Finally, another post about rock climbing! Screw all that rice cooker shit. Despite the fact that the Hawaiian island chain was formed by volcanic magma, there isn’t a lot of rock climbing in the area and I feel that the area’s full potential hasn’t really been discovered because everyone is too busy surfing. However, there is one spot called Mokuleia Wall in northern O’ahu that definitely deserves a visit. It’s off the Framingham highway (or Highway 2) past the Dillingham airfield. It’s right after the YMCA camp, at a slightly ambiguous left should pull off. The trail is shrouded in tall grass, so it can be a little hard to spot, but it’s there and improves drastically after your get above the grassy lowlands (Hide was EXTREMELY nervous going into the grass…I don’t think he fully believed I was right when I said it was the trail). Rock Climbing Hawaii is a great online resource of information on rock climbing in Hawaii. Coming down the trail is definitely steep, so I recommend following this website’s advice about coming down while you still have daylight.

The crag is a mix between bolted sport climbing and trad climbing. A cool feature is bungy cords that run from the bottom of the routes up to the anchor. You can tie your rope to the cord (with a clove hitch) and pull it up and through the anchor instead of having to lead climb. It took Hide and I a while to figure out this system and I found it a bit frustrating (you have to be a little bit creative at getting the rope through the anchor) but it is certainly good to have. The rock was pretty smooth and I thought the routes were sandbagged, but all in all we had a great day rock climbing. Fortunately, the wall was in the shade all day, so the temperature was really nice up there.

Mokuleia is also right by a state park and the beach there is beautiful. I saw a sea turtle swimming in the water, which totally made my day.

Tags: rock climbing, Travel

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