As mentioned before, ENK's childhood house is in Hawaii Kai. They have lived here on/off for almost 30 years. They live smack on the bottom of KOKO head crater. When asked if anyone climbed it, none of the family members knew anything about this. They asked, "why would you climb it?" They didn't know a single person in their neighborhood who climbed the mountain. But it's right there in front of their house. You can't miss it, you see it every day!
Several years ago, our family stayed at the Hawaii Kai house for our Cho family reunion. Sam saw the mountain and was curious about the hike. He ventured up. The only person ENK knew that actually climb the long hike up to the top. He came down and shared with all of us how beautiful it was up there.
While I was here this week, I told our brother in law from LA about this hike. He decided to climb this as well. He took his camera up and went all the way to the top. He took some breathtaking shots! He came down and said that the hike was indeed very difficult. His shirt was soaked with sweat. He's not sure he'll ever climb again....
Being an adventurous soul myself, I wanted to climb this too. I asked ENK once more if he would climb it with me and he just looked at me like "Why would I want to do this?" Oh well, I attempted to climb this yesterday before my flight home to PDX. When you climb this, people don't say hello. It's not a casual hike up the mountain. It's strenuous 1100 plus verticle steps. The "stairs" are the railway planks from years gone by. One bad step and you can easily hurt yourself. It was formerly used by the military to transport personnel and supplies to a lookout post on the summit. I started my climb around 6:30 a.m. I took many stops and just sat there on the side of the hill, just trying to soak in the beauty of the day's sun rising above Diamond Head. It was so beautiful that I couldn't believe my eyes. I wanted to continue but knew that I would just die from climbing the last 500 steps or so to the peak. I didn't want to push myself too hard so I returned down. I'm sad to say that I DID NOT make it to the top. I saw the mountain peak straight up and I chickened out. But I will try again.The descent was not easy. Some say it's harder on the knee to come down. But I'm glad I did this. I would love to see the sunset next time.....This photo was taken by our LA brother in law who climbed it 2 days before I attempted my climb. The Koko Crater: 1028 ft. Average person takes 40-50 minutes to climb. Some try to climb it in 20-30 min. Before I left the airport, ENK asked if I would be surprised if he climbed it. I told him not to climb it. I wanted him home. :)
Kaiser High school and it's football field in the center and Hawaii Kai Costco on the other side of the island.
