2Seas2Summits
Brian Wilson and Mike Muench at Mauna Kea Summit with Mauna Loa in Background
An Account Of A Double Summit Of Mauna Loa And Mauna Kea, on a Trek From the Holei Sea Arch, Volcanoes National Park, to Pu'ukohola Heiau, Kawaihae in May of 2010: 160 Miles, 94+ Hours
Who Says Misery Loves Company?
The night clouds slipped slowly around us as we trudged the last four miles down the Mauna Loa Observatory Road. The dampness went almost unnoticed as we pushed those last hard miles; it seemed nothing more to us than a wispy fog or low lying cloud—a cool relief after almost two days of high dry windiness on the Mauna Loa summit trails. It wasn’t until we reached the kipuka near the Saddle Road that a heavy mist rolled in over us, soaking everything, and leaving us wet and chilled. Instead of finding a dry place to rest we toted the heavy stash boxes fifty yards off the road, and then struggled through the darkness and heavy mist laden winds in search of a place to bivwack on the high rocky ground of the old volcanic cone.
What had been a hard hike down the mountain suddenly became a nasty, cold, and somewhat paranoid ordeal. The exhausting eighteen hour trek from Red Hill to the top of Mauna Loa, down the Observatory Trail and the road, had taken its toll and I was spooked by the occasional cars that crept by the kipuka—turning out my lights and squatting in the darkness, chilled by the misty winds, and fearing some ranger would stop and tell us to move on. When I finally looked into the stash, I was disgusted by the lack of appetizing food, and then irritated that Brian seemed to be insisting on finding a bivwack far up the hillside; making it an additional effort to get things ready for what was looking to be an uncomfortable night. A difficult time was threatening to become retched.
“To tell you the truth,” I said to Brian as we put up the tarp. “I’d rather be walking.”
“Well, nothing stopping you,” was his short reply.
I didn’t know if his comment was out of irritation or simply reflected his own exhaustion and need to rest, but I was tempted to just go. It was an unfortunate choice of sites, my choice actually, there seemed no alternative when we made the plan. We couldn’t go much father in the darkness, we needed to stay together, and both of us were completely exhausted. As nasty as it seemed, it was the only option at hand. I shut up, swallowed my peevish misery, and went through the motions of settling in for the night. It was 2:00 AM by the time we were set up, and dawn was only a few hours away. I just needed to get through this without going really weird.
I climbed under the tarp, wormed my way into my sleeping bag, squirmed around until I found the least uncomfortable position and then just told myself that was that. No more moving around, no more complaining, no more nothing. I lay there thankful that I had the sense to relieve myself before climbing into the straitjacketed, damp, but kind-of-warm cocoon. My nose was running, my hands were ice cold, the rocks were digging into my hip and shoulders—I forced myself to stop registering the complaints, took a few deep breaths, and lay there promising myself it wouldn’t last too many hours. I moved occasionally as the ground rose up against me. Maybe I drowsed, I certainly rested a bit in that uneasy kind of way one does when the balance between misery and complete exhaustion has been struck. The hours passed slowly, but they passed.
The mists were finally lifting as dawn began to make itself known toward the east. As soon as it was light enough to see, I wiggled out of the sack and unsteadily made my way down the damp hillside to the stash. Away from Brian I could make noise without disturbing him. I made myself a meal, sorted through the stuff in the stash boxes, and tried to get my head right for the rest of the day. Brian had planned his Traverse as a self-contained fastpack, and he carried all his gear all the time. I, on the other hand, had opted for some stashes. The kipuka was my main one. I forced down an MRE, drank some warm coffee and a few quarts of water. The thing I found the hardest, literally, was that there was no decent place to sit. I couldn’t squat, or kneel as both had become too painful. Yet my attempts to sit were dismal failures as it seemed every rock was jagged lava, unsteady and spiked with sharp points that jabbed and poked at the tenderest places on my posterior. I fell on my ass a few times just trying to find a stable place to sit—it did nothing for my attitude. Finally I switched off the judgment machine, engineered a viable seat, ate the food, drank the liquids, and experienced the cool damp and gray dawn as it passed over the kipuka. I shook my head and smiled. Summiting Mauna Kea was likely going to be a lot easier than the past few hours of ‘rest’.
After a while I went back up to the bivwack and found Brian getting himself out from under the tarp. He didn’t look much better for the night than I figured I did. We didn’t talk much as I packed up my gear, there was little to say. We joked a bit about the night, talked over our plan for the day, packed the gear and got ready to move out. I stuffed my pack full and headed back down the hillside to the stash.
Until that night ‘bivwack’ had not been in my ultra running adventure lexicon. Now that it was I believed I could do it more successfully the next time its use rolled around. However, I held little enthusiasm for the concept.
Our original plan was to push on toward the summit, and we were still considering that, but we knew we needed to take at least an hour’s break at the cabin before heading on. The cabin had mattresses and some sleeping bags on the bunks. I took off my shoes and lay down on the bunk and passed off into a zone that was more restful than sleep, more peaceful than meditation, and more desired than a nice cold beer. Nineteen hours of almost steady moving, and 10,000 feet of climbing can take its toll. The quiet ebbed in closer, the sound of my walking gone, my breathing moderated, Brian was resting too, the wind knocked on the cabin walls occasionally, but it was mostly a solid tangible silence I heard as I drifted there just above the bunk blown about lightly by the cabin drafts.
About an hour later I settled back onto the bunk and with great difficulty managed to rouse myself. As I sat there on the edge of the bunk Brian remarked that the wind had come up. It was gusting over 20 and turning chilly even in the brightness of the early afternoon sun. We talked about the 12 plus miles to the summit cabin, the times others had logged over that distance, and our chances of reaching the cabin before dark. The rest had done us a great deal of good and we were still a bit cocky and thought we could make it, but we agreed that being on the lava at night was to be avoided. Despite our rejuvenated condition, we decided that it wasn’t worth the risk of being caught in unknown land high up the side of Mauna Loa on a windy cold night. The decision made, I fell blissfully back onto the bunk and zoned for another few hours. It was a most wonderful sleep.
Brian was up before me, I could hear him. Perhaps he was on the phone for I thought I heard conversation, I drifted off again, finally coming too in the late afternoon light of Red Hill. It was hard to get out of bed but I roused myself. Brian had treated some water and made me a cup of coffee. I ate a bit, took care of some personal issues, made a phone call to family, ate a bit more, and brushed my teeth. My chronometer read 25 hours.
Brian and I talked out the plan for the morning. It was agreed we would attempt to summit Mauna Loa and then head down the Observatory trail making it out to the road before dark—this would put us back on our original schedule. I walked outside to enjoy the endless ebbing colors, the eternal deep blues and fiery oranges of the long high mountain sunset. The wind was up, it had turned very cold. I returned to the cabin and slipped under one of the sleeping bags, warmed up and returned to the land of enchanted sleeps.
Dawn came early to Red Hill, it came quietly and with a calmness that anticipated the gentle rays of the new day’s sun, it came bringing peace even to the restless winds of Mauna Loa. It came upon me with a soft sweet clarity, bestowing a crisp lightness to my soul and an acceptance of things as they were and ever would be. I found myself sitting at the rough table, eating, not thinking, but knowing all the same, what I needed to do to prepare for the day’s trek. I took a few deep breaths, said a silent prayer of thanks for the day, packed up and prepared to leave.
As we walked through the gap that leads toward the high trail I felt a bit of regret that I was leaving Red Hill. It had been a fine place, a comfortable place, a rare place to pass some gentle time. But we had a schedule to keep, goals to achieve, and the path lay ahead of us, not resting on the warm soft bunk for another day, or leisurely exploring the environs of 10 thousand feet.
We moved off and I immediately tried to get into a better than two mile per hour pace. It was an easy pace to maintain, but one that required constant concentration, and continual adjustment as we hit fields of a’a or steep sections. It was not a pace that allowed much room for conversation. Over an hour it was a nice pace, over five or six hours at increasing elevation it became grueling. But the goals we had set required constant movement. Even with the two or three hour leeway we felt we had, we were facing the possibility of finding ourselves on the trail in the evening darkness. The trails were hard enough to follow in the daylight, we knew they would be near impossible at night, even with the aid of the growing moon and our lights.
The half day of rest had given us time to adjust to the altitude and we found ourselves stronger and with more stamina than we had felt the previous morning. We made good time, while allowing ourselves the luxury of exploring the occasional short side trail. We moved together occasionally, but for the most part traveled some distance apart. Brian taking pictures and short videos, while I was often zoning on the repetition of the pace. On those trails you can talk or walk; our schedule made our choice very clear.
The silence was pervasive yet subtle. I would stop occasionally to catch my breath or wait for Brian, and it would slip upon me unnoticed. A noise vacuum that seemed to suck away the detritus of my mind, leaving me with pure thoughts that rose out of my soul and consciousness unfettered by convention or social environment. I would think on something, and come to a quick conclusion, or be suddenly struck with a realization; all without the clumsy effort of moderating my thoughts.
I walked as well as I could, attempting to make each step perfect, concentrating on each section I faced and attempting to make it as efficiently executed as possible. I did this as much in seeking some meditative perfection as I did it just to keep moving up the trail and avoid falling down. I was physically near the edge and knew that if I lost focus I’d quickly find myself gasping for air, or lightheaded, or so tired I’d need to stop. I had faced this situation before on my Sixty Hour Birthday run, and I knew that as long as I preserved the small reserve I call ‘the edge’ I could move ahead. Lose ‘the edge’ and I would be struggling for hours. Keeping a mantra of steps that I repeated endlessly was the only way to keep pace when the horizon stretched out across the face of the mountain, the trail becoming nothing more than a meandering thread laying haphazardly across the unending lava flows that rose higher and farther ahead.
Despite the difficulty of the climb we made the ten miles from Red Hill to the secondary crater of the summit area in about six hours. We then made our way along the south western lip toward the trail junctions on the western side. Distances were deceptive and it seemed to take far too long to travel the short sections to places we could clearly see. Finally we reached the base of the Summit Trail which promised a short two-plus miles to the summit. But we had learned from earlier experiences that distance was no longer a physical attribute. Up there, on the top of Mauna Loa, distances double or triple easily. And to make matters more difficult, the trail is traveled by fewer and fewer people as one climbs toward the summit. In certain areas where the a’a flows cover the land, the trail becomes little different from its surroundings, and becomes just slightly discolored rock threading a narrow line over the rugged slightly more uneven ground.
It took us just over two hours to cover the two-plus miles to the summit—hard trail almost all the way. There were many false summits, many ‘that must be it’s, along the trail that made its way up the slope. The high cliffs of the western wall of the caldera rippled and churned, showing the signs of the highest eruptions. When we finally reached the summit it was anticlimactic, the rock cairn no bigger than many others that marked the way, some ragged prayer flags, a dried flower lei, nothing marking Hawaiian ho’okupu.
At the summit the ground was suddenly even, as if it were trodden by a host of people over endless eras of time. The rugged paths gave way to what seemed like broad walkways, that seemed to lead father along the crater’s cliffs, paths that beckoned us on, promising another ‘more true’ summit, a secret place where only those who could persevere would find a magical high point, a gate to some unknown world. I wandered off in search of it, Brian took a different path doing much the same. It wasn’t until I sat to write this that I realized the smooth nature of the summit could be the result of eons of snow fall, the pressure of the ice on the rocks, that gave that area its broad less rugged appearance. But it doesn’t take away from the strange sensations I felt high up on that desolate summit, the feeling that this was a place each Hawaiian soul must visit before it makes its way into the afterlife, the place of the last contact with the earth before launching itself into the heavens.
We would have wandered the highest reaches for longer, but we had no time. It was already mid-afternoon, on the cusp of urgency, and we had to move. Standing at the summit cairn we realized that it would be a hard push to the Observatory Road, or a similarly hard push to the summit cabin, a race with the sun to some point of safety, be it cabin or road. We began our push off the summit.
The trip down quickly turned rugged for me. My body, accustomed to days of climbing, was suddenly forced into a decent mode that it found difficult to handle. The pack began to weigh heavily on me, my back spasmed, and I found myself bending over to the right—Don Fallis like. I adjusted the pack, shifted the weight, stretched, and twisted, but it did little good—I bent farther to the right with each step. Each step caused pain and spasms, each drop down to another rock was an unsteady toppling causing pain to shoot up my back and into my head. These things happen, you have to deal with them. But when we needed speed I was suddenly plodding and unsteady. We made good time down the summit trail despite my back, but we could have done much better. I eyed the sun knowing it was winning the race, and feeling guilty for it.
We found the Observatory trail and continued our push over the desolate ground. The back pain destroyed my water rationing ability and I soon emptied my camel. At some point I realized I had to take some Ibuprofen. The gloves, the poles….it was such a hassle doing anything at altitude—I had put it off too long. We found a cinder field, a place where I could sit, and I cadged some water from Brian and took some Ibu. I lay there on the cinders, unable to get back up, and not caring much if I did. Brian did a video of me begging for help, promising to feature it as proof of my weak-kneed nature. We had a good laugh and pushed on, the sun dropping out of the sky to the west like a sinker into the dark blue ocean.
Somewhere along the trail I discovered that shortening the poles, bent me over and took the strain off my back. Within ten minutes of the revelation I was moving well down the path once again. A bit of Ibu, a bit of gear adjustment and I was back in the game. The sun had a competitor once again.
We made it to the Observatory Road within minutes of sun set. I had stashed a gallon of water and some muscle milk there. We filled up with water and chugged the muscle milk. Brian suggested we take a break and eat. I had fallen off three rocks. Nothing seemed solid, and I was certain there would be a better place down the road. We moved on, never finding a better place despite my certainty. Almost eighteen miles of dark potholed road, six or seven or eight hours of walking from eleven thousand feet down to five something. We pushed on, weary and tired, the road stretching out before us like a rubber band, always just a bit longer than it was supposed to be. It was a relief when low clouds rolled over us bathing us in a refreshing moistness. Little did we know.
The White Mountain’s Slopes
Some places are meant to be left behind, and however you manage to get away from them that’s a good plan. That was my feeling about the hours at Kipuka Huluhulu, and as hard as I knew it was going to be, I welcomed the climb up Mauna Kea.
The six and half miles from the Saddle Road to the Mauna Kea Visitors’ Center is as hard a road hill climb as there is. Every section competes with the last to be the one you will remember as the toughest, every step attempts to be the hardest you have ever taken, every mile can stretch out beyond one’s imagination, creating a numbed astonishment that the road can climb so fast in such a short distance. There was once a ‘17 Percent Grade’ sign on one section of the road, but they took it down because it scared the tourists driving rental cars. To say we pushed hard up that road is an understatement; we powered it, and made the Visitors Center in just over two hours.
A few hundred yards before I reached the Visitors’ Center a park ranger pulled up to talk. Actually I'm sure we were rather strange apparitions and he wanted to make sure we weren’t dangerous to the tourists. He asked me where we were coming from and when I told him we had started at the base of the Chain of Craters road, he stopped me mid sentence to confirm what I had said. He then sat there in silence as I outlined the route we had taken and what we were planning to do. Finally he shook his head and smiled. “I’ve heard of one other guy doing that, but not at the pace you guys are making, took him a week or so I think. That’s great! Goo Jaw! Hope the rest of the trip goes as well,” He said as he pulled away smiling, waving, and shaking his head. He was the only person we met along the entire route who truely understood what we were doing.
There are bathrooms and water at the center and we made use of them. I put out most of my clothes to dry in the high sun. It was not a leisurely stop but we did what we needed to do, and when we were set we made our way toward the trail head.
From the Saddle Road approach Mauna Kea is a dry dusty pile of rock that is slowly sloughing its sides. At the lower elevations the trail is a long hard incline up a soft powdery slope of volcanic sand, gravel and dust. Where possible I walked in the foot prints of the people who had gone up just before us, trying to take advantage of the small flat compressed spots at the bottom of each semi-conical impression. I put my head down and pushed up each section trying not to look up the near vertical line of the trail. When the trail leveled out a bit I pushed a bit harder, knowing it would once again get so steep the footing would disappear in soft steep slides of powdery sand.
A few miles up, the trail scaled the soft gravels and sands and began long steep switchbacks that took it across firmer ground—old lava fields, and what could be called glacial moraines. The altitude and the incline wore away at my resilience and soon I was forced into periods of bent over gasping. Mauna Kea shows no mercy, it simply tears away at your soul after shredding your body. Where Mauna Loa is subtle, the White Mountain is a harsh mistress with little time or patience. As hard as it was, it was better going than the last time I had done the trail—The Mauna Kea Squared run I had done with David Bonnet, when, worn down by hours of climbing out of Kawaihae and the long push up the Saddle Road, I had been bent over gasping every ten or twenty steps, suffered from vivid hallucinations, and had difficulty orienting. It had been a surreal experience bordering on dangerous.
This time it was a hard and difficult climb, worse than any on Mauna Loa, but the previous days at altitude had acclimatized us and we moved up the trails at a relatively good pace despite the rugged terrain. I was still worn down and bent over regularly, wondering if my heart was going to pop and not really caring if it did, but I wasn’t praying for Hi’iaka to come and take me, seeing her dressed in white kapa wandering across the high ridges, fantasizing resting with the others who sat in the caves along the low cliffs that are often a few hundred yards off the trail. Despite our long journey we had our suffering under control.
Brian and I climbed pretty much independently, but in sight of each other. Once again the choice is to talk or walk, and mixing the two is guaranteed to spoil both. We pushed hard, making the end of the ten mile trail in five plus hours. We regrouped briefly at the trailhead, and then pushed the last long mile of asphalt and concrete road to the summit area. A group of car bound tourists reached the top of the road before us and we followed them along the last few hundred yards of trail toward the top of the red domed summit cone. The summit of Mauna Kea is a tourist destination, and a semi-industrial wasteland of star gazer tenements. The road tourists should be severely restricted or banned, the star geezers limited, or required to hide their ugly buildings better.
We had a picture taken by one fellow--silently knowing our achievement was a bit more noteworthy and meaningful than those who congratulated themselves around us. The guy took our picture, and then made the mistake of asking us where we were hiking from. It was obvious from the glazed look that came over his eyes that he had no comprehension of what we said to him. He and his friends were happy to be able to climb into the warm car and flee down the road, leaving us to negotiate our way through the windy dusty darkness long after they were three drinks into a resort evening.
It was already getting chilly as we summited, and the afternoon winds were blowing long before sunset. We made our way back to the trailhead where I had left a stash the day before, filled up, adjusted our gear, and began the twelve mile walk down the access road.
There is a phenomena known to the star gazer types but few others. As the sun sets in the west the pyramidal shadow of Mauna Kea is cast upon the clouds and haze to the east. A crown of dark light flickers off its shadowed peak—at least it did for us. This is perhaps one of the few times in my life where the word awesome truly fit the circumstances. I felt that having pushed up the slopes and suffered the rigors of the mountain, we were being rewarded with an image of the Mountain’s spirit. Sometimes it is not what you see that matters, but the context of events in which you experience them. I am convinced that that image was for Brian and me alone. Others may have seen it, but they viewed it out of ignorance of the true nature of the White Mountain, and its real beauty was lost on them. We who had suffered, were gifted. She who had tested us so dearly, rewarded us with this stunning understanding of her nature. Then she laughed at us as we stumbled down the rock strewn dusty road, dodging cars and buses, coughing through plumes of volcanic dust, and suffering the cold winds of the darkening night.
It probably took us as long to come back down to the Visitors Center as it did to summit. It was a far less enjoyable trip. Still, it afforded those occasional moments of heart pounding beauty, and personal revelation—something I had come to accept as a matter of course on this venture. But the road dust was nasty and it tore at our lungs, leaving us coughing and gagging for hours after.
We reached the Visitors Center at the height of their evening show. An array of telescopes were scattered about the apron, well dressed tourists politely taking turns at viewing the heavens, an ensemble was playing in the small auditorium, couples were wandering around smiling….at everybody but the two very smelly dirty wild eyed bums who had appeared abruptly out of the darkness… We did what we had to do, taking advantage of this momentary contact with civilization, and then pushed on down the hill—six plus steep miles to the Saddle Road. Just as the night before, the road got longer the lower we walked, and the closer we got to the Saddle the more cloud cover pushed in from the east. It was a strange fog, one that came in layers that we could at first reach up and touch, then morphing into forms and structures ahead of us, or just off the road—mildly hallucinogenic stuff, either in its content or form. We had no time to decide, and pushed on down into the thickening brew.
Return to Perdition
It was raining and misting when we reached the road and the fogs were very thick. We found shelter in a three sided hut near the kipuka, on the far side from where we had camped the night before. The winds picked up suddenly, the temperature dropped, our fatigue adding to the chill. Walking the Saddle Road would have been very dangerous; there was no visibility, and the cars were still roaring blindly at fifty and sixty down the dark pipe of the roadway. We opted to wait it out—we had little choice. Brian pulled out his sleeping bag and climbed in. I crossed my arms and lay back on the other bench, making the best of it.
About an hour later I roused myself out of a chilled fatigued collapse and looked toward the road. The fogs had lifted a bit. The wind was blowing stronger, it was cold and there was rain in the air. My lights were in the stash on the other side of the Pu’u—bad planning. I took Brian’s light and stumbled out to get my gear. It was a miserable little venture, but laying on that bench shivering in the cold dark night was no better option. The only way out, like the descriptions of escapes from the circles of hell, was to move inward. The damned souls I passed out there were all whining about the weather and the fatigue that racked their bodies, and they were buried up to their ears in sharp lava rock that had cascaded down off that Kipuka over the eons as they lay there whimpering. I pushed by them as they whined their complaints and excuses to me, my head down, the wind chilling my damp body, my mind full of paranoia, the aches and pains causing me to stumble and occasionally fall on the uneven lava. I just knew I would not end up like them. Shivering and wet, I finally got to the stash, got my lights, found some warmer clothes, chugged a muscle milk or two, and headed back to the hut. It was just another summit. The path back was all down hill.
When I got back I sat there and let the shivering subside a bit. After a few minutes Brian and I talked about The Plan. “The fog is gone. It’s still cold, windy and rainy. None of those are an excuse to stay here.” I said. Brian reluctantly agreed. Brian caught a great shot of me at that moment which tells you more than I can describe. We moved out some time later.
The night walk down the saddle road was …..you got it….miserable. Just another 8, 10, 12, who knows, hours of concentrating on the next step and working hard at not registering one’s feelings. It was cold for the first hours as we warmed up. It was strange getting used to the occasional speeding cars. The military, which controls Pohukuloa, has a penchant for blinking lights—which play havoc with the eyes of fatigued guys wandering along the road very late at night. The long straight stretches of the new Saddle Road allow car lights to shine directly on one for what seems like five to ten minutes—adding to the light induced blindness. We stumbled down the road hallucinating strange surroundings.
Many hours in, dog tired, unable to focus, but not even past the western edges of Pohakuloa we came upon a strange looking area on the side of the road. In the glow of our lights it seemed wrapped in pillows and covered in blankets. Brian and I both saw it, we stopped walked over to it and tested it with our feet. “Soft,” said Brian. “Looks comfortable,” he continued. “Let’s see.” I said as I fell down and closed my eyes. We lay there not ten feet from the side of the road, stretched out like dead men, cars speeding by, some slowing on occasion, but none stopping. Some time later chill winds woke us, and we moved stiffly on.
No Peaceful Ending
We made the forty-five mile marker in the high hills of South Kohala after dawn. I had a small stash there. Brian wrapped his ankle which was swelling. We adjusted gear and marched on into the day. It’s a long way down the Saddle Road. There was a whole section I had managed to block from my mind. Remembrance of it crept painfully back as we negotiated each long hot dry step of it. A wind came up and was briefly refreshing, but heavy dry hot gusts were whipping into our faces by the time we finally made the turn onto the last seven miles of the trek into Waimea. I felt as if the gods and spirits of the land were testing us once again. Perhaps they were competing to see which mountain gap could be the most miserable. Whatever their reason, I felt their taunting. But I refused to be beaten and bent over and marched into the wind, trying to provide a draft for Brian who was struggling a bit with his ankle. We charged on, Waimea slipping farther and farther away despite our charge, the gusts increasing with each additional mile. The gods toyed with us. The menehune marking up the road with meaningless numbers that promised an early end to the suffering but only served to heighten the difficulties of the passage. Finally we walked into Waimea, people staring at us as if we had just attacked from Mars. “Acck Acck!” I croaked to one wide-eyed woman staring at me from the inside of gigantic SUV. Bone dry, unsteady, on the verge of insanity, we watered at a gas station and headed off down the hill toward Kawaihae.
Wendy saw us there at the top of the hill, crazed, dehydrated, sun-burned, staring out of wild eyes, smelly, dirty, with little on our minds but putting an end to it. The wind was at our back, but the sun fell out of the sky roasting what was left of us. We endured ten miles of narrow, windy, steep down hill road, busy with Sunday afternoon traffic, hot, and dangerous. We pushed on because there was nothing else to do, and no excuse not to do it.
We made it to Spencer Beach Park and Pu’uokohola heiau, late Sunday afternoon, out of water, sun burned, tired, 94 plus hours showing on the clock. Libby greeted us with a welcoming chant and haku she had woven herself from flowers and leaves she had picked near the volcanoes. Beach goers pushed by us, packing up, piling into cars. Brian and I were suddenly lost. We stumbled toward the water, stood there a bit dazed, wandered back to the picnic table. We unsteadily showered, ate a bit, climbed into the car for the ride back. But we were both still out there on the mountain—our minds and bodies moving up the trails of Mauna Loa, listening to absolutely nothing, breathing the cool clear air, seeing all the way to the otherside of the universe. Telescopes? We don’t need no stinking telescopes!
I can not speak for Brian, but it is hard to say if I am ever coming back from this one.
Aloha. Mikem
The Pics:
All pictures are copyrighted (c) by Brian Wilson and reuse is subject to his approval.
Brian has posted a large set on Facebook.
I have reposted some at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mmuench01/TwoSeasTwoSummits#
Big Island Traverse / 2Seas2Summits*
An Account Of A Double Summit Of Mauna Loa And Mauna Kea, on a Trek From the Holei Sea Arch, Volcanoes National Park, to Pu'ukohola Heiau, Kawaihae in May of 2010: 160 Miles, 94+ Hours
Who Says Misery Loves Company?
The night clouds slipped slowly around us as we trudged the last four miles down the Mauna Loa Observatory Road. The dampness went almost unnoticed as we pushed those last hard miles; it seemed nothing more to us than a wispy fog or low lying cloud—a cool relief after almost two days of high dry windiness on the Mauna Loa summit trails. It wasn’t until we reached the kipuka near the Saddle Road that a heavy mist rolled in over us, soaking everything, and leaving us wet and chilled. Instead of finding a dry place to rest we toted the heavy stash boxes fifty yards off the road, and then struggled through the darkness and heavy mist laden winds in search of a place to bivwack on the high rocky ground of the old volcanic cone.
What had been a hard hike down the mountain suddenly became a nasty, cold, and somewhat paranoid ordeal. The exhausting eighteen hour trek from Red Hill to the top of Mauna Loa, down the Observatory Trail and the road, had taken its toll and I was spooked by the occasional cars that crept by the kipuka—turning out my lights and squatting in the darkness, chilled by the misty winds, and fearing some ranger would stop and tell us to move on. When I finally looked into the stash, I was disgusted by the lack of appetizing food, and then irritated that Brian seemed to be insisting on finding a bivwack far up the hillside; making it an additional effort to get things ready for what was looking to be an uncomfortable night. A difficult time was threatening to become retched.
“To tell you the truth,” I said to Brian as we put up the tarp. “I’d rather be walking.”
“Well, nothing stopping you,” was his short reply.
I didn’t know if his comment was out of irritation or simply reflected his own exhaustion and need to rest, but I was tempted to just go. It was an unfortunate choice of sites, my choice actually, there seemed no alternative when we made the plan. We couldn’t go much father in the darkness, we needed to stay together, and both of us were completely exhausted. As nasty as it seemed, it was the only option at hand. I shut up, swallowed my peevish misery, and went through the motions of settling in for the night. It was 2:00 AM by the time we were set up, and dawn was only a few hours away. I just needed to get through this without going really weird.
I climbed under the tarp, wormed my way into my sleeping bag, squirmed around until I found the least uncomfortable position and then just told myself that was that. No more moving around, no more complaining, no more nothing. I lay there thankful that I had the sense to relieve myself before climbing into the straitjacketed, damp, but kind-of-warm cocoon. My nose was running, my hands were ice cold, the rocks were digging into my hip and shoulders—I forced myself to stop registering the complaints, took a few deep breaths, and lay there promising myself it wouldn’t last too many hours. I moved occasionally as the ground rose up against me. Maybe I drowsed, I certainly rested a bit in that uneasy kind of way one does when the balance between misery and complete exhaustion has been struck. The hours passed slowly, but they passed.
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The mists were finally lifting as dawn began to make itself known toward the east. As soon as it was light enough to see, I wiggled out of the sack and unsteadily made my way down the damp hillside to the stash. Away from Brian I could make noise without disturbing him. I made myself a meal, sorted through the stuff in the stash boxes, and tried to get my head right for the rest of the day. Brian had planned his Traverse as a self-contained fastpack, and he carried all his gear all the time. I, on the other hand, had opted for some stashes. The kipuka was my main one. I forced down an MRE, drank some warm coffee and a few quarts of water. The thing I found the hardest, literally, was that there was no decent place to sit. I couldn’t squat, or kneel as both had become too painful. Yet my attempts to sit were dismal failures as it seemed every rock was jagged lava, unsteady and spiked with sharp points that jabbed and poked at the tenderest places on my posterior. I fell on my ass a few times just trying to find a stable place to sit—it did nothing for my attitude. Finally I switched off the judgment machine, engineered a viable seat, ate the food, drank the liquids, and experienced the cool damp and gray dawn as it passed over the kipuka. I shook my head and smiled. Summiting Mauna Kea was likely going to be a lot easier than the past few hours of ‘rest’.
After a while I went back up to the bivwack and found Brian getting himself out from under the tarp. He didn’t look much better for the night than I figured I did. We didn’t talk much as I packed up my gear, there was little to say. We joked a bit about the night, talked over our plan for the day, packed the gear and got ready to move out. I stuffed my pack full and headed back down the hillside to the stash.
Until that night ‘bivwack’ had not been in my ultra running adventure lexicon. Now that it was I believed I could do it more successfully the next time its use rolled around. However, I held little enthusiasm for the concept.
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* Brian Wilson's Big Island Traverse was a self-supported self contained fast pack. He carried everything he needed all the time. I chose to rely on stashes. I traveled lighter for a considerable period of time. Brian and I shared water from the stashes, but little else. When I read about Brian's plans I contacted him as I had been thinking of the same basic concept but had called it 2Seas2Summits. Hence the double name, which remains appropriate considering the differences in our approaches to this venture. We did however share the common goal of completing this trek well and together, and we worked together to that end.
Into High Air!
Brian and I had been on the trail for just over sixty hours when we headed up the Mauna Kea access road the morning after that uneasy rest on the side of the Kipuka.
Sixty hours earlier we had been on the iron bound coast at the Holei Sea Arches at the bottom of the Chain of Craters Road. After a brief blessing chant requesting entry and safe passage delivered by my good friend Libby, we departed the coast about 5:30 PM on Wednesday evening. We hiked up ten miles of steep Chain of Craters Road to the Mauna Ulu observation area, then up the Escape Road to the Crater Rim Trail. We took the Crater Rim trail to Kilauea Military Camp, cut through the camp, and headed west on the Belt Road for a few miles, then up the Mauna Loa Access Road to the Mauna Loa trail head. All in all it took us about 13 hours to make the 35 mile, 6000+ foot assent. I had stashed water along the way so we were OK on that score.
It had been a stunningly beautiful night. The sun had set directly over the summit of Mauna Loa, providing a land based ‘green flash’. A waxing moon had lighted our way up the road giving an eerie cool cast to the miles of a’a and laupahoehoe flows that cascaded off the pali. When we reached the Kilauea craters we enjoyed multiple views of the red glowing steam and ash clouds rising out of the Halema’uma’u caldera. We had seen a few owls and perhaps a hawk. After the moon set the early morning stars had been as bright as I had seen since my days in Samoa, with the Milkyway a vast bright billowy cloud spreading out across the sky. We had also been treated to a score of meteor trails. The walk through the highland forest was filled with shadows, noises, and mysteries.
The access road was a hard push, the steep ‘10 mile road’, was actually about 13 miles long; the last three miles rife with false hopes of an early end around the next bend. But we made it nearly on schedule and had put the first section of the long Mauna Loa ascent behind us.
Brian had taken a bit of a beating and he climbed into his sleeping bag for an hour’s sleep while I ate and sorted through the stash bin to provision my full pack for the hike up the Mauna Loa trail. After two hours Brian was feeling better, I was packed, and we started up the trail. I didn’t make it more than a couple of miles before I realized that I was carrying too much weight and needed to lighten the load. It hit me like sledge hammer as I struggled to keep up with Brian. I was suddenly weak, breathing hard, and having trouble focusing. I was finally forced to stop and go quickly through my gear. I drank a couple of the muscle milks I had squirreled away in the pack, ditched some perishables, and siphoned off a bit of water. It was only a couple of pounds but it made the difference and allowed me to handle the load better. I was still struggling with the weight but it wasn’t so obvious.
The trail to Red Hill Cabin is the steepest part of the ascent. The elevation markers came into view in rapid succession as the trail pushed up two sharp inclines and slowly left the vegetation behind. It leveled out a bit after eight thousand feet, but by then the altitude effects were kicking in and just maintaining a pace was a challenge. The occasional bird calls slowly faded and quiet settled in. There was the sound of breathing, the crunch of shoes on the trail, the sound of hiking poles hitting rock, and the occasional word, but for the most part there was just the sound of the wind echoing about.
Quiet is one of those hard found luxuries that grant the soul freedom to breath. It bathes the nerves in softness and restores the mind’s ability to reason deeply. Quiet brought me a smile, it helped me breath, and it blessed me with a calmness I had not felt in months. Pushing up past 8 thousand feet those last long miles toward 10 thousand were physically hard but emotionally rejuvenating. In the pristine quiet of the trail I found the ability to push myself harder and enjoy it more. The sharp crisp air was like a drug, a soma, that bequeathed a gentle peace, a firm resolve to push on as my body weakened under the strain of over 15 hours of upward effort and dwindling oxygen.
I’d been up the Red Hill Trail a few times before, and was well aware that Red Hill comes tantalizingly into view a couple of hours before one actually pushes up and around its steep red rock hillside to finally find the Cabin tucked down in the pocket of the crater. I kept my head down and pushed on knowing if I looked up I would register little progress. The valleys and false last ridges of the barren lava fields ran through a kaleidoscope of change and I enjoyed their teasing vistas, knowing it would be hours before I actually walked that curved trail toward the back of Pu’u Uluulu. We made good time despite our fatigue and reached the cabin before noon.
Into High Air!
Brian and I had been on the trail for just over sixty hours when we headed up the Mauna Kea access road the morning after that uneasy rest on the side of the Kipuka.
Sixty hours earlier we had been on the iron bound coast at the Holei Sea Arches at the bottom of the Chain of Craters Road. After a brief blessing chant requesting entry and safe passage delivered by my good friend Libby, we departed the coast about 5:30 PM on Wednesday evening. We hiked up ten miles of steep Chain of Craters Road to the Mauna Ulu observation area, then up the Escape Road to the Crater Rim Trail. We took the Crater Rim trail to Kilauea Military Camp, cut through the camp, and headed west on the Belt Road for a few miles, then up the Mauna Loa Access Road to the Mauna Loa trail head. All in all it took us about 13 hours to make the 35 mile, 6000+ foot assent. I had stashed water along the way so we were OK on that score.
It had been a stunningly beautiful night. The sun had set directly over the summit of Mauna Loa, providing a land based ‘green flash’. A waxing moon had lighted our way up the road giving an eerie cool cast to the miles of a’a and laupahoehoe flows that cascaded off the pali. When we reached the Kilauea craters we enjoyed multiple views of the red glowing steam and ash clouds rising out of the Halema’uma’u caldera. We had seen a few owls and perhaps a hawk. After the moon set the early morning stars had been as bright as I had seen since my days in Samoa, with the Milkyway a vast bright billowy cloud spreading out across the sky. We had also been treated to a score of meteor trails. The walk through the highland forest was filled with shadows, noises, and mysteries.
The access road was a hard push, the steep ‘10 mile road’, was actually about 13 miles long; the last three miles rife with false hopes of an early end around the next bend. But we made it nearly on schedule and had put the first section of the long Mauna Loa ascent behind us.
Brian had taken a bit of a beating and he climbed into his sleeping bag for an hour’s sleep while I ate and sorted through the stash bin to provision my full pack for the hike up the Mauna Loa trail. After two hours Brian was feeling better, I was packed, and we started up the trail. I didn’t make it more than a couple of miles before I realized that I was carrying too much weight and needed to lighten the load. It hit me like sledge hammer as I struggled to keep up with Brian. I was suddenly weak, breathing hard, and having trouble focusing. I was finally forced to stop and go quickly through my gear. I drank a couple of the muscle milks I had squirreled away in the pack, ditched some perishables, and siphoned off a bit of water. It was only a couple of pounds but it made the difference and allowed me to handle the load better. I was still struggling with the weight but it wasn’t so obvious.
The trail to Red Hill Cabin is the steepest part of the ascent. The elevation markers came into view in rapid succession as the trail pushed up two sharp inclines and slowly left the vegetation behind. It leveled out a bit after eight thousand feet, but by then the altitude effects were kicking in and just maintaining a pace was a challenge. The occasional bird calls slowly faded and quiet settled in. There was the sound of breathing, the crunch of shoes on the trail, the sound of hiking poles hitting rock, and the occasional word, but for the most part there was just the sound of the wind echoing about.
Quiet is one of those hard found luxuries that grant the soul freedom to breath. It bathes the nerves in softness and restores the mind’s ability to reason deeply. Quiet brought me a smile, it helped me breath, and it blessed me with a calmness I had not felt in months. Pushing up past 8 thousand feet those last long miles toward 10 thousand were physically hard but emotionally rejuvenating. In the pristine quiet of the trail I found the ability to push myself harder and enjoy it more. The sharp crisp air was like a drug, a soma, that bequeathed a gentle peace, a firm resolve to push on as my body weakened under the strain of over 15 hours of upward effort and dwindling oxygen.
I’d been up the Red Hill Trail a few times before, and was well aware that Red Hill comes tantalizingly into view a couple of hours before one actually pushes up and around its steep red rock hillside to finally find the Cabin tucked down in the pocket of the crater. I kept my head down and pushed on knowing if I looked up I would register little progress. The valleys and false last ridges of the barren lava fields ran through a kaleidoscope of change and I enjoyed their teasing vistas, knowing it would be hours before I actually walked that curved trail toward the back of Pu’u Uluulu. We made good time despite our fatigue and reached the cabin before noon.
Our original plan was to push on toward the summit, and we were still considering that, but we knew we needed to take at least an hour’s break at the cabin before heading on. The cabin had mattresses and some sleeping bags on the bunks. I took off my shoes and lay down on the bunk and passed off into a zone that was more restful than sleep, more peaceful than meditation, and more desired than a nice cold beer. Nineteen hours of almost steady moving, and 10,000 feet of climbing can take its toll. The quiet ebbed in closer, the sound of my walking gone, my breathing moderated, Brian was resting too, the wind knocked on the cabin walls occasionally, but it was mostly a solid tangible silence I heard as I drifted there just above the bunk blown about lightly by the cabin drafts.
About an hour later I settled back onto the bunk and with great difficulty managed to rouse myself. As I sat there on the edge of the bunk Brian remarked that the wind had come up. It was gusting over 20 and turning chilly even in the brightness of the early afternoon sun. We talked about the 12 plus miles to the summit cabin, the times others had logged over that distance, and our chances of reaching the cabin before dark. The rest had done us a great deal of good and we were still a bit cocky and thought we could make it, but we agreed that being on the lava at night was to be avoided. Despite our rejuvenated condition, we decided that it wasn’t worth the risk of being caught in unknown land high up the side of Mauna Loa on a windy cold night. The decision made, I fell blissfully back onto the bunk and zoned for another few hours. It was a most wonderful sleep.
Brian was up before me, I could hear him. Perhaps he was on the phone for I thought I heard conversation, I drifted off again, finally coming too in the late afternoon light of Red Hill. It was hard to get out of bed but I roused myself. Brian had treated some water and made me a cup of coffee. I ate a bit, took care of some personal issues, made a phone call to family, ate a bit more, and brushed my teeth. My chronometer read 25 hours.
Brian and I talked out the plan for the morning. It was agreed we would attempt to summit Mauna Loa and then head down the Observatory trail making it out to the road before dark—this would put us back on our original schedule. I walked outside to enjoy the endless ebbing colors, the eternal deep blues and fiery oranges of the long high mountain sunset. The wind was up, it had turned very cold. I returned to the cabin and slipped under one of the sleeping bags, warmed up and returned to the land of enchanted sleeps.
Dawn came early to Red Hill, it came quietly and with a calmness that anticipated the gentle rays of the new day’s sun, it came bringing peace even to the restless winds of Mauna Loa. It came upon me with a soft sweet clarity, bestowing a crisp lightness to my soul and an acceptance of things as they were and ever would be. I found myself sitting at the rough table, eating, not thinking, but knowing all the same, what I needed to do to prepare for the day’s trek. I took a few deep breaths, said a silent prayer of thanks for the day, packed up and prepared to leave.
As we walked through the gap that leads toward the high trail I felt a bit of regret that I was leaving Red Hill. It had been a fine place, a comfortable place, a rare place to pass some gentle time. But we had a schedule to keep, goals to achieve, and the path lay ahead of us, not resting on the warm soft bunk for another day, or leisurely exploring the environs of 10 thousand feet.
We moved off and I immediately tried to get into a better than two mile per hour pace. It was an easy pace to maintain, but one that required constant concentration, and continual adjustment as we hit fields of a’a or steep sections. It was not a pace that allowed much room for conversation. Over an hour it was a nice pace, over five or six hours at increasing elevation it became grueling. But the goals we had set required constant movement. Even with the two or three hour leeway we felt we had, we were facing the possibility of finding ourselves on the trail in the evening darkness. The trails were hard enough to follow in the daylight, we knew they would be near impossible at night, even with the aid of the growing moon and our lights.
The half day of rest had given us time to adjust to the altitude and we found ourselves stronger and with more stamina than we had felt the previous morning. We made good time, while allowing ourselves the luxury of exploring the occasional short side trail. We moved together occasionally, but for the most part traveled some distance apart. Brian taking pictures and short videos, while I was often zoning on the repetition of the pace. On those trails you can talk or walk; our schedule made our choice very clear.
The silence was pervasive yet subtle. I would stop occasionally to catch my breath or wait for Brian, and it would slip upon me unnoticed. A noise vacuum that seemed to suck away the detritus of my mind, leaving me with pure thoughts that rose out of my soul and consciousness unfettered by convention or social environment. I would think on something, and come to a quick conclusion, or be suddenly struck with a realization; all without the clumsy effort of moderating my thoughts.
I walked as well as I could, attempting to make each step perfect, concentrating on each section I faced and attempting to make it as efficiently executed as possible. I did this as much in seeking some meditative perfection as I did it just to keep moving up the trail and avoid falling down. I was physically near the edge and knew that if I lost focus I’d quickly find myself gasping for air, or lightheaded, or so tired I’d need to stop. I had faced this situation before on my Sixty Hour Birthday run, and I knew that as long as I preserved the small reserve I call ‘the edge’ I could move ahead. Lose ‘the edge’ and I would be struggling for hours. Keeping a mantra of steps that I repeated endlessly was the only way to keep pace when the horizon stretched out across the face of the mountain, the trail becoming nothing more than a meandering thread laying haphazardly across the unending lava flows that rose higher and farther ahead.
Despite the difficulty of the climb we made the ten miles from Red Hill to the secondary crater of the summit area in about six hours. We then made our way along the south western lip toward the trail junctions on the western side. Distances were deceptive and it seemed to take far too long to travel the short sections to places we could clearly see. Finally we reached the base of the Summit Trail which promised a short two-plus miles to the summit. But we had learned from earlier experiences that distance was no longer a physical attribute. Up there, on the top of Mauna Loa, distances double or triple easily. And to make matters more difficult, the trail is traveled by fewer and fewer people as one climbs toward the summit. In certain areas where the a’a flows cover the land, the trail becomes little different from its surroundings, and becomes just slightly discolored rock threading a narrow line over the rugged slightly more uneven ground.
It took us just over two hours to cover the two-plus miles to the summit—hard trail almost all the way. There were many false summits, many ‘that must be it’s, along the trail that made its way up the slope. The high cliffs of the western wall of the caldera rippled and churned, showing the signs of the highest eruptions. When we finally reached the summit it was anticlimactic, the rock cairn no bigger than many others that marked the way, some ragged prayer flags, a dried flower lei, nothing marking Hawaiian ho’okupu.
At the summit the ground was suddenly even, as if it were trodden by a host of people over endless eras of time. The rugged paths gave way to what seemed like broad walkways, that seemed to lead father along the crater’s cliffs, paths that beckoned us on, promising another ‘more true’ summit, a secret place where only those who could persevere would find a magical high point, a gate to some unknown world. I wandered off in search of it, Brian took a different path doing much the same. It wasn’t until I sat to write this that I realized the smooth nature of the summit could be the result of eons of snow fall, the pressure of the ice on the rocks, that gave that area its broad less rugged appearance. But it doesn’t take away from the strange sensations I felt high up on that desolate summit, the feeling that this was a place each Hawaiian soul must visit before it makes its way into the afterlife, the place of the last contact with the earth before launching itself into the heavens.
We would have wandered the highest reaches for longer, but we had no time. It was already mid-afternoon, on the cusp of urgency, and we had to move. Standing at the summit cairn we realized that it would be a hard push to the Observatory Road, or a similarly hard push to the summit cabin, a race with the sun to some point of safety, be it cabin or road. We began our push off the summit.
The trip down quickly turned rugged for me. My body, accustomed to days of climbing, was suddenly forced into a decent mode that it found difficult to handle. The pack began to weigh heavily on me, my back spasmed, and I found myself bending over to the right—Don Fallis like. I adjusted the pack, shifted the weight, stretched, and twisted, but it did little good—I bent farther to the right with each step. Each step caused pain and spasms, each drop down to another rock was an unsteady toppling causing pain to shoot up my back and into my head. These things happen, you have to deal with them. But when we needed speed I was suddenly plodding and unsteady. We made good time down the summit trail despite my back, but we could have done much better. I eyed the sun knowing it was winning the race, and feeling guilty for it.
We found the Observatory trail and continued our push over the desolate ground. The back pain destroyed my water rationing ability and I soon emptied my camel. At some point I realized I had to take some Ibuprofen. The gloves, the poles….it was such a hassle doing anything at altitude—I had put it off too long. We found a cinder field, a place where I could sit, and I cadged some water from Brian and took some Ibu. I lay there on the cinders, unable to get back up, and not caring much if I did. Brian did a video of me begging for help, promising to feature it as proof of my weak-kneed nature. We had a good laugh and pushed on, the sun dropping out of the sky to the west like a sinker into the dark blue ocean.
Somewhere along the trail I discovered that shortening the poles, bent me over and took the strain off my back. Within ten minutes of the revelation I was moving well down the path once again. A bit of Ibu, a bit of gear adjustment and I was back in the game. The sun had a competitor once again.
We made it to the Observatory Road within minutes of sun set. I had stashed a gallon of water and some muscle milk there. We filled up with water and chugged the muscle milk. Brian suggested we take a break and eat. I had fallen off three rocks. Nothing seemed solid, and I was certain there would be a better place down the road. We moved on, never finding a better place despite my certainty. Almost eighteen miles of dark potholed road, six or seven or eight hours of walking from eleven thousand feet down to five something. We pushed on, weary and tired, the road stretching out before us like a rubber band, always just a bit longer than it was supposed to be. It was a relief when low clouds rolled over us bathing us in a refreshing moistness. Little did we know.
The White Mountain’s Slopes
Some places are meant to be left behind, and however you manage to get away from them that’s a good plan. That was my feeling about the hours at Kipuka Huluhulu, and as hard as I knew it was going to be, I welcomed the climb up Mauna Kea.
The six and half miles from the Saddle Road to the Mauna Kea Visitors’ Center is as hard a road hill climb as there is. Every section competes with the last to be the one you will remember as the toughest, every step attempts to be the hardest you have ever taken, every mile can stretch out beyond one’s imagination, creating a numbed astonishment that the road can climb so fast in such a short distance. There was once a ‘17 Percent Grade’ sign on one section of the road, but they took it down because it scared the tourists driving rental cars. To say we pushed hard up that road is an understatement; we powered it, and made the Visitors Center in just over two hours.
A few hundred yards before I reached the Visitors’ Center a park ranger pulled up to talk. Actually I'm sure we were rather strange apparitions and he wanted to make sure we weren’t dangerous to the tourists. He asked me where we were coming from and when I told him we had started at the base of the Chain of Craters road, he stopped me mid sentence to confirm what I had said. He then sat there in silence as I outlined the route we had taken and what we were planning to do. Finally he shook his head and smiled. “I’ve heard of one other guy doing that, but not at the pace you guys are making, took him a week or so I think. That’s great! Goo Jaw! Hope the rest of the trip goes as well,” He said as he pulled away smiling, waving, and shaking his head. He was the only person we met along the entire route who truely understood what we were doing.
There are bathrooms and water at the center and we made use of them. I put out most of my clothes to dry in the high sun. It was not a leisurely stop but we did what we needed to do, and when we were set we made our way toward the trail head.
From the Saddle Road approach Mauna Kea is a dry dusty pile of rock that is slowly sloughing its sides. At the lower elevations the trail is a long hard incline up a soft powdery slope of volcanic sand, gravel and dust. Where possible I walked in the foot prints of the people who had gone up just before us, trying to take advantage of the small flat compressed spots at the bottom of each semi-conical impression. I put my head down and pushed up each section trying not to look up the near vertical line of the trail. When the trail leveled out a bit I pushed a bit harder, knowing it would once again get so steep the footing would disappear in soft steep slides of powdery sand.
A few miles up, the trail scaled the soft gravels and sands and began long steep switchbacks that took it across firmer ground—old lava fields, and what could be called glacial moraines. The altitude and the incline wore away at my resilience and soon I was forced into periods of bent over gasping. Mauna Kea shows no mercy, it simply tears away at your soul after shredding your body. Where Mauna Loa is subtle, the White Mountain is a harsh mistress with little time or patience. As hard as it was, it was better going than the last time I had done the trail—The Mauna Kea Squared run I had done with David Bonnet, when, worn down by hours of climbing out of Kawaihae and the long push up the Saddle Road, I had been bent over gasping every ten or twenty steps, suffered from vivid hallucinations, and had difficulty orienting. It had been a surreal experience bordering on dangerous.
This time it was a hard and difficult climb, worse than any on Mauna Loa, but the previous days at altitude had acclimatized us and we moved up the trails at a relatively good pace despite the rugged terrain. I was still worn down and bent over regularly, wondering if my heart was going to pop and not really caring if it did, but I wasn’t praying for Hi’iaka to come and take me, seeing her dressed in white kapa wandering across the high ridges, fantasizing resting with the others who sat in the caves along the low cliffs that are often a few hundred yards off the trail. Despite our long journey we had our suffering under control.
Brian and I climbed pretty much independently, but in sight of each other. Once again the choice is to talk or walk, and mixing the two is guaranteed to spoil both. We pushed hard, making the end of the ten mile trail in five plus hours. We regrouped briefly at the trailhead, and then pushed the last long mile of asphalt and concrete road to the summit area. A group of car bound tourists reached the top of the road before us and we followed them along the last few hundred yards of trail toward the top of the red domed summit cone. The summit of Mauna Kea is a tourist destination, and a semi-industrial wasteland of star gazer tenements. The road tourists should be severely restricted or banned, the star geezers limited, or required to hide their ugly buildings better.
We had a picture taken by one fellow--silently knowing our achievement was a bit more noteworthy and meaningful than those who congratulated themselves around us. The guy took our picture, and then made the mistake of asking us where we were hiking from. It was obvious from the glazed look that came over his eyes that he had no comprehension of what we said to him. He and his friends were happy to be able to climb into the warm car and flee down the road, leaving us to negotiate our way through the windy dusty darkness long after they were three drinks into a resort evening.
It was already getting chilly as we summited, and the afternoon winds were blowing long before sunset. We made our way back to the trailhead where I had left a stash the day before, filled up, adjusted our gear, and began the twelve mile walk down the access road.
There is a phenomena known to the star gazer types but few others. As the sun sets in the west the pyramidal shadow of Mauna Kea is cast upon the clouds and haze to the east. A crown of dark light flickers off its shadowed peak—at least it did for us. This is perhaps one of the few times in my life where the word awesome truly fit the circumstances. I felt that having pushed up the slopes and suffered the rigors of the mountain, we were being rewarded with an image of the Mountain’s spirit. Sometimes it is not what you see that matters, but the context of events in which you experience them. I am convinced that that image was for Brian and me alone. Others may have seen it, but they viewed it out of ignorance of the true nature of the White Mountain, and its real beauty was lost on them. We who had suffered, were gifted. She who had tested us so dearly, rewarded us with this stunning understanding of her nature. Then she laughed at us as we stumbled down the rock strewn dusty road, dodging cars and buses, coughing through plumes of volcanic dust, and suffering the cold winds of the darkening night.
It probably took us as long to come back down to the Visitors Center as it did to summit. It was a far less enjoyable trip. Still, it afforded those occasional moments of heart pounding beauty, and personal revelation—something I had come to accept as a matter of course on this venture. But the road dust was nasty and it tore at our lungs, leaving us coughing and gagging for hours after.
We reached the Visitors Center at the height of their evening show. An array of telescopes were scattered about the apron, well dressed tourists politely taking turns at viewing the heavens, an ensemble was playing in the small auditorium, couples were wandering around smiling….at everybody but the two very smelly dirty wild eyed bums who had appeared abruptly out of the darkness… We did what we had to do, taking advantage of this momentary contact with civilization, and then pushed on down the hill—six plus steep miles to the Saddle Road. Just as the night before, the road got longer the lower we walked, and the closer we got to the Saddle the more cloud cover pushed in from the east. It was a strange fog, one that came in layers that we could at first reach up and touch, then morphing into forms and structures ahead of us, or just off the road—mildly hallucinogenic stuff, either in its content or form. We had no time to decide, and pushed on down into the thickening brew.
Return to Perdition
It was raining and misting when we reached the road and the fogs were very thick. We found shelter in a three sided hut near the kipuka, on the far side from where we had camped the night before. The winds picked up suddenly, the temperature dropped, our fatigue adding to the chill. Walking the Saddle Road would have been very dangerous; there was no visibility, and the cars were still roaring blindly at fifty and sixty down the dark pipe of the roadway. We opted to wait it out—we had little choice. Brian pulled out his sleeping bag and climbed in. I crossed my arms and lay back on the other bench, making the best of it.
About an hour later I roused myself out of a chilled fatigued collapse and looked toward the road. The fogs had lifted a bit. The wind was blowing stronger, it was cold and there was rain in the air. My lights were in the stash on the other side of the Pu’u—bad planning. I took Brian’s light and stumbled out to get my gear. It was a miserable little venture, but laying on that bench shivering in the cold dark night was no better option. The only way out, like the descriptions of escapes from the circles of hell, was to move inward. The damned souls I passed out there were all whining about the weather and the fatigue that racked their bodies, and they were buried up to their ears in sharp lava rock that had cascaded down off that Kipuka over the eons as they lay there whimpering. I pushed by them as they whined their complaints and excuses to me, my head down, the wind chilling my damp body, my mind full of paranoia, the aches and pains causing me to stumble and occasionally fall on the uneven lava. I just knew I would not end up like them. Shivering and wet, I finally got to the stash, got my lights, found some warmer clothes, chugged a muscle milk or two, and headed back to the hut. It was just another summit. The path back was all down hill.
When I got back I sat there and let the shivering subside a bit. After a few minutes Brian and I talked about The Plan. “The fog is gone. It’s still cold, windy and rainy. None of those are an excuse to stay here.” I said. Brian reluctantly agreed. Brian caught a great shot of me at that moment which tells you more than I can describe. We moved out some time later.
The night walk down the saddle road was …..you got it….miserable. Just another 8, 10, 12, who knows, hours of concentrating on the next step and working hard at not registering one’s feelings. It was cold for the first hours as we warmed up. It was strange getting used to the occasional speeding cars. The military, which controls Pohukuloa, has a penchant for blinking lights—which play havoc with the eyes of fatigued guys wandering along the road very late at night. The long straight stretches of the new Saddle Road allow car lights to shine directly on one for what seems like five to ten minutes—adding to the light induced blindness. We stumbled down the road hallucinating strange surroundings.
Many hours in, dog tired, unable to focus, but not even past the western edges of Pohakuloa we came upon a strange looking area on the side of the road. In the glow of our lights it seemed wrapped in pillows and covered in blankets. Brian and I both saw it, we stopped walked over to it and tested it with our feet. “Soft,” said Brian. “Looks comfortable,” he continued. “Let’s see.” I said as I fell down and closed my eyes. We lay there not ten feet from the side of the road, stretched out like dead men, cars speeding by, some slowing on occasion, but none stopping. Some time later chill winds woke us, and we moved stiffly on.
No Peaceful Ending
We made the forty-five mile marker in the high hills of South Kohala after dawn. I had a small stash there. Brian wrapped his ankle which was swelling. We adjusted gear and marched on into the day. It’s a long way down the Saddle Road. There was a whole section I had managed to block from my mind. Remembrance of it crept painfully back as we negotiated each long hot dry step of it. A wind came up and was briefly refreshing, but heavy dry hot gusts were whipping into our faces by the time we finally made the turn onto the last seven miles of the trek into Waimea. I felt as if the gods and spirits of the land were testing us once again. Perhaps they were competing to see which mountain gap could be the most miserable. Whatever their reason, I felt their taunting. But I refused to be beaten and bent over and marched into the wind, trying to provide a draft for Brian who was struggling a bit with his ankle. We charged on, Waimea slipping farther and farther away despite our charge, the gusts increasing with each additional mile. The gods toyed with us. The menehune marking up the road with meaningless numbers that promised an early end to the suffering but only served to heighten the difficulties of the passage. Finally we walked into Waimea, people staring at us as if we had just attacked from Mars. “Acck Acck!” I croaked to one wide-eyed woman staring at me from the inside of gigantic SUV. Bone dry, unsteady, on the verge of insanity, we watered at a gas station and headed off down the hill toward Kawaihae.
Wendy saw us there at the top of the hill, crazed, dehydrated, sun-burned, staring out of wild eyes, smelly, dirty, with little on our minds but putting an end to it. The wind was at our back, but the sun fell out of the sky roasting what was left of us. We endured ten miles of narrow, windy, steep down hill road, busy with Sunday afternoon traffic, hot, and dangerous. We pushed on because there was nothing else to do, and no excuse not to do it.
We made it to Spencer Beach Park and Pu’uokohola heiau, late Sunday afternoon, out of water, sun burned, tired, 94 plus hours showing on the clock. Libby greeted us with a welcoming chant and haku she had woven herself from flowers and leaves she had picked near the volcanoes. Beach goers pushed by us, packing up, piling into cars. Brian and I were suddenly lost. We stumbled toward the water, stood there a bit dazed, wandered back to the picnic table. We unsteadily showered, ate a bit, climbed into the car for the ride back. But we were both still out there on the mountain—our minds and bodies moving up the trails of Mauna Loa, listening to absolutely nothing, breathing the cool clear air, seeing all the way to the otherside of the universe. Telescopes? We don’t need no stinking telescopes!
I can not speak for Brian, but it is hard to say if I am ever coming back from this one.
Aloha. Mikem
The Pics:
All pictures are copyrighted (c) by Brian Wilson and reuse is subject to his approval.
Brian has posted a large set on Facebook.
I have reposted some at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mmuench01/TwoSeasTwoSummits#
Copyright © M.N. Muench 6/17/2010
All Rights Reserved. Copying or Distribution
Without Permission of Author is Prohibited
All Rights Reserved. Copying or Distribution
Without Permission of Author is Prohibited
posted by M.N.Muench @ 1:57 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Still love your writing and hearing what you are up to-
Marilyn
Thank you Marilyn. If you like my writing you might want to check out
http://writingovertheedge.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-to-buy-books-of-mn-muench.html which outlines my pubished books, and gives a link to a discount code. I also have a blog, writing over the edge, that has a number of posts on Hawaiian History.
Aloha, Mike
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