The trail starts at sea level off the main highway, but after maybe 30
minutes of hiking, you already get to a spot where you can look down and
see the Crouching Lion. You can see the head of the Crouching Lion at the
top of that steep cliff. There is a detour trail that will take you
right to the top of the lion's head to check out the views. We decided
to check out that detour.
These next 4 pictures were taken from on top the Crouching Lion's head.
This is a view of the Kaaawa area.
I thought this was the Crouching Lion Inn, but when driving back after the
hike, we realized that it was actually a place called Maakua Village.
If you continued on this detour trail, you could go to the top of this
point. Daryn was actually there when this picture was taken, but I guess
he was too far to be seen in this picture.
A view of Kahana Bay with a nice rainbow in the background. The rainbow
looked nice but we knew that if a rainbow could be seen, then rain
couldn't be too far away. We felt rain drops soon after but luckily it
only drizzled for little while.
The trail goes along this type of narrow ridge for quite a ways with lots
of rock climbing. There are some cables along the way to assist in some
areas.
The ridge behind Daryn is part of the trail. Check out how narrow it is.
The drops on both sides goes just about straight down for a VERY long ways
with hardly any trees or brush to stop your fall if you slip off. Walk
really carefully.
Yikes!! This nice picture pretty much tells the story about this hike.
More examples of the narrow ridges.
Daryn is looking down the side of the mountain in this picture, something
I would not recommend if you are afraid of heights like me. The clouds
rolled in over us later in the hike so things became very wet. Cloud can
be seen creeping over the mountain in the upper left hand corner.
This view is of the Kaneohe area and was taken at the point where the loop
trail starts to turn around and head back out.
View of the outside portion of Kahana valley on our way back down. Clouds
blocked our views for most of the return trip so this was what we saw when
it cleared up.
A nice view of inner parts of Kahana Valley.
We're still alive!!
This picture was taken from Makaua Village looking up at the Crouching
Lion. That bump on the right side mountain is the lion's head. That's
where we were sitting.
Make sure you don't go alone on this hike because its no walk in the park. There are areas that require you to climb up and down rock faces with huge drops on both sides of you. There are areas where you need to walk narrow ridges with nothing to hold on to on either side of you. The early part of the return trip becomes a bit easier, giving you some time to regain your composure, but after a while, the ridge becomes narrow and slippery again. However, this time there are at least trees on the sides to hold on to as you go down.
Recommended book for hiking directions on Pu'u Manamana
