Always up to Something!

A relentlessly unhappy baby continues to bemoan the pain of a red-eye flight from Honolulu to Atlanta, and despite my best efforts (three jack and cokes, three Tylenol PMs), Mr. Sandman has yet to grace this plane. I feel less like a functioning mass of flesh and more like something one may spread on toast. Atrophy is like jelly, I think, as I feel the lactic acid happily nesting in every sinew of my musculature. Like an athlete spent by a relentless day of training, I am rendered to feeling like wet cement with every movement. Last night, or seven hours ago, my teenage cousin guided me to a summit whose leading journey was so continuously upward and life-threatening that it masked the spookiness of us going in the witching hour. Adrenaline and coffee filled, possessed by the want for mother earth (or Papa and Honua, Hawai’in earth gods), to enliven my spirit with her humbling and majestic ways, I paid little attention to the maximized effort my body was making.

In 1942 a wooden ladder was spiked to a cliff on the island of O’ahu to enable the installation of antenna cables, which were later used by the U.S. Coast Guard in the 1950s. Upgraded from ladder to stairway, the trail hosted open traffic by many until the state deemed it too treacherous and shut closed it off in 1987. Sixteen years later, the state of Hawai’i paid $875,000 to have them repaired and yet they remain restricted.The hike is officially named the Haiku Stairs, or the Stairway to Heaven. It is off limits to the public and therefore desirable for its forbidden views as well as the unique challenge of climbing 3,922 steps.

Reckless but sober, we ambitiously started the journey around two in the morning. Perhaps a little too early, but rumor had it that the guard stationed himself around three. Cloaked by the dark I followed my deer-like cousin through a bamboo forest and under a fence, sneaking like hungry raccoons but clumsily cracking nests of broken bamboo. Approaching the entrance to the path we were startled by a sweaty, curious man meandering by the mouth, so we rather quickly  grappled around the final obstructing fence and landed on the first stair.

Moonlight illuminated the ascending path and framing foliage in milky streaks, casting an ominous glow on the looming trail. The stairs crawled at a steady incline like an endless chrome centipede, flanked by a rail on either side and studded with grips. While the slopes were lush with bedded foliage there was no branch or boulder to break a fall should either of us do so, and as I hauled upward through the mist, thoughts of life’s impermanence and often unpredictability swam along my brain. I am a recent college graduate living and supporting myself in New York, working in an industry of which I have little interest and constantly sideswiped by those I assume are more ambitious, lucky or talented than I. Silently and mechanically climbing the stairs, I pondered the concept of “making it” it in the big apple, and the significance of it all fell off my shoulders like the sweat off my neck. Perhaps the Hawai’in gods were near, or maybe I was simply experiencing firsthand man versus nature philosophy. Either way, the physical effort combined with the quiet thrill of a prohibited nocturnal hike successfully revived my existential engine.
Catching our breath on the second platform, my stoic and positive little cousin weighed the consequences of this exercise on her upcoming track meet. As casual as one choosing good pineapple or better pineapple, she shrugged off notions of fatigue and glanced upward. We were making good time- it was just shy of four- and judging the stunted forthcoming stairs I thought we may have time for a nap at the top before dawn. Nodding to the above incline, I asked “Is that where it ends? Just up there?”

“No, laughed Christine, We have to go through the clouds!”

The force of roaring wind and splattering rain held my breath outside of my body. We looked like struggling wet butterflies, our bright ponchos clinging to and blowing away from us like dampened and damaged wings.

As night remained ever present, cloaking the surroundings with her inky shroud, our arrival to the top was not rewarded with a panoramic view of southern O’ahu. Rather than linger and take photos, we cautiously peered inside the concrete hut that marked the peak. Layers of graffiti and grime covered the walls, but the musty air was ours alone. A plank of creaky plywood served as our sanctuary where we began the wait for sunrise.

Twenty minutes into the mini-vigil, the first to mark a steady stream of young adventurers  stepped into the quarters . One toted a plastic bag filled with wrinkled, blackened hot dogs, and her companion, a bearded fellow, had a pack full of the necessary accoutrements for a sunrise stake-out: a lantern, some blankets, and potato chips. Following them was an exhilarated and garrulous group in complimentary University of Hawai’i sweatshirts and on their tail, vagabonderie in the teenage male form. Shaggy haired and shoeless, the wiry young men to bring up the rear sauntered around like one might in their kitchen before stepping outside in a niche to surreptitiously smoke a bowl of marijuana. Inside, snacks were timidly passed around and my cousin’s iPhone soon met a friendly UH student’s portable speakers to serenade all with reggae and island tunes.

On a time-limit (school started in two hours), we waved goodbye to our newly formed and never to be seen again comrades, and prematurely began our descent just at the cusp of dawn. When the sun finally raised its glowing head, the shroud of settled mist rose to the heavens and the bushy green life beneath stirred with the dawn. Sweet and pungent odors wafted through the morning breeze, as I discovered God’s cuckoo clock in the chorus of tropical birds.

There was no time to meander around or pause for the view. Getting down was less like walking down a long flight of stairs and more like controlled falling: lifting, sliding, planting. I tested exactly how durable my gloves were as my arms stepped up to be the one barrier between my body and the slippery steep ground. As the bottom rose to focus, so did the guard. Avoiding a citation was the final worry, but as his blue hair came into focus my anxiety disappeared. Any guard with a blue Mohawk had to have the Aloha spirit, right? Toddling on wobbly limbs we awkwardly passed him with a guilty greeting. “Now you”, he alleged, looking at my red face, sweaty head and mud-splattered body, “you look like you just went to Heaven”. 

Jelly turns to atrohpy turns to lactic-acid logging my arms. I can’t lift them! Why? because of a nature’s stairmaster hike, that’s why. Why arms on a HIKE? well, On the way down legs don’t come in much use. Biceps, however, are necessary for survival. and luckily enough the wind and misty fog combined with the 90 degree angled “steps” were scary enough to keep a heavy stream of adrenaline pumping through my body…so I couldn’t feel it (and you won’t either) and now, on the flight to Atlanta, I FEEL IT. but hey, as an once-upon-a-time serious athlete I know this feeling- and it’s a good one. 

let’s backtrack…

winter in NYC can be dreary. so dreary that we, as working residents, laborers, artists can succomb to the daily routine and feel obliged to box ourselves in a self-supported lifestyle, because hey- we should be lucky to have a apartment and a job at all! well, all this is true. but the monotony needs to be  broken. so when my AWESOME cousin told me the details of this “stairway to heaven” hike, I reacted naturally. first reaction: hell no. second reaction: FUCK YES!

the details:

1. this hike is off limits to the public.

2. there is a guard that arrives at approximately 3:30am (but has rumored to arrive as early as 2!)

3. parking is only available on a street a little ways away- so to get to the base of the hike one must park, then navigate (in the dark) through a bamboo forest, and then climb over or through a fence.

4. the hike is 90 minutes up, 90 minutes down- continuous stairs/ladder. it gets a little slippery.

5. you will need climbing gear. 

this is a lot for one night! the last time I did something this crazy- NOT fueled by alcoholor college party adventures- was the Harford County Girl Scouts’ Overnight Mall Lock-in. 

long story short: after a hefty haul up a mountain ridge- ascending cloud cover and reaching the summit,

we hunkered in a bunker used for the coast guard around WW2. We arrived at 4:15, and within 20 minutes the place was packed with groups of thrill seekers just like us. some had no shoes (wtf?!), some had weed, some had hot dogs. one guy had speakers, and another had an iphone, so there was a good hour of SOJA and jams serenading the hidey hole. 

When the sun finally peeped through the mist, the view was unbelievable. There are pages of this view on google images- but nothing compares to the live, visceral, real sensation of being present in such a lush and life-reaffirming setting. with dawn’s emergence came the clear chorus of tropical birds, and I swear they were communicating directly with me as I butt-slided, hopped and climbed my way down. 

Katie thinking : don’t look down. sings in head hey I heard you were a wild thing..oooohhh. don’t look down. trust your hands!

Bird tweet tweet youre dumb tweet I see this shit all the time tweet hope you make it out alive tweet good luck mahalo tweet

Okay, so ladders= scaled. photo ops= could have been better. body= jelly

FINALLY: BOSS LEVEL (because this is a dungeon in LoZ Ocarina of Time, didn’t you know?) Now that it is past dawn, the security guard is defintely out. And there is only one way out. 

Citations, police, or maybe nothing at all have been considered but not weighed until this moment. Will we make it home in time to let the dog out for her morning poop or be delayed with the arrival of the Honolulu police? THANK GOD, the guard is cool. He has a blue mohawk. I am not afraid. 

I AM NOT AFRAID..OF..*****..ANYMORE! ?