The Haiku Stairs

Lululemon says, "Do one thing a day that scares you." On Friday (Sandra's birthday), this was my one thing.

The Haiku Stairs, known locally as the Stairway to Heaven, are nearly 4,000 steps into the clouds. The reward for completing this hike is a view that none of my pictures will truly capture.

The stairs were actually pretty sturdy. But of course, it rained just before we went up, so they were a bit slippery.

The stairs are also much steeper in many places than they appear in these pictures, so we used our arms to help pull ourselves up. This turned into a pretty nice total-body workout.

Nature is trying to take over the stairs, but we won't let it :)

As you'd imagine, the higher we got, the more unbelievable the view became!

And, at the same time, the higher we got the more shocking it was to find there were still more stairs to climb.

The only thing better than taking on a challenge like this is doing it with friends. Kev & Jamey are animals when it comes to tasks like hiking, and they kept me laughing even when my body wanted to cry.

This was my favorite pan-shot... Lizzy looking out over Kaneohe & beyond.

Many parts of the climb are actually on the ridge of the mountains, so we could look to one side and see H3, then look to the other side and see Kaneohe Bay.

It's crazy to think that we started out underneath that highway!

I won't lie to you. If you're afraid of heights, this climb could scare the crap out of you. It's my only guess as to why we found a pair of undies in the bushes.

As we started into the cloud-line, parts of the trail became almost mystical.

Along the way, we found various messages sprinkled here & there.

My favorite one, however, was an "S ~hearts~ J" I found at one of the rest points... to me that means "Sandra loves Jermaine," and that makes me smile.

When we saw this structure appear in the distance, I thought maybe we'd made it! Turns out I was wrong. It's funny how every place can look like "heaven" when you're dead-tired :)

We did find a pretty gnarly cappuccino machine inside, though.

Finally, after a few more steps we could see our destination just ahead!

Turns out heaven has a radio tower.

The people who would tell you to get your head out of the clouds... have never been up here.

One last duck-face pose, and it's time to go back down... all 3,900'something stairs. The Haiku gets a thumbs-up from me, and I'm sure I'll be back to do it again.

I will say that a four days later my body is killing me! Ironically, walking up or down four (4) stairs feels more difficult than it did going up 4,000, and my back/shoulders feel like I tumbled down the mountain. But was it worth it? Of course it was.