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| "Pretty sure that is just grounding" |
Sunday I went for a short hike with my friend Audrey who was visiting. I wanted to take her somewhere mauka and I also had a pair of boots to break in, so I picked White Road. This trail is short, gorgeous and there is an excellent lookout that makes a perfect turn around.
The first part of the trail was hot and clear. It has been crazy hot lately. This first part of the trail is a gravel road back into the forest and the forest reserve. The hike in the reserve starts out also as a dirt road until you reach the old irrigation ditch. This is one of my all time favorite spots on the island. The ditch is lined with moss and the water always seems to sparkle as it gurgles passed down the hill.
We walked this part (my favorite) along the irrigation ditch and then the trails parts ways and takes off into the forest again passed the bamboo. This is where the trail starts to get a little muddy. There is a spot that I take it was super bad so at one point a boardwalk was put over it. Well now before you even get to the boardwalk there is a very impressive mud puddle.
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| The mud of shoe stealing |
Almost to the board walk I heard Audrey exclaim that the mud was a lot deeper than she expected. She tried to very carefully remove her feet and flip flops (slippas) but there were two "pop" sounds as the front pulled out. Slippas down! She said we should keep going so we did. I think because she was barefoot this section of the trail seemed longer than I remember. We finally came around the corner to the view point and....
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| TA DA!? I swear there is a HUGE beautiful valley right there! | |
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| Even in a cloud it is beautiful! Look at all the ginger in bloom! |
No view. Socked in. But... the scenery is pretty even when there is no view. I said earlier I was breaking in boots. So I did have extra slippas in my pack, but Audrey was pretty sure they would be hard to walk in with all the mud on the way back... I am a few sizes bigger. I was also getting a pretty big blister on one foot. It was decided. My boots went in the bag. I didn't want to over do it breaking in the boots and I felt bad about Audrey hiking barefoot, so we both did. At least we were a similar speed!
Off we went! We ran into several groups walking (all of whom had things to say about the two barefoot hikers....). I brought up the "Earthing" image I have as the first one on this post. We laughed about it.
On the way out we stopped and picked up the broken slippas (leave no trace!)
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| Best spot to take a break! |
We stopped once again at my favorite spot to rest our feet and enjoy the view. I really feel like we reached a whole new level of "White Girl"-ness by hiking barefoot. And even the gravel on the road on that last section didn't kill my relentless optimism!
So hear is my lesson learned. Hiking barefoot makes you look at your feel a lot and sometimes mud can hide sharp rocks!
