterfalls from this list that a friend of mine sent me. I picked one in Marin and set out around 7 in the morning. That became my first mistake of the day: the fog hangs over the mountain in Marin and takes some time to retreat for warmth and good views. Blissfully not considering this, I'm circling up Mt. Tam to find the trailhead, when my gas light turns on. Fail #2. If anyone knows me - I'm a worrier. Going to be difficult to enjoy this hike fearing that I'll run out of gas in the early morning cold fog. Yet, I continue forward convincing myself that I'm almost there and can coast down most of the way. Then, I discover fail #3 - the road leading to the trailhead stays closed until 9am. At this point it's only about 8 in the morning; waiting around isn't my strong suit. I decided to go get gas and find a different trail. Hence, Tennessee Valley. I literally googled "trailhead" and picked the one closest to the gas station. 

Castle Rock State Park, Independence Day

Castle Rock State Park

Solo Hike - July 4, 2015

I woke up Saturday morning, ready to take on the day. It had been some time since I'd been on a decent hike, so after a quick google search - I found this website. It is full of hikes around the entire bay area - divided by season and area. Heading South of the city is always a beautiful drive, so I picked one of their "Best Overall Hikes" in the southbay: Castle Rock. Their website can describe the hike much better than I ever could.... so click here to check it out. Read on for my personal experience & pictures... 

Ring Mountain Open Space

For Valentine's Day this year,  I took myself on a hike to watch the sunrise. Just a short drive from the city, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge,  you can find this quiet hike near Tiburon. Park along the side of the road near the trailhead, bring your furry friend if you have one, and make sure you have a flashlight with you or on your phone. Not going to lie - I was girlishly scared to do this alone in the dark, but the view was worth it. And to be honest, there's nothing to be afraid of other than tripping over a rock or tree stump in the dark - if you know anything about Marin County, you know it's a safe place to be.

Phoenix Day 2: Tonto National Forest, Pontino, The Monestary

There is way too much to write about yesterday! I may have had too much fun...

My friend C picked me up in his big truck at 7am, dogs in the back seat. He took me for a scenic drive in Tonto National Forest. I have never seen terrain such as this. The rocks are so "cliffy" we joked as I struggled to find words to describe the beauty after overusing "wow" and "amazing." The usual 1 hour drive took us two and a half hours to complete as I constantly requested to stop for pictures.

       

















First, quick stop on the side of the road gave us a breath taking view of a forest of cacti in a valley on one side and the sun rising over the mountains in the distance on the other. Life tip: unless you want to be fined $4,000 - $5,000, do not eat/shoot/try to replant a cactus. It takes 100 years for just one arm to grow on these Saguaro cacti. Second stop: the shoe tree. I guess the story behind that goes back to when Indians traveled back and forth from their tribe to society. They left "civilian" clothes in a designated spot to put on going into town and remove when returning to their village. Third quick stop was to peek at Sasquotch.

                 

Next, we reached Roosevelt Lake. It's one of the largest lakes in the country, stretching 28 miles! The chain of lakes are all man made and allow life too exist in the Valley of the Sun. Their main source of water comes from the snow run off from the surrounding mountains. A controlled flow begins at Roosevelt Lake and Roosevelt Dam. You can actually see how short the original dam stood before they built it to its current size in 1911. To get the materials to the dam, they used the narrow and shoulder-less Apache Trail. C drove us along this winding dirt road, passing Apache and Canyon Lakes, very slowly both to allow me to take pictures and to not slip over the edge!

       



















A couple of stops later, we found the perfect spot to have lunch. Along a creek with plenty of shade, room for the dogs to run,  and very few people. C pulled out a grill from the back of his truck and made us some delicious marinated chicken and green bell peppers - not a bad lunch in the middle of the desert! We searched the mountain side through binoculars for big horn sheep, but only found a car that obviously went too fast on the cliff and now is permanently parked on the side of the mountain.

I should also note how rare it is for the desert to be as green as you can see in the photos. C says they have had the perfect amount of rain and the flowers are just a week away from being in full bloom. 

We finally reluctantly left our little spot and returned to the road to drive back through more beautiful cliffs and cacti.  I eventually drifted off, which is expected if you know me at all.

For Happy Hour, we headed with my mom and friends to Postino in Gilbert for half priced glasses of wine and beer. Not much to say other than we had a blast and I highly recommend it!

We ended the night at The Monestary, an inside/outside bar with a band,  dance floor, ping pong tables, and more - all of which were fully utilized by our group.

My flight is about to leave! I need to turn off my phone!  Be back in SF soon :)

Hawaii Day 4: Kohala Forest Reserve, Hawaiian Meal, Mauna Lani Beach, and Goodbyes!

Clear view of the entire valley and helicopters flying in the distance. By far my favorite hike I've ever done.

Muddy

Kohala Forest Preserve holds one of, if not "the," best places to hike. This morning, A wanted to show me what her town of Waimea has to offer. We ventured  over a few "No trespassing" signs and fences to get to the trailhead inside the forest preserve. Apparently its "closed until further notice." Oh well! We treked through a bamboo forest then dipped, ducked, and climbed over fallen bamboo and trees as we made our way up the mountain side. We only had to go 300 feet up over the course of roughly a mile to get to the lookout. Waimea is normally cloudy and rainy, but fate gave us the great fortune of having beautiful weather: moist, fresh air and cleared skies making the valley visible 3400 feet below over the cliff. From here, we ventured along the mountain side on the narrow trail, which I should mention is covered in roots, foilage, and mud. Moving along was not an easy task! 

Facing Fears 1,000s of feet above ground

We discovered two caves alongside the path. The first was natural but contained nothing, and the second was likely man-made to access a water line. We eventually came across a part off the trail that had worn away. On the way out, I held onto a board someone rigged onto the side. On the way back, I faced my fears in following A across the water line - thousands of feet above the greenery. Amazing, breath-taking hike. If we had all day, it would have been fun to take the trail to the complete opposite side of the valley. After 2 hours, our stomachs encouraged us to turn around and trample through the mud back to civilization.

In the cave looking out

A took me to Hawaiian Style Cafe in Waimea. She says there is always a short wait, so you know its good! I guess rice is very popular on the island. By the way, portion sizes here are larger than on the mainland. I ordered Hawaiian Style Loco Moco: rice,  caramelized onions, egg, pinapple sausage, and gravy. Very filling. Didn't feel too healthy afterwards! But after this morning's hike, it was well deserved.

After packing my suitcases, we stopped at Mauna Lani Beach for a quick snorkel. Not nearly the caliber of the Captain Cook area, as the coral was completely dead, but still saw some skiddish, colorful fish. No idea what types! I'll have to look them up.

To end the trip, A took me and another friend, who happens to be flying home tonight too, to Bite Me. It sits on the Hokokohau Harbour and has the best prices for the best quality food.  I've never had Marlin before, but loved how they prepare it. Top it off with a tropical sake based drink and you're good to go. Super chill - if I lived here I would come here more than necessary. What makes it even better - there is a cat named fish that hangs out on a barstool.

It has been an unbelievable trip. One I will not soon forget! Time to go sleep on my red eye. Mahalo!

(Update: I am now finally waiting to board my plane. There was a ridiculously long line, due to a cancelled flight, but it was poorly managed. No one was using the self check in stations for those who only have carry on luggage. It would at least thin the line! I eventually jumped it and checked myself in, hopefully starting a trend. I don't think I upset anyone because not a single person had approached the two machines in the hour I was standing there.  Come on United.... I get that you're stressed, but make it easier on yourself! )

Harbor View from Bite Me

Hawaii Day 3: Captain Cook Monument, Sunset, Stars

Hawaiian Graffiti - white rocks on black rocks

After a relaxed morning, we drove down to Kealakekua Bay to see the Captain Cook Monument and snorkel in the bay. There are only two ways to reach the bay: by boat or by hiking. We made the 1.8 mile hike down 1300 feet to reach our destination.

The monument marks the spot where Hawaiians killed Captain Cook. It actually sits on British land that it's leased to the US, so I got to stand in Britain and the United States at the same time! No passport needed.

I'm in two countries at once...
that are separated by an ocean. What?!

There isn't an easy access point to the bay, so we carefully made our way into the water over slippery rocks as the tide tested our balance. The bay waters are crystal clear and calm enough for inexperienced snorkelers. The fish don't even seem to notice that their every move is being monitored by countless admirers. I tried to find an "Aquatic Life of Kealakekua Bay," but have been unsucessful thus far. For now, click here to see a video that one of the boat cruises uses to see a sample of the lively and varied colored fish found in the waters. A had the great fortune of seeing an octopus the last time she snorkeled in this bay! The yellow fish you see in the video are everywhere, and beware of the eels as shown hiding in the coral! The video has no sound, so to add some background music, this song is more than fitting. The coral is fairly colorful, find a pretty good description at this website. We met up with a couple of A's co workers that took a boat tour into the bay, a nice way to end a long snorkel session :)

Black Crabs

Getting out of the water is more challenging than getting into it. I scrapped up my knees on the first attempt, then found a rope to hoist myself out before assisting A.

The hike back was brutal. The afternoon sun beat down as we had to reclimb the 1300 feet. Definitely had to stop ay least 5 times - whenever we found a bit of shade. Out of breath, we finally reached the car. I thought I was in better shape!

Going down - much easier than going up!

This is what we faced in the
brutal afternoon sun!

After a late lunch, we met up with her coworkers again at the Hilton Waikoloa Resort. We watched the sunset while drinking lava flows and mai tais alongside a pool of dolphins, watching whales jumping on the horizon. (Rough life, I know). The sun finally dipped below the water, and following a few more drinks, we walked down to the rocky beach. We made our own Hawaiian graffiti (see first picture on post) and layed back to admire the cloudless starry night.

Dolphins on the resort

Whales kept blocking our horrible view of the sunset, it was awful :-P

To top the night off, we relaxed in a hot tub fed by a waterfall on the resort. More star gazing and starlit swimming eventually concluded my final full night on the island!

Hawaii Day 1: Volcano, Green Sand Beach, Luau, and More!

Vent in the crater at Volcano National Park

Yesterday was a wondefully long day. The purpose of this trip was stay/visit with my friend, A, from college while exploring the big island together!

A and I woke at 4:15am this morning, on the road shortly after,  in order to reach Volcano National Park by sunrise. Our strict schedule filled quickly due to the number of activities that we wanted to fit in on the East/South side of the island. Below is our itinerary - I'll add more details/links later but for now enjoy the pictures :)

6:30am sunrise at Volcano National Park. Lava tube, hike, steam vents, giant crater. We ended up not being able to do the hike we intended to because we ended up in the wrong spot. It still made for a nice hike and turned out to have a better view of the crater than the trailhead we'd been searching for. We did manage to have enough time to find the Thurston Lava Tube in the middle of the rainforest before we had to hit the road.

8:30am hit road for green sand beach

Lava Tube

9:30am get sidetracked at an awesome black sand beach called Punalu'u where we see two giant sea turtles. It was significantly warmer at sea level and I felt elated to be in such a breath-taking place. (Photos at the end of this post!)

10:20am reach the south point of the island - Mahana Bay.
     -- 1 hour hike to the Green Sand Beach (we were told it would take 2.5-3 hours! We must be speedy hikers :) ) Beautiful trek along the coast with numerous photo worthy shorelines of waves crashing against the rocks. I saw too many people making the hike in flip flops or dresses - do yourself a favor and wear tennis shoes. And suncreen while you're at it. (My neck is a little raw this morning! ) If you're not up for the long hike, locals will take you in 4wd vehicles for about $10 each way.

     -- We enjoyed the beach, water, and well deserved re-energizing snacks while taking countless pictures. This beach could not have been more majestic. There are only two Green Sand beaches in the world. Here and in the Galapagos Islands.  If it hadn't been for the unusually strong wind whipping the sand painfully into our skin, we would have stayed longer.

Finally reached the Green Sand Beach!

It's really green!

12:30pm finished the hike back to the car and drove to the most Southern point in the US. (Hawaii is the state closest to the equator - a little trivia knowledge for you)



1:30pm stopped at Pebble Beach, off the beaten path, on the drive to Kailua-Kona. Literally made up of all pebbles and violent waves rolling them around making the sounds a little more intense. The drive to the beach from the highway is super steep - you drop over 1000 feet in about 1 mile.

5pm arrive at the Luau after a quick shower stop at the hotel. Other than taking 45 minutes to get in - it was adorable and fun!  Food was delicious - and they even demonstrated how they traditionally cook the pig on the islands. See the picture below of the beast after the process: They marinate and stuff him, light some hot coals, cover it all with banana leaves, protect everything with a tarp, before burying it under layers of dirt. After cooking all day - you have a tasty dinner :) We we able to see the sun setting on the beach before tiki torches lit and the show began. "Lava and Legends"  took us through different cultural dances of the islands of the South Pacific. This is my cup of tea - I could watch shows like this daily and never tire of them. When they performed dances from New Zealand, my heart jumped a beat - that was where I first saw a cultural dance and brought back fond memories! The grand finale gave us a fire twirling Samoan man - damn - forgive me but that was hot in more ways than one!
 

After a local bar filled with dancing vacationers, I retired to the hotel and immediately crashed. (I tried to write this last night but it wasn't happening! )

Overall an amazing day.  I can't believe the number of climates we saw in one day.  A told me that the big island of Hawaii has 13 of the 15 types of climates in the world. I know today we saw: tundra, rainforest, desert, beach/tropical,  snow on the top of the mountain, maritime, and probably more. 

That's it for now! See photos of the black sand beach & more from the other experiences below. Aloha!

Waves Crashing on the hike to the Green Beach

Difficult drive to the Green Beach

More Luau

  

Steam Vents in Volcano National Park

View on the hike to Green Beach