Another trail accessed via the Pali Highway is the Judd Trail, also known as “Jackass Ginger,” for a waterfall along Nuuanu Stream, which you walk along part of the way.
View of Nuuanu Stream
It’s a pretty small waterfall, but a popular swimming spot. I have no idea how it got its name.
There is ginger in the area, though...
The Judd Trail is a loop, which takes you above Nuuanu stream and into the forest. Most of Hawaii’s native forests were effectively eaten to the ground by feral goats and cattle after Western contact, and were replanted with non-native species once people realized that massive erosion problems and reduction of stream flows were a result. The Judd Trail runs through non-native forest, including dramatic plantings of Norfolk Island pines. It’s also named after one of the early foresters in Hawaii, Charles Judd.
I’ve heard descriptions of this trail as running through “Hawaii’s beautiful native forest”- this is ridiculous. I’m pretty sure I didn’t see a single native species along the route- maybe a fern or two.
On our recent trip to Hawaii, we got to do a lot of hiking. Nothing too serious, but we did try to do at least short hikes each day. We were fairly successful when it wasn’t raining.
One of our first hikes was on Oahu, on the Old Pali Highway. This route leads along a decommissioned road that run between Honolulu and the Windward side of Oahu.
Google terrain map showing the Pali Hwy. The "gap" in the mountain range is actually a ~1000-foot cliff.
Oahu was formed by two volcanoes, which have now eroded to form the western Wai’anae and eastern Ko’olau mountains. Millions of years ago, about half of the Ko’olau volcano slid off in a massive landslide, creating a 100-mile long debris field under the ocean to the northeast, and leaving a long, tall series of cliffs on the remaining above-water part of the volcano. This cliff (the Pali) limits travel between the coastal Windward side of the island and the plateau between the Wa’anae and Ko’olau ranges.
Steep part of the Pali from the Windward coast (from NOAA).
The Old Pali Highway takes advantage of a slight gap in the range, where there is only about a 1000-foot vertical cliff between the two sides, rather than the ~2400-foot cliff that’s found elsewhere. However, this road was always wet, steep, narrow, and dangerous to travel. It was eventually replaced by the (new) Pali Highway, which is larger and uses two tunnels and a set of ramps to make the current highway less steep. Hikers can take the Old Pali highway from its high point at the Pali Overlook down to where it connects with a state trail to a waterfall.
Stream valley, not visible from road.
When walking on the Old Pali Highway, you can really get a sense for how much more sketchy this connection between the two sides of the island was at the time. Water constantly seeps onto the road from the porous basalt, and ferns and other plants abound. The hike gives you views into some pretty gorgeous valleys that aren’t visible form the new road.
Waterfalls were running because of all the recent rain.
We hiked this as a loop from the top down, then back up. We did go a bit onto the waterfall trail, but it was starting to get dark (and we were hearing wild pigs), so we went back up.
View of Kailua & Olomana (double peak in foreground).
There are some interesting birds on this trail, but not much that’s native: it lies within the range of avian malaria-carrying mosquitoes that have decimated most native forest bird species in Hawaii. Within the mosquito zone, there are pretty much no more native forest birds. Scientists are quite concerned about the effect of global warming on Hawaiian forest birds: mosquitoes are limited to lower elevations because of cold mountain air. As the climate warms, their zone of infiltration expands up into the former mountain refuges of the birds, who have no immunity to avian malaria.
Feral chickens, descended from Polynesian Jungle fowl, at the Pali Overlook.
This is an easy-to-get-to hike that’s not too strenuous, very scenic, and has some history. The footing is mostly good (though slippery in spots), and parts of it are a bit steep. Nuuanu Valley, which the Pali Highway runs through from Honolulu, has some pretty significant historic sites, and the Pali Overlook itself was the site of a dramatic and bloody battle when Kamehameha was trying to conquer Oahu- Oahuans’ first encounter with cannon, people being pushed to their deaths over the cliff with spears, and other details. It’s interesting (though disturbing) to contemplate that event here.
It’s been a while since I posted, so I thought I should try to get something up here… I did pass my first candidacy exam (yay!), and am getting ready for exam #2 right now (on the public understanding of science material I blogged about earlier). I’ve also started to working on my reading for my last reading list, so I’ll be starting to post those summaries shortly.
For now, I’ll mention my excursion last weekend to Gainesville, to Paynes Prairie Preserve. This is a state park with a wide range of habitat, including oak uplands, pine flatwoods, and the eponymous prairie. Which was actually quite shrubby, rather than grassy, which surprised me. I was mainly three looking for birds, and the visibility was really limited by the head-height vegetation. But there were definitely a lot of birds around. Overall, it was a great day- not too hot, sunny but shady in the woods, and a light breeze.
I hiked on two trails: Cone’s Dike and Bolen Bluffs. Cone’s Dike goes through oak forest before heading onto the prairie proper. I did see a lot of birds, and a few deer. Bolen Bluff heads through similar habitat (though the different types of oaks), and terminates at an observation deck (more on that later).
Paynes Prairie is known for its feral horses, supposedly descended from Ponce DeLeon’s expedition to find the Fountain of Youth. In reality, they’re escaped from more recent ranchers. I did run into three of them- two mares and a half-grown foal. I was a little leery of approaching them closely, but other people were going right up to them taking photos. I will say that the ground contained copious evidence of horse passage (and also bobcat territory marking), which was pretty evident given that we have not been getting much rain lately. Yes, there was a lot of poo lying around.
In terms of birds, I saw a flock of turkeys, and a number of raptors (including a sharp-shinned hawk being mobbed by blue jays, bald eagles, red-shouldered hawk, and northern harrier). There were also a number of wood storks, some sandhill cranes calling, and a bunch of smaller species. I also saw a baby (pencil-sized) ribbon snake, and a more intimidating cottonmouth who was extremely casual about moving off the trail when it saw me.
from Wikipedia
The only jarring note was running into some UF students (or so I assumed from their Gator-themed clothing) having sex on the observation platform. I must assume they were there in order to be seen, because after all they were on top of a platform on a prairie. I must say that I’ve never run into people having sex in public while hiking before, and didn’t expect it in that visible of a spot- and the destination of the trail. I also wouldn’t have expected them to notice me, confer for a moment, then just keep on going (more loudly). Given that I was hiking alone, I wasn’t sure how to react, and just ended up walking back the way I came.
That episode made me think about the intimidation inherent in that sort of exhibitionism- it’s not like they were in a tent at night or in a really secluded area, so presumably they wanted to be seen, and were expecting not to be confronted about their activities. Or maybe they wanted a confrontation? Alternatively, they might get their kicks out of asserting their right to do whatever they want to wherever they want to, while sending a big “fuck you” to other people trying to use a public park. Would they have stopped if I had been a man? Or if I had been in a group? What if there had been a family with kids? What if I’d pulled out a camera and started taking pictures?
At any rate, it definitely made me conscious of my status as a woman hiking alone- not as scarily as if I’d been in a more secluded location, but enough to really be upsetting. Granted, there are much more dangerous situations to encounter while hiking while female, but this was plenty troubling. Confronting them wasn’t really a good option, but neither was waiting them to finish up before using the viewing platform to look for birds. So I turned around and walked away. A frankly shitty end to what had otherwise been a good day of hiking.
Today, we went on our first hike of the semester. Yes, the semester is halfway over, so it is a sad commentary on our general busyness level… We decided to check out a newish trail (at least new to us), the Econlockhatchee Sandhill Conservation Area. It’s located east of UCF, in unincorporated Orange County, near the intersection of Lake Pickett and Tanner Rds.
It’s now in the low 80’s, so great hiking weather. This hike would have been pretty brutal in the shadeless spots in the summer- it’s partly shaded. The conservation area includes patches of sandhill scrub, pine flatwoods, and some riparian forest (though the trail doesn’t take you to the river). There were some nice open oak woodland areas with lichen on the ground, and some cool old snags that I bet would make great hawk perches (didn’t see any, though).
The trail goes through mixed pine and oak forest, then cuts through a treeless area, before getting back into the patchy pines and oaks for the long loop. There were several types of oak trees, some pines, and a wider variety of trees near the entrance. Since it was about 1 pm, there wasn’t a lot of wildlife up and about, but we did hear what we assume were a bunch of armadillos trundling through the saw palmettos. We did see a few birds- I’ll put my list at the end of this post. There were raccoon and armadillo tracks- didn’t see deer tracks, though they are definitely around.And more butterflies than I expected to see, including a bunch of nice looking swallowtails.
The trail was well-marked, and there were a number of old roads that you could probably take in addition to the trail. If you wanted to get to the river, these roads are probably your best bet. Overall, it was nice to just get out and enjoy the day.
Birds: black vultures, turkey vultures, red-shouldered hawk (heard), turkeys (heard), 2 falcons (probably peregrine, but way overhead), Carolina wren, eastern phoebe, tufted titmice (2 noisy flocks), mockingbirds, American robin, Northern cardinal, blue-gray gnatcatchers, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpeckers, palm warblers, prairie warbler, black & white warbler, possible brown thrasher
