Hiking Oahu: Aiea Loop Trail

This is the beginning of my hiking series.  My health has improved since doing the juice fast so I've been increasing my exercise levels. I'd like to write weekly about different hikes around Oahu.  The Aiea Loop Trail is my first hike.

Aiea Loop Trail

Trail Map

Distance: 4.8 miles

Level: Easy

Time: 2 -3 hours if you are in relatively good shape

Location: At the end of Aiea Heights Drive. Follow H-1 to Moanalua Highway (Hwy 78). Take the Aiea cutoff to the third traffic light, make a right turn at Aiea Heights Drive and follow it about 3 miles up to the end of the road.

Hours: April 1 to Labor Day: 7 a.m. to 7:45 p.m

After Labor Day to March 31: 7 a.m. to 6:45 p.m.

Entrance Fees: None

Services/Facilities: Restrooms, showers, camping area, picnic tables, trash cans, drinking water, payphone, hiking trail.

Caveats: Go on a sunny day, otherwise wear boots and clothes you don't mind getting muddy.  Take drinking water. Although it is ranked easy, the trail is uneven with crisscrossing tree roots, many fallen trees that you have to cross over or go under, and there is about 1/2 mile of muddy trail even on the driest days.

Keaiwa heiau (photo from Wikipedia)

Yesterday was a sunny, cool day; perfect for hiking the Aiea Loop Trail.  This trail is located in the Kea'i'wa Heiau State Recreation Area. The Kea'i'wa Heiau is at the park entrance.

This particular heiau was a place of healing where illnesses and injuries were treated with herbs by the kahuna and his students. The heiau is thought to have been constructed in the 16th century by the Oahu chief Kahuhihewa and his kahuna Keaiwa. The 100' x 160' area is enclosed by a 4' high wall of stacked lava rock. The central halau (large thatched structure) is no longer there.

The trail is not particularly scenic although there are several spots where the forest clears and you can see out into the distance.  Most of the time you are hiking through forests. Much of the fun comes from noticing the changes in the forest types.  We counted 9 distinct forests. 

Distinct Forests on the Trail

Eucalyptus: is at the very beginning of the hike and the air is redolent with the citrus-y/menthol smell of eucalyptus. The trail is dry and easy at this point.

unripe strawberry guavas

ripe strawberry guavas

Strawberry Guava: I think this was the second forest we passed through. These plants are considered an invasive species but they provide yummy snacks along the way.  The majority of the plants held green fruit but I found several bushes that had ripe berries.  I think that most of the fruit will be ripe in October. The trail was dry and easy through this section.

Huge koa trees

twisted but alive Koa

Koa: The koa forests repeated a few times on the hike. The trees were huge, straight-trunked monsters in the protected areas and twisted, gnarled grandfathers on the windy ridges. The straight trees appeared to be over 100 feet tall. These must have been the types that were cut down and hauled off the mountains to be made into canoes.  Some of them seemed to be the girth of 4 large men.  The gnarled trees frequently had most of their foliage missing but managed to keep some growth going.

Hapu'u

Uluhe (false staghorn fern): These native ferns create thick mats of vegetation that prevent invasive plants from taking hold.  They cover entire hillsides along the trail.

Hapu'u Fern: The indigenous hapu'u were definitely not as well-represented as the hill-covering uluhe, but there were spots where they were relatively thick. Instead of crowding out other plants, the hapu'u seemed to happily share their space.

Lemon Guava: These guys fooled me at first.  I thought they were really old strawberry guava trees.  The mature trees were 30 to 40 feet tall and their leaves were about twice the size of their strawberry cousins.  The fruit were slightly larger than the strawberry guys but still tasty.

Norfolk pines

Norfolk Pine:  Gorgeous growths of these pines are found in several places along the trail. Their seeds were sprinkled all over the younger trees from the older ones above.  Seeds cover the trail in places.

Ohi'a lehua

Ohia Lehua: Another native, the lehua shows up in a couple places along the trail.  Several of the trees are pretty majestic-looking though it's hard to tell from the photo.

Bamboo: There was only one section, I think, where there was a concentration of bamboo.

yellow ginger

Kukui: These beautiful trees were mainly concentrated close to the bottom of the valley near the stream bed along with the Yellow Ginger. I could smell the ginger before I saw them.

There was about a 1/2 mile stretch of very wet trail before getting to the stream bed and then isolated spots going back up the trail.  Amazingly enough, there weren't any mosquitoes while we were there.  I'd imagine that traveling this trail right after a rain would make the entire loop a muddy slog AND filled with biting insects.

Clidemia

Edibles

As I've reviewed comments from other sites about this trail, I haven't read anything about the abundance of edibles along the way.  Besides the two types of strawberry guavas, there are also purple berries from the weed Clidemia (also known as Koster's Curse).  These prolific plants have tiny, fuzzy blueberry-like berries  a little below knee-level.  

Orange lilikoi

Orange Lilikoi: This passion fruit cousin is also known as water lemon. This plant doesn't have the three-fingered shape leaves of yellow or purple lilikoi. It isn't a prolific fruit-bearer and the fruit is rather small but it's tasty and less tart than the Yellow Lilikoi which is also found along the trail. 

Thimbleberry: This raspberry cousin is found in a few places along the trail.  The fruit is tiny but supposedly tasty.  The fruit was still white while we were there so I didn't get to sample any.

Mango: I spotted several mango trees along the trail.  I have no idea if they actually produce fruit but the potential is there.

Rose apples

Rose Apple: We found one small rose apple on the trail that had obviously fallen from it's tree.  It was tiny and not fully ripe.  These guys look a little like yellow strawberry guavas but they have a large brown seed in the middle instead of tiny guava seeds.  The fruit tastes perfume-y.

View Points

Halawa Valley and H3

There were three distinct views from the clearings.  The first lookout was of Halawa Valley with a section of the H3 freeway running through it. A bench is provided so you can sit and enjoy the view.

Kapolei area

Kapolei Area was the second scenic view.

Pearl Harbor was the third scenic view.

It was a very misty/voggy day as we hiked so my photos don't capture the beauty of the views. 

albino cricket

This was a very enjoyable trail.  We ambled along so it took us much longer than the average 2-3 hours that it takes younger people.  It was good exercise, it was interesting, and it wasn't too difficult for a recovering computer potato who spends far too much time in front of the computer.

I hope you'll enjoy the hike, too.