My initial checklist for things to do when arriving to Hawaii included "Hike Diamond Head" to which I have done twice now and plan on hiking it several more times, but I did not realize the vast amount of trails for hiking there would be here. I guess I should have figured as much, but to my delight I have found there are so many. I love hiking. My mom, sisters and I used to hike/run Percy Warner and Edwin Warner Park(two parks in Nashville that backed up to our neighborhood). I have to say we used to tear those trails out! My mom always explained her love for the trails, saying that you never get board with them unlike working out at the gym. There were so many to choose from, and depending on the amount of mileage you wanted to travel that day, to whether you wanted a rugged trail or a smoothed paved trail, were daily choices to change things up. I have to admit that I have sprained my ankle three times running the trails over the years, and that is one danger, but its worth the adventure and high you get after a successful completion. After leaving Nashville for college and then on to Ft. Knox I really missed the trails. I never liked going to the gym, the years of exercising outdoors really spoiled me, and commitment of going to the gym lasted only months at a time as I would get too bored. Andrew and I still have many trails to discover, one of which leads to a beautiful waterfall ( don't worry I will be sure to blog about that one!)
Diamond Head is a crater created from a volcano which erupted/exploded thousands of years ago. What remains is a huge crater. In the pictures you can really see the remains of the crater and where the cone shaped volcano used to be. Here are some pictures I pulled from the internet and the rest were taken from me. The view from the tops makes the whole hike completely worth it!!
Kealia Trail-North Shore
Andrew told me he and his men went on this trail on the north shore and the view from the top was amazing so he would like to take me sometime soon. I was very excited, but had NO IDEA what I was getting into! Haha! Lets just say it was very, very, very difficult, and I did not think I would make it at times, but it was worth it! We went on a Saturday morning and although Andrew was off work there were several platoons out there in their full gear hiking up and back down. The hikes are a great way for the soldiers to train. After about 15 minutes of hiking, we were already above several air planes and glider planes (small ones) and took a break to watch them fly around. We passed several platoons, which was intimidating for me at first but then one of the leaders of the platoons spotted me and asked Andrew, "Is that a girl?" Andrew said, "Yeah, that's my wife" and he said, "Wow, you need to give her a pat on the back." So I was proud of myself that I not only kept up with Andrew, but I was hiking a difficult hike used to train the soldiers. We also passed a platoon on the way up....Andrew was flying and was not about slow down from me so I had to keep up. When we reached the top we were 2,000 feet above sea level and by the time we got back down to the bottom we did a total of 6 miles in 2.5 hrs. The way down was just as hard as the way up if you can believe that because of how steep it was. Every hill we went down we talked about what a great ski slope it would be and how much we would love to snowboard down it... (that's how steep they were!) Needless to say, I told Andrew although I enjoyed it, it would be a while before we tackled that trail again.
After the hike we had a picnic on the beach and I snorkeled ( Andrew thought the water was too cold so he didn't get in.....baby!!) And then we both PASSED out on the beach.
Love, BROWN