waipi'o valley

Remember my hike through Pololu Valley?  And how I said there were seven valleys (virtually deserted) in-between Pololu and Waipi'o, and it would take roughly three days of (steep uphill/downhill) hiking and camping to do all of them?  Well we haven't done that yet.  :)  But Tim and I did go visit Waipi'o from the other side.  Here is a map I labeled so you can see what I mean:

We started out where all of the tourists go; the view that looks out over the cliffs that most people who have been here have a picture of.  It looks like this:

Then if you have four-wheel drive (and ONLY if you have four-wheel drive) you can take the car down the long practically vertical Waipi'o Valley Road down to the beach.  A few brave souls attempt to do it on foot and though the trek down is fine, the trek back up later is rough and calls for either a very slow pace or a lot of breaks.  If you're out of shape, don't bother.  If you're in shape, this will make you feel out of shape!

The road rises 800 feet in just 6/10 of a mile and the grade is mostly 25%, 40% at its steepest.  If these numbers don't mean much to you, let me put it in perspective: some people consider this the world's steepest road.  The only person to have ever conquered this road on a bicycle is Lance Armstrong.

Here are the before and after videos of his feat that I found on YouTube, so you can see what I mean:  (just for the record I wanted to include a video of him actually riding up the hill but I couldn't find one.)

Yowza!  Anyway, so Tim and I are pansies and we 4WD'd it down the steep slope.  Instead of going to the beach, however, we took the car down the river (aka River Road) and then parked and hiked through the other river and up to a secluded pond with three-tiered waterfalls, and climbed to the top and back down.  It was a wonderful hike and we were all alone for the most part (the area we hiked through was where only the few farmers and residents who live in Waipi'o Valley go, so it was an absolutely gorgeous private hike through paradise!  Enjoy the pictures from our excursion.

My feet.  :)

Pineapple!  Yum.  Did you know there was such a thing as white pineapple?  I didn't either.  Apparently it's delicious and you can eat as much of it as you want without making your mouth sore!  I haven't tried it yet, but I'll let you know if I do.

I thought the leaves in the water were pretty.  :) 

This is the bottom of the three-tiered waterfall.  I would've liked to have gotten a picture with all three in it, but there's too much foliage and they're set back into the hill, so you'll have to enjoy them individually.  :)

This is looking down from the first tier.

And looking down from the second tier...

And the third and last fall...

I would have liked to have done some slow-shutter shots, but even if I'd had a tripod I doubt I would've made it up the wall face carrying it.  Just going up with my camera threw me off balance, lol.  So no, these photos aren't as magnificent as they *could* be, but that's ok.  At least you can see what I saw.  There wasn't a ton of water anyway, it was a slow trickle.

On our way back we saw some beautiful horses on the locals property.

And these are wild horses that roam throughout the valley!

I leave you with a few lovely pictures of the sunset on our drive home.  xoxo  :)