Laie Falls Hike

We started our hike from the church parking lot and walked over to Cricket field and down this private road to the trailhead.  This pre-hike was about 3/4 mile.

The beginning of the hike, though uphill, is an easy wide path.  

Finally after about 45 minutes of steady climbing we come to an overlook with a great view of Laie and the ocean. A great place for a short rest.

As we continued our hike we had spectacular views of the hills.

The sides of the path were lined with short strawberry guava bushes. Our next rest stop will be in that grove of pines "pine forest".

Afton was thoroughly enjoying her hike.

Resting in the pine forest. The hike to this point took about 90 minutes.  We took a few rests along the way and we had a few slow hikers as well as a few small children (4-9 years old).  At this point half the group decided to continue up to the falls and the other half, with the small kids, opted to go back down. Cora was the youngest in the group to continue up to the falls.

A great deal of the climb from Pine Forest to Laie Falls was through tall strawberry guava plants.  I got a stomach ache from eating too many unripe ones.  The trick is to pick the reddest ones that aren't squishy yet.  They are very tasty with a bit of sour--like eating a strawberry rhubarb pie (if you've ever had that).

Got a few little peeks through the strawberry guava back down to Laie and beyond.  Such an amazing place we live.

The Falls!

A few people dove right in to enjoy the cool water.

It wasn't long before all the kids were in the water splashing and cooling down. We only had about 30 minutes for them to play and enjoy the water before we had to go back down.  We started our hike at 1 o'clock and it was now 3:30pm. It was going to take another 2 hours to get down and we needed to be home by 6pm.

Dave and I did not jump in the pool. We don't want to worry about things like leptosporosis, a parasite that is in all fresh water on the island. Although I guess I did put my feet in for a while to cool them down.  It did feel nice.

After the swim and getting ready to go back down the trail in their wet clothes.

The whole group. Laie 6th ward youth.

The head of the pack on the trail ahead.

We're almost back to the Pine Forest.

The girls are trying to "sneak up" on the boys who are already at our rest stop in the Pine Forest.

Another Group picture.  We are all still feeling pretty good but everyone is out of water and it is still hot. From this point we still had an hour of walking steadily down hill and most of it was in the open and unshaded. Everyone did a great job but the last mile and a half was hard.  Several people had sore feet and everyone was very thirsty.  Next time we will pack more water and go in the early morning when it's not so hot. Overall, had a great time and will definitely do this hike again.