Waihee Ridge Trail

To my shock and horror, I was looking at my list of blogs and discovered that I had not yet reviewed Waihe'e Ridge Trail - bad haole! Bad! That said, here is a review of said trail that is a tad north of Wailuku, east of Kahului in Maui.

I'll begin by saying that this is a hike suitable for just about anyone provided you can get past the first two hundred feet or so of concrete road that climbs about a 30% incline. So, yeah, just about anyone can do that though it's an auspicious way to begin a hike. Rest assured it is the toughest park of the hike...provided the rest of trail isn't wet. 

While Waihe'e Ridge Trail is a relatively easy five-miler round trip when it is dry, wet conditions make this a bit more challenging without hiking sticks. (And the trail is wet most of the time, even in summer.) After the concrete road you'll find yourself under a canopy of trees and a whole lot of exposed tree roots underfoot. Eventually you'll come to some viewpoints of the valley on one side and the more scenic Waihe'e Valley on your left, which - when it is clear - is a wonderful view. (Be warned, though, all three times I've hiked this trail it has been cloudy which detracts from the view, in my opinion.) After the viewpoints you'll eventually hit the cloud line where the trail gets even wetter than it probably already is, thus reminding me more of hikes on Kaui than Maui. You'll climb muddy switchback after muddy switchback hoping to see a waterfall to no avail. (The closest waterfall you can get a glimpse of is across a valley on either side of you.) 

By the time you hit the 2.0 mile marker, you begin to wonder if this hike is worth it. Well, it is if you just like hiking, but honestly there are many hikes on Maui that are most interesting as you can see in my video below. There is no payoff when you reach the top of the trail; just some water to splash in that surrounds a dilapidated picnic bench up in a cloud. You might want to rest here for a few minutes and ponder how annoying it will be to get down off this hill if you don't have a hiking stick. 

This is a convenient hike - not to mention inexplicably popular hike - if you just happen to be out Wailuku's way, which is to say I had other business this day and that's why I agreed to the hike. Frankly, I would have rather done 13 Crossings just a little further up the road, but my wife doesn't like to walk in streams. Sigh. 

Directions: Take Highway 32 / Kaahumanu Ave. west of Kahului until you reach Highway 3400 right after Kahului Harbor. Turn right here and go north to Hwy 330, about three miles. Turn right on Highway 330 and continue until it becomes Highway 340 at mile marker 2. At 9/10 mile past mile marker 6 is Mendes Ranch on the right. Turn left here on to a gravel/unimproved road and it is approximately 1 mile up hill until you reach a small gravel parking area.

13 Crossings Trail Maui

Park here.

Go there.

13 Crossings, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…Actually, while I would say 13 Crossings aka Makamakaole Trail is nice, it isn’t any more interesting than some of the other ‘wet’ hikes around Maui. In fact, if you do like ‘wet’ hikes, the kind of hike you’re going to get wet on, then 13 Crossings is about as easy as they come. (At least until the very end when you have to climb up one waterfall to get to the next. And even then you can climb more ropes and apparently go on and on and on…) The easiness of this trail – 3 miles out and back – makes it less interesting than some other hikes, particularly the wet hikes found along the Road to Hana which often offer ocean views. 13 Crossings offers no such view and the waterfall scenery is tame for a fellow such as myself coming from Oregon. The waterfalls are nice, sure, but that’s all they are. Nice. The pools of water up this way are cool, which is a nice respite from the easy bake oven that is Kihei so it’s not like this hike is without its plusses. Oh, and the trail does have a section of small bamboo forestry which, you guess it, is nice. If there is anything else to note, it’s worth mentioning that if you come to a large boulder

Nice.

forking the stream into left and right paths, go right. You can still go left and you will still be taken to a waterfall and swimming hole, but it’s not the one every other blogger talks about. Actually, it’s a little curious that no one else mentions this fact. Maybe they’ve got better trail instincts as I always seem to find myself going left when I should be going to the right. I’m sure that means something deeper than I am willing to think about.

Wrong waterfall.

Picturesque. That's why I took a picture.

Directions: Go about 1.5 miles past mile maker 6 on Hwy 340; mile marker 7 is MIA. Look for a hole in a fence on the mountain side of the road just before the road takes a sharp bend. Go through the hole and almost immediately begin your first stream crossing.