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| Morning sun reaching into the lower end of Waimea Canyon, near the highway. | More fog in Waimea Canyon | Along the ridgeline of Pihea Trail -- there's a great big canyon below and distant surf behind that veil. |
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| Imagine just stepping out... | A wonderfully eerie trail... alone in the mist. | And yes, this is the trail. |
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| On the way to the Alakai Swamp, at the top of the island, this boardwalk starts up and runs for miles all the way to Kilohana -- the overlook to the north side. | ||
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| And the heart of the swamp... feels like a real-life version of the game Myst. | ||
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| After crossing the plateau which makes Alakai Swamp, you reach a sudden edge... | Kilohana -- an incredible overlook of the north side of the island. | |
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| Nice spot to sit and enjoy lunch. And excellent cellphone signal here -- I called back to California, just because I could. Feels very strange to be able to do that from a spot like this. | Hanalei Bay in the distance | What a goober. |
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| Here's a QuickTime VR panorama of the view from Kilohana -- after it downloads (2.6 MB), click, hold, and move your mouse to pan around and up and down; press shift/ctrl to zoom in and out. |
And then a rainbow to top it all off! | On the return hike, I was bummed to see that the Pihea Trail overlook was *still* completely socked in.... (4:48 pm) |
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| ...however, just a few minutes later the whole valley opened up! I dashed back up to where I had just taken that last picture and snagged this one. (4:53 pm - 5 minutes apart) | ||
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| And then just a few minutes later, the view was about to be totally obscured again. (5:00 pm, just 7 minutes later) | ||
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| Back at the truck, I discover why my feet were getting wet. End of the line for these old boots. | A twilight view towards the island of Niihau (on the horizon). | |
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