Mount Waialeale/Kawaikini ascent.

In August 2005, my hiking partner and I climbed to the raingage at Waialeale from the west. However, the actual high point of Mount Waialeale isn't the point marked Waialeale on the map but about a mile south at Kawaikini . Kawaikini and Waialeale aren't separate mountains or peaks but high points on the larger area historically referred to as Mount Waialeale. In January, we took a shorter more direct route, cutting a mile off the previous route. The route starts where the Mohihi-Waialae Trail makes its west turn south of Koaie Camp. We continued straight again, following the divide on the same route as we took in August, until we reached the end of the second bog or the first one after Sincock's bog. At that point, rather than turn southwest on the circuitious route we'd taken previously, we continued ahead on the divide indicated on the topo map as a district boundary. After about a mile of hard bushwhacking the divide rises to the rim of Kapoki crater. There we took a well flagged birding transect that short cuts straight across until it eventually intercepts the district boundar again (refer to map). We followed the district boundary until we reached the edge of the Blue Hole, the immense box canyon at the end of the North Fork of the Wailua. We followed the rim south arriving at Kawaikini (5243ft) at about three pm. The weather conditions were near excellent. In total the trip took three days and we encountered only a little light mist. We did note that the hog exclusion fence around the raingage and Lake Waialeale had been deliberately cut in three places, allowing the pigs to run amuck inside the protected area. Volcantrek8 and JR