The Slacker returns!!

I guess I better finally finish the Hawaii trip. Sorry for the delay.

The last few days in Hawaii were pretty much like the first, a lot of snorkeling at warm beaches and lots of sun. (Man it kinda sucks having to think back, last time I wrote about this I was still sitting the beach.) In between sunny beaches, my dad and I want on a hike to a mile long tunnel. That’s what the guidebook told us anyway.

The trip started out with about 6 miles of dirt road that that would have been incredibly fun in my Tacoma. Rocks, stream crossings, mud… Good thing we had our trusty rental Ford Taurus! The guidebook says the trail is a few miles before we get to the tunnel and be prepared for some mud. Huh “some,” ten steps onto the trail we were standing 6” deep in it. This trail was definitely some tough hiking, It was easier to summit Mt Sneffels at 14,000Ft than it was to hike through this jungle.



You had to pay attention to every step, otherwise you would be on the ground before you knew it. There were two or three times that the trees around us clear enough that we could see a view of the surroundings.



CRASH!! I just fell on my ass!!

That’s what I am talking about, every time I looked up to see the view I slipped in the mud, or tripped on a root, or got my shirt caught on a twig. As my dad pointed out, I’ll never watch Platoon the same. After about an hour and a half of this, we eventually made it to the tunnel. Not only was this tunnel a mile long but it was perfectly straight. You could see *he he* light at the end of the tunnel. About half way through I took some pictures.





I am not kidding that is half a mile in, I took one picture each direction! The tunnel was barely 6’ tall so we were ducking for most of the way through. It was also a steady 6” deep stream that you had to walk thru. We had been in mud most of the way and wew covered by now so the cool water and shade was a nice change from outside the tunnel. At the other side there was a little waterfall but not much else, supposedly there was another ½ mile of tunnel that leads to a big waterfall but were not too motivated to look for it. The trail was pretty overgrown, so we headed back.



To this day there is still mud on my shoes, socks, and shorts I was wearing.

Well It looks like I am going to have to split this up again, I’m tired and I want to go to bed (because I’ve got 2 hours of staring at the ceiling to do). I promise I’ll get the rest of the story and details of the 4th of July in Silverton soon (unless nobody really cares.)