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Equipment Suggestions and Miscellaneous Hints

This book isn’t intended to teach you how to hike or backpack. If you can walk, you can hike, especially the “very easy” hikes. Just be sure the trip you pick is within your hiking limits.

This book is intended specifically to let you know where you can hike on Hawaii, what to expect when you hike there, and how to get to the trailhead for each hike. And that, I hope, will help you decide which hikes to take.

This section contains suggestions which I hope will make your hikes even more pleasant, and perhaps better protect you and the environment. Of course, you’re the only person who lives in your body, so you’ll have to judge what’s really appropriate for you. But there are a few things you might want to know before you go—things that may be very different from the hiking you’ve done at home on the mainland.

It’s up to you

No book can substitute for, or give you, five things only you can supply: physical fitness, preparation, experience, caution, and common sense. Don’t leave the trailhead without them.

Don’t spread pest plants

As I mentioned in the chapter on geology and history, Hawaii has been overrun by introduced plants. It’s important to try to control the spread of these plants. One thing you can do to help is to wash the soil, and with it the seeds of any pest plants, you hope, off of your shoes or boots before you leave a hiking area. Note also that you, like any other animal, can carry pest-plant seeds in your digestive tract and deposit them, ready to sprout, in your solid wastes. Either hold it till you get to a toilet or dig your hole deep enough to make it impossible for the seeds to sprout (one foot deep, according to a pamphlet on the subject. I’m just passing this information on. I have no idea how to carry enough equipment to dig a hole that deep when hiking). Pest plants include all the guavas. For more information, call the Hawaii State Department of Agriculture, Chemical Control, 808-974-4141.

Equipment for strolls and easy hikes

You don’t need to make extensive preparations for a stroll along a beach or a half-mile nature trail as long as there’s food, water, and shelter nearby—perhaps in your car. The things you must not go without are:

 Sunglasses

 Appropriate footwear

 Mosquito repellent

 Strong sunblock applied before you set out.

Your mosquito repellent should be “jungle juice”—that is, have a high percentage of DEET (diethyltoluamide). DEET is vile stuff, but it works.

Equipment for moderate and strenuous hikes

Carry at least the Ten Essentials Plus One as I’ve adapted them from the Sierra Club. They are:

 Pack (to put these good things in; could be a large fanny pack)

 Food and water (assume that all open water sources are unsafe to drink)

 Extra clothing (always take rain gear, as it can rain any time on Hawaii)

 Map (and compass if you can use it)

 Flashlight with extra bulbs and batteries

 Sunglasses and strong sunblock

 Means to dig a hole 6–8 inches deep and at least 200 feet from water, in order to bury solid body wastes; tissue that you will also bury (or pack out)—see also “Number 2 in the Lava,” below

 Pocket knife

 First-aid kit

 Waterproof matches and something you can keep a flame going with (such as a candle) only when necessary to start a fire in order to save a life

 Mosquito repellent (“jungle juice”)

Equipment for backpacks

The following is a minimal checklist for backpacking equipment.

Minimal Backpacking Equipment List

Backpack

Tent

Sleeping bag

Sleeping pad

Permit

“Ten Essentials Plus One”

Boots

Socks

Shirts

Shorts or long pants

Hat

Underwear

Rain gear

Toiletries

Personal medication

Cookware and clean-up stuff

Stove and fuel (You cannot take stove fuel on a plane. You must buy it at your destination.)

Eating utensils

Tennis shoes?

I’ve noted in the hike descriptions whether tennis shoes are okay to wear or whether I think you should wear boots. I base that recommendation on the length of the hike and the difficulty of the terrain. What tennis shoes may lack that boots can provide are ankle support and soles that grip. Only you can really decide how important those are to you.

Boot care

If you’re going to hike a lot, be sure your boot seams are freshly sealed and you’ve freshly waterproofed the entire boot, including the cloth part, if any. Use a heavy-duty waterproofing compound like a wax, and bring some of it along in order to renew the coating if necessary. Chances are your boots will get wet, especially in the winter. And they’ll stay wet, because things dry slowly in the tropical humidity. It’s pretty tough on the boots and, together with the abrasion of mud particles, could cause boot seams to fail.

Hiking stick or trekking poles

Take your hiking stick or poles if you usually hike with them. The flight attendants can put your hiking stick in the closet where they hang the carry-on suits and dresses or in the overhead compartments. Hawaii’s terrain can be very slippery when wet, and a stick or poles can be a big help in maintaining your footing.

Spider stick

There are a very few overgrown trails (for example, the Kalapana Trail) where you and some orb spiders may meet unexpectedly, head-on. You probably don’t like collecting spiders with your face, but these critters make it hard not to do so. Here’s one way to avoid them without killing them. Pick up and use a “spider stick”—a long, strong stick that you carefully wave up and down in front of you as you hike. You can feel the tug when the stick connects with a web. Detach the anchor strands that hold the web in your way, and lay them aside on the adjacent shrubbery. An orb spider normally rebuilds most or all of her web daily, so you’ve caused her only minor inconvenience. Your hiking stick or poles can probably double as a spider stick.

Sleeping bag

It should be able to tolerate wet conditions. For example, it could have a Gore-Tex shell or it could have a synthetic fill. You are almost certain to get rained on a bit while camping.

Tent

You’ll need one for protection from the rain and, along the coast, the bugs.

Koster’s curse

Uluhe (false staghorn) fern

Clothes while backpacking

On the one hand, it’s best to go as light as possible; on the other hand, almost nothing—not even synthetics—dries overnight in Hawaii’s damp climate under backpacking conditions. Consider which things you can stand to wear damp and which you can’t stand unless they’re dry. Pack just one or two of the “okay if damp” things. Pack a set of the “gotta be dry!” things for each day plus one or more extras, just in case. (For me, it’s socks.)

At the end of a soggy day of camping out

On those occasional rainy days, you may wonder how you’re going to get reasonably clean without getting any wetter than you already are. The socks you’ve worn all day are “goners” for the time being, wet and muddy on the outside but relatively clean on the inside. While you’re changing into dry clothes, turn your “used” socks inside out and mop yourself off with them.

Hypothermia? On Hawaii?

It’s possible if you go into the mountains. Remember that going higher is equivalent to going north into colder climates, and mountains are often very windy. Please be prepared as you would be for going into any mountainous region.

Biodegradable? Ha, ha, ha!

The following things are popularly supposed to be biodegradable if you bury them: toilet tissue; facial tissue; sanitary napkins; tampons; disposable diapers. That must be a joke. They often last long enough for either running water to exhume them or animals to dig them up. It’s actually pretty easy to carry them out if you put them in a heavy-duty self-sealing bag. (I use a couple of heavy-duty Ziploc bags, one inside the other.)

Extra hints for hiking in lava fields

Boots and clothes: Lava is unbelievably sharp—even the smooth-looking pahoehoe (pronounced pa-hoi-hoi) flows are full of tiny, glassy, sharp edges. Never walk on lava barefoot or in sandals! With every step you take, the lava cuts your shoes, so be sure your shoes are in good shape before you start. Lava is tough on clothes, too. Every time you sit on it to catch your breath, it saws little holes in the seat of your pants.

Stay on the marked route! The rock of lava fields is too hard to make a beaten path through. Typically, you’ll follow cairns through pahoehoe (the smoother form of lava), aa (pronounced ah-ahi; the chunky, rough form), or (rarely) a beaten path through cinders. Cairns are big piles of rocks obviously made by people. The cairns mark out a safe route for you. Lava fields are dangerous places to go wandering around. Apparently solid lava can turn out to be nothing but a fragile shell over a lava tube, collapsing when you put your weight on it. You could be in for a nasty, even fatal, fall. The one time you need to get a little off-route is when you have to go to the bathroom; see below.

Routes on active volcanoes can change: Routes on Mauna Loa and Kilauea can change abruptly because of an eruption. That might make the cairn-marked route vary from its description in this book. Follow the cairns, not the description.

Number 2 in the lava: You can dig a hole in cinders, but digging a hole in aa or pahoehoe is impossible. As a result, too many people leave various gross objects sitting out on the lava: feces, tissues, tampons, etc. If possible, wait until you get to a toilet. Otherwise, look a little off-route for a small crevice in which to defecate (but be careful about going off-route). You may not be able to find a suitable crevice. With or without a crevice, completely cover your feces with rocks. It takes a lot of rocks; you’ll have built quite a little rockpile by the time you’re through, though not one big enough to be confused with a cairn. In aa, you can use the smaller chunks of lava. In pahoehoe, the crust is often easy to break into plates you can build with. Carry your tissues, tampons, etc., out.

Getting hiking and backpacking food

If you are planning to backpack on Hawaii, consider shopping for your hiking and backpacking chow on Hawaii. Food prices are higher in Hawaii, but you have enough stuff to put in your luggage without bringing your food, too. You’ll find supermarkets in the larger towns: Kailua-Kona, Waimea, and Hilo. They have marginally adequate selections of long-lasting, lightweight, quick-cooking foods. I did not find any of the standard freeze-dried backpacking chow, however.

Companions

The standard advice is: never hike alone; never camp alone.

Water

Take your own drinking water for the day. Plan on treating water while backpacking. No open source of water anywhere in the U.S. is safe to drink untreated. Treat water chemically (iodine or chlorine preparations designed for the purpose) or by boiling (1–5 minutes at a rolling boil). It now seems that filtering may be ineffective against the bacterium that causes leptospirosis (below).

At the backcountry cabins and shelters in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the water is supplied by collecting rain from the roofs. It is presumed to be unsafe to drink without treatment and may taste of the roof even if treated. The backcountry water supply is at the mercy of the elements and of previous visitors, so be sure to ask when you get your permit whether there will be adequate water for your trip.

Avoiding leptospirosis

Fresh water on Hawaii may be contaminated with the bacterium that causes leptospirosis. A pamphlet about leptospirosis is available from the Epidemiology Branch of the Hawaii State Department of Health (on Hawaii, call 808-974-6001). The following summarizes some of its contents: Muddy and clear water are both suspect. The bacterium invades through broken skin or the nose, mouth, or eyes. It enters the bloodstream and infects different organs, particularly the kidneys. Precautions that would especially apply to you here are not to go into streams if you have open cuts or abrasions and not to drink (untreated) stream water. Treat water chemically or by boiling it.

If you do swim in fresh water on Hawaii, you should know that the incubation period of leptospirosis is 2-20 days. The onset is sudden, and the symptoms may resemble those of flu: fever, chills, sweating, severe headache, conjunctivitis (red eyes), muscle pains, weakness, vomiting, and diarrhea. You should see a physician immediately if you suspect leptospirosis. It’s believed that administering certain antibiotics early in the course of the disease will shorten the disease and make symptoms less severe. The pamphlet says that most cases are mild and that people (with mild cases) recover in a week or two without treatment. However, severe leptospirosis infections may damage kidneys, liver, or heart or even cause death.