Haiku Stairs: The Forbidden Fruit

Gather 'round kids.  Grandpa has another story for you.  Back in my day, we didn't have these fancy cell phones or satellite communications.  If we wanted to send messages over long distances, we either had to use carrier pigeons, or shoot radio waves from mountaintop to mountaintop.  How did we get this radio equipment to the top of the mountain?  We took the stairs!

Way back in 1942, the US Navy constructed some communications towers on Oahu that were capable of communicating with the fleet as far away as the Sea of Japan.  Naturally, these sites needed to be at the top f the highest mountains to get the maximum possible reach.

To access and maintain these stations, they built a series of wooden stairs staked to the ridge of the mountain.  Then they had to climb them.  With heavy equipment.

I can only imagine the feat of engineering it took to construct the buildings atop the mountain.  Take, for example, the cement buildings.  To get these buildings up there, they would have either had to prefabricate them and lift them there, or carry the supplies and a cement mixer up the mountain for the job.  Keep in mind that helicopters had just barely been invented by this time and probably weren't capable enough to lift heavy materials

Some poor 19-year-old E3's and E4's I'm sure had a miserable time with this tour of duty.  Commanding Officer: "How would you like to be assigned to Hawaii?" E3: "Sounds like fun in the sun!" CO: "We need you to build a set of over 4000 stairs and construct buildings and a communications site on the top of a mountain"  E3: "Are you F-ing kidding me??"

I imagine this lift house made things a little easier on the poor 19-year-olds

Like Diamond Head and Koko Head, the Haiku Stairs started out with some useful purpose, but after it got abandoned people started hiking it for recreation.  Let me say that again.  People started climbing 4000 stairs.  On purpose.  For fun. Repeatedly.

In the early 2000s, the city/county spent ~$875,000 renovating the stairs, replacing the rotting wooden stairs with metal ones, and generally making the hike less dangerous.  The intent was to officially open it back to the public as a sanctioned and maintained hike on the island. 

Unfortunately, the stairs never reopened.  There are a few theories about why it remains closed.  One is that the local residents got accustomed to the lack of traffic on their streets while the stairs were under reconstruction, and didn't want throngs of hikers all times of day and night.  Another theory is the land between the main road and the bottom of the stairs is owned by a private company that does not want people trespassing.  A third theory is that part of the hike is on city/county property, and part is on state/federal property, and none of the parties can come to an agreement on who would be held liable if, say, someone went tumbling down the mountain.

So that is why this post is titled "the forbidden fruit."  This is one of the most epic hikes on the island, yet it is illegal to hike it.  Moreover, there is a guard posted there during the day to prevent people from climbing the stairs.

The Haiku Stairs are also the worst kept secret on the island.  Everyone knows that the guard gets there by 0330 in the morning, so you see throngs of people climbing the stairs at 0300 or so to "beat the guard."  Let me say that again.  Throngs of people gather in the wee hours of the morning.  To climb 4000 stairs.  In the dark.  For fun.

I am told the sunrise from the summit is amazing.  I have attempted this hike twice now, and I have yet to watch the sunrise from the top.  On my first attempt, we got about halfway to the top before my wife freaked out and we stayed on the first landing for the sunrise.  This is when she learned she was scared of heights.  The sunrise was pretty cool nonetheless.

I recently attempted the hike a second time with a friend from work.  This time we made it all the way to the top.  After climbing 4000 stairs in the dark, I encountered a scene that I can only assume is reminiscent of a modern dance club- tired, sweaty people crammed in a dark, stuffy room with dim lights and loud thumping music.  Yes, someone brought an iPod dock, and it actually put out some decent sound.

It would suck to make it up 4000 stairs only to be impaled by the loose rebar and other metal hazards at the top

Despite the successful climb to the top, my sunrise was foiled by mother nature.  We were smack in the middle of a cloud with ~100ft visibility.  Instead of getting to see the sun rise in the distant ocean, I watched it gradually go from black to light gray. 

Then I had to climb back down 4000 stairs.

Overall, it was a pretty epic hike.  I really felt a sense of accomplishment once I made it to the top and back down again.  This item is still on my bucket list though, and it will remain there until I get a good sunrise.

Here are some more nice pictures...

Land of the Free, Because of the Brave

Flags flying at the Punchbowl National Cemetery

Happy Independence Day to my US audience!  It's time to gather with family for some good food, good fun, and good fireworks.  It's also a great way to celebrate the summer with the warm weather and the time off work/school.


It is also a good time of year to reflect on the birth of our nation and how we got to where we are today.  Here on Oahu, we are surrounded with so many reminders that freedom is not free, and the brave men and women put themselves in harm's way to achieve and maintain these freedoms.

USS Arizona Memorial

Below are a sampling of patriotic pictures from around the island.  Also, for your reading pleasure, I have included the text from the Declaration of Independence, which was signed on this day 237 years ago today. (Source: The National Archives)  Enjoy.

My son placing a flag on a soldier's grave, Memorial Day 2013 Punchbowl National Cemetery

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

USS Utah Memorial

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

USS Oklahoma memorial with USS Missouri in the background

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Iwo Jima memorial, K-Bay Marine Base

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Flags flying on service members' graves, Memorial Day 2013 Punchbowl National Cemetery

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

USS Oklahoma Memorial

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

USS Utah Memorial

Iwo Jima Memorial, K-Bay Marine Base

Old Glory at the Arizona Memorial

Another view of the Arizona Memorial

I will be back to blogging about my hikes next week.  I have a fantastic one to write about.  Same Haole Time, Same Haole Channel.  Have a great holiday