Hiking Wiliwilinui Ridge, O'ahu
One of the first things I looked into when planning our trip to Oahu was the amazing hiking opportunities. I came across an amazingly detailed blog, Journey Era, that had some great options. I had originally wanted to do the stairway to heaven hike, however the insta-famous hike is not actually legal, so I couldn’t condone it. Jackson, the man behind Journey Era does explain a longer legal route option, and recommends that you hire a guide. As much as I enjoyed the idea of the iconic stairs photo-op, I did not want to promote more photos on instagram of such a controversial hike that often causes a lot of trouble for the local residents. There were also so many other legal hikes with amazing views in their own right, so I chose to experience the Wiliwilinui Ridge trail, and couldn’t be happier with that choice. This hike was by far my favorite moment of the whole trip!
Wiliwilinui Ridge is a three hour round trip hike sporting amazing views of Waikiki. It’s not a very well known hike, we only saw two other people who were hiking up as we were descending. Otherwise we were completely alone, the huge ridges and views adding to the isolation and reminding us just how small we are.
The trail entrance is in a guarded community, however they allow visitors for the hike as long as you do a quick, free registration. We took a Lyft and had no issues getting dropped off or picked up later.
We started out along the beginning of the trail, through a path lush with trees blocking out the sun. There is a water spout at the beginning, but beware that this is the only one for the entire trail, you’ll want to be sure to top off your water bottles (I suggest at least two big bottles per person) before continuing on. The trail starts off easy enough, but after about 30-40 minutes the path opens up into a clearing leading to the final climb along the ridge.
There are stairs built into the mud for the tougher inclines along the ridge, often with ropes attached to help pull yourself up through the mud. This last portion climbing up the ridge is much more challenging, but we were rewarded with not only a great workout, but expansive views of the island. Ultimately we reached a relay station tower which marks just a short trail to the summit where we found a lone bench. We hung out at the bench and ate our snacks, and after all that work we were treated to the gorgeous views of…fog!
We hung around for a while to see if the fog would pass, however it just wasn’t in the cards that day. Although we missed out on the view from the summit, the hike was well worth it. There was a storm expected later that night, so we headed out to make our way down the trail before we got caught along the ridge in bad weather. We made it back to the street entrance and called our Lyft home right as the rain began.
The hike was certainly demanding but gratifying, and we were totally wiped when we got back to our Airbnb. We ended up walking over to a highly recommended local joint for dinner, Rainbow Cafe, and brought takeout back home and watched Scrubs, before promptly falling asleep at the late, late night hour of 9:30pm!
