When we left off Aa'Ron, or "Bodie" as I have taken to calling him for this tale, had led a clandestine mission to get us to the Skyline trailhead....
When we got a little ways down Skyline we stopped to regroup and Aa’Ron gave me the 411. “Alright Dude, this bike is righteous, just point it where you want to go and let it do the work, ride the wave Bro. Watch out for little boulders and be careful, it will probably be pretty rutted out……Oh, and don’t forget to keep your speed up through the switchbacks or your tire will sink in the loose rock and you’ll go down. Alright Bro? Cool, let’s GO!”. And SWOOSH he was off like an expertly thrown Frisbee.
I thought I better stay somewhat close to him so I could benefit from his lines, so that’s what I did. We rocketed down that crushed lava road. It was rutted, just like he said. A couple of times his bike kicked up a little chunk of lava that tinked off my loaner full-face helmet. I was sorta scarred to death, sorta exhilarated and all concentrated.
This is Skyline but the rider is not me, I had to "borrow" several pictures off the web due to a camera snafu I'll get to in a minute.
Early in the descent I smacked my foot on a big rock; “that hurt” and “watch the boulders” I thought to myself. We had navigated 5 or 6 switchbacks when a particularly steep and tight one appeared. I did exactly what he said not to do and slowed way down in the corner. The bike did exactly what he said it would do and the front tire plowed into loose rock and I went down. I hit pretty hard but was able to roll off my shoulder for a crash score that was high in technical merit and artistic interpretation. I had some knee/shin pads on under some running pants, but one side had slid down and I (of course) took a good part of the fall on that knee. When Aa’Ron rolled up I told him I was all-good, we rested a minute or two and sailed off again.
Again, not me.
One of many swtichbacks, taken looking back from afar.
A little bit down the road Aa'Ron spotted a lookout spot high above us. He was bummed at having missed the turn to ride up there because “the descent is a blast”. I can only assume he meant the craggy jagged rock path directly above me. "Damn" I said, when in truth I was glad we missed the turn off. We hiked up to the spot to take a picture. It was then I realized that in all the covert operations at the summit I left my camera in my heavy coat. I had to settle for a couple of lame cell phone pictures.
Me, in the only photographic evidence of the adventure. Terrible picture, but sweet "hang loose" hand signal. I'm so original.
On down the mountain we sailed until coming to the Mamane trailhead. Finally, some XC style singletrack I can sink my teeth into. I thought this was where the real fun was going to start.
Wrong.
Winds and rain had devastated the trail. Only a few hundred feet into it the trail suddenly dropped into narrow ruts, three foot deep. The bikes sunk into them up to the seat. Since these were 40 pound rigs it was easier to pull your feet up and “surf” the bike down these channels than to try and heft them outta there. It was wild. I would have rather been actually riding, but I can’t say this wasn’t still pretty fun.
This is what Mamane looks like relatively healthy. It had quite the storm hangover the day I was there.
About a quarter mile in the downed trees came; one giant redwood after another (yes, redwoods in Hawaii), sometimes stacked in every direction like God dropped his box of matchsticks right on Mamane. We conjured up a substantial hike-a-bike effort, scaling these bark and pineneedle monoliths with 40 lbs of I-wanna-go-fast bike in tow. It was exhausting but strangely satisfying.
Along the way we came upon a lava tube, which is essentially a little cave. Aa’Ron said I could go down into it if I wanted, but he was gonna pass. “Huna” he said. “Ancient spirits of Hawaiians man, they used to bury people in these places.” I passed on the cave exploration, no need to irritate ancient Hawaiian spirits in my current situation.
Next time: the fourth and final installment of B v.Volcano.
1 comment:
"I think they lava tubes and underground rivers."......The tripped-out haoles could see into and under the Ko'olaus. "There are cities of treasure inside." "Ancient people are still living in there." "In white cities." "They have decoy funerals to fool us away from the entrances." The treasures were not diamonds and gold but hair, bones, teeth, dogs' teeth, sharks' teeth, feather, and rocks. Are we being taken into the "aina, or taken in? Maxine Hong Kingston
Brian-looks like you might have missed an opportunity.
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