Halapepe Plastic Pot Traditional Cache
erik88l-r: Cache is apparently trash, cache owner has not logged on in ten months, so I have archived it for him. Thanks for the past fun.
erik - geocaching.com volunteer cache reviewer
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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Halapepe Nui Trail is at the top of Royal Summit in Aiea/Newtown. From town, H-1 Westbound, exit Aiea/Moanalua Road and go on Moanalua Road towards and past Pearlridge Shopping Center and then turn Right on Kaahele Street. Drive up to the end of the road at the top of Royal Summit.
Park near the fence on the street. 21 24.341N 157 55.760W
Our hike leader, Shin, spent the last 3 weeks searching for new undocumented trails in the area between Kokohead and Pearl City. This should be one of the first of many new plastic pot caches.
This is one of many neighborhood trails that the neighborhood residents are aware of, but outsiders only learn of, by word of mouth. Examples include Mariner's Ridge, Pupukea, and Hawaii Loa Ridge, among others.
This is a service road as its well cleared and maintained. Probably for Hawaiian Electric, as there are a number of high tension powerline poles along the way. A trail that reminds me of Waa'hila, Hawaii Loa Ridge, and such.
As you leave the neighborhood and go around the fence on the right side is the path to start the trail. We noticed some golf ball-sized speckled black and white 'mushrooms' on the ground of the dirt road trail. We split it open and it looks quite unusual, like some spores or seeds inside? We dont think they're mushrooms but we dont know what they are?! What are they?
You'll pass a barb wire fence of sorts, and there seems to be a brown cat fur hanging on it on the right side. Wild cat? There's been sightings on Maui but here on Oahu!? :o
Lotsa tiny orchids along the way! Pretty! Also huge baseball-sized Lilikoi (passionfruit) along the way. Unfortunately, they were not ripe and were shiny green.
There will be a number of points where you will be able to turn around and get a great panoramic view of Pearl Harbor and the white Arizona Memorial will be right in front of you along with Ford Island. Neat.
There are a number of junctions along the way, not sure if they connect to other trails, but this is a generally 'hard to get lost' trail (dare i say it?), as its well marked, with the clear trail, and marker ribbons everywhere on tree branches. Just remember which junction fork you're taking and to get back. But of course, anyone can get lost anywhere so take the usual precautions if necessary (toilet paper, chalk, radio, etc.).
We encountered no other hikers on this trail, and we did run into wild boar hunters with their 4 pit bull dogs!
(visit link)
(visit link)
This is not unusual for trails in Hawaii, but thought i'd mention it. So keep that in mind for those of you who are 'faint of heart' regarding mean looking dogs running wild. We had two dogs with us as well, so we had to make sure they were not going to fight. The hunters we've ever met are very good at respecting hikers so it was not a problem at all, and in this case as well, as he worked to corral the 4 pit bulls back to his hiding bush so we could go past and on our way.
I've been getting folks asking me how i like my Magellan Map 330 GPSr and while i have mixed feelings about it, having owned a etrex yellow previously, i upgraded the firmware this week and reset all memory, initialized and such, so we'll see how accurate the coords are on this 'first cache after firmware upgrade.' Oddly, i already noticed that the coords for the car was different from when we started and when we got back to the car. :(
Sunspots? Crappy GPSr?
I found out about the v4.00 firmware from the geocaching.com discussion boards and there's some good discussions (and some bad opinions too, IMHO) about the pros and cons of Magellan and Garmin units so go take a gander if you too are wondering.
My usual plastic pot, with all the usual contents. Have fun and be safe!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Lbh jvyy uvg n znwbe whapgvba nybat gur genvy, bar bs znal, naq gura gurer jvyy or n gerr fbba gurernsgre jvgu n ubyybj obggbz. Ybbx sbe gur fgevat nebhaq gur gerr! :)