It is expensive to live in Hawaii, but the best things there are free or so the story goes. The mountains, the sea and the ever-present volcanic earth are simply waiting to be experienced. I lived on Oahu from 1968 – 1987 and learned to appreciate and respect the land, especially on the hiking trails balanced on knife blade ridges or meandering into deeply creased valleys.
The Koolau is not a mountain in the classic sense. It is the edge of an ancient volcanic caldera which has been worn away by the effects of wind and water over thousands of years. But we are small and it is large, so it might as well be a mountain.
From the leeward side of Oahu it is possible to climb to the very top of the Koolau Mountains and look down upon the windward side and feel the power of the great gale whipping vertically up the cliffs.
There are those brave few who will hang-glide off such places, defying gravity suspended below their brightly colored nylon kites. I have always admired them, their bravery in taking that first step into the open air, trusting the wind and their engineering.
Climbing up the Koolau mountains is like passing through a series of open air rooms, each with its own decor. You start by walking among the ferns and bamboo, lush, green and primordial. Higher up will be the majestic ironwood trees with their thick trunks, dark and sturdy as a fortress wall. The wind blows through the ironwoods with a sighing sound that is the tenor against the deep baritone calls of the humpback, singing to us in a symphony we once knew.
Higher up still are the grasses and rough shrubs clinging to the rocky soil like barnacles. Here in the wild wind the air is fierce with a peculiar dry scent that is so compelling as to create a memory all of its own. I remember it to this day, all these years later.
Now that I think on it the best things in Hawaii may defy enumeration. The best things give back far more than than can be measured in the mathematics of memory.
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