journey in, journey out

my friend cliff will visit soon (less than a week), and he was interested in revisiting some of the places we used to explore "back in the day." so this afternoon, i checked some of them out.

kipapa gulch is very different from twenty years ago. for one thing, there is this developed region called mililani mauka (where i happen to live) sitting on what used to be pineapple fields and open grassland. i recall that one of our access points, in fact, the most important one (the koa acacia tree) was somewhere behind the water tanks, i just wasn't sure at what "angle," or how far exactly. there are now a bunch of high class houses between the water tank and the gulch. i felt, quite frankly, extremely paranoid.

there are "access ways" into the lip of the valley, spaces between yards and such. but in all of them, there are posted, just to be absolutely clear and unambiguous, "NO TRESPASSING" signs. the first one intimidated me, so i went to the next culdesac, a bit over. for some reason, that second one didn't seem so scary.

these access ways are covered in weedelia. i went through one corridor, and soon found myself at the lip of the gulch. it was hard to see anything, much less recognize anything, because there was a border of wild california grass obscuring my vision. (same as when we first went there). so i had to edge around, all the while trying to seem quiet and innocent (dogs barking in backyards, the hum of air conditioners).

at one point, someone illegally had planted a garden all the way to the lip of the gulch, AND put a chicken wire fence around it. turns out i could've found a way around the fence, but i wasn't looking, so i instead went DOWN into the gulch.

let me tell you, it wasn't exactly smooth sailing going down. the ground drops off precipitously, and in places, very very dangerously. i had to grasp roots, step obliquely, etc. all the while passing through some very tight underbrush. but then, i emerged on a strangely flat plane.

it appears that, in constructing the houses, castle and cooke decided to dump all the displaced earth into the gulch, creating a sort of "wild field." i mean, it is very flat, but all this wild grass and stuff is growing there. honestly, if someone wanted to, they could just landscape it and have a pretty large park there. as it was, the ground was kinda muddy, and i got a bit paranoid looking at some of the large tracks that i sometimes crossed. i kept thinking i'd see some large wild boars, or, worse, a wild pit bull or something.

the view grew grander. i could see in places that the gulch was both deeper and more overgrown (primarily with iron woods and albizzia trees) than i had remembered.

i had to scale back up at one point, to get back to the weedelia lip so that i could get a better view (i wasn't about to get deeper into the gulch when i wasn't sure if there'd be a convenient way back up). this was also rough, perhaps even rougher than the "fall" down. i had to grab roots and branches, this time to "lift me" up, and let me tell you, some of those roots and branches were rotted through; they practically fell apart with a touch. anyway, i eventually got back up.

the view was pretty spectacular. i started to recognize some traces of places. for example, there was a steep chalk rock ridgeline; i recall that being part of the steep path that led down from the koa acacia tree. but it didn't rise up to any tree that i recognizes. nevertheless, it was really beautiful, spectacular even.

i will post pictures as soon as i can upload them.

at present, i believe the tree is gone. the region i ended up in (the houses) were much higher than the "baseline" of the lip of the gulch; the landscapers must have elevated the ground level there, and in the process, "covered up" the tree. that's my guess anyway.

or, the access point i knew is further ahead than i dared to venture.

oh well.

for a few minutes (i was only out for about 30-40 min), i felt young again: dirty, sweaty, with black bugs on all the smelly parts of my body...