What’s with me? Another three for the price of one. Three caches
located along the McCandless Ditch Trail above Pearl Ridge.
Sometime around 1912 workers for the plantation in this area
completed the McCandless Ditch to supply irrigation water to their
sugar cane fields. The name McCandless Ditch really is inaccurate.
It is really a system of tunnels with a few open ditches now and
then. I’ll post a link to a map. What is amazing to me is that the
tunnels run sort of parallel to the stream from a dam way back in
the valley to a reservoir somewhere in the area of the Kaonohi
Playground. Every once in a while they would blast a side tunnel to
the stream side of the main tunnel so they could get rid of the
rock they were blasting to make the main tunnel. These side tunnels
were later “bricked” up so the water would not escape and flow down
to the stream. The Ditch/Tunnel system is approximately 3.2 miles
long; again most of this is tunnel not open ditch.
Here are the links mentioned above. The yellow line is the
Ditch/Tunnel system.
Map#1
Here are links that will show you pictures and a story about the
hike from a few years ago
2000
2002
2004
Park on Onikiniki, but watch the No Parking signs or you'll get
a ticket or worse get towed. Walk toward the gate on the left thru
the grass. When you get just about to the wall you'll see a
steep/muddy trail going down. GOOD LUCK!
Now on to the cache. The first cache is a small peanut butter
jar painted white. It is only about 15-20 minutes from the trail
head and should not be too hard to find. It is hidden in a little
notch in the rocks.
PLEASE BE SURE TO COVER IT WELL WITH THE SMALL ROCKS AND SOME
VEGITATION. Hunters use this trail a few times a week and WE don’t
want them to find it do we?