I went by myself today for a nice loop combining the Canyon and Black Pipe trails, the Kumuwela road and trail, and the Halemanu-Kokee trail. Once again I had the bad set of camera batteries, although this time I was able to diagnose the problem so that it won't happen any more.
There were various other groups of hikers up to and at the Waipoo Falls. After that, though, I saw hardly anyone.
The first part of the trail goes out onto various ridges overlooking the canyon. I do not know what process formed these natural arches.
The "Kaipo Perch" has a nice butt-shaped indentation for anyone who wants sit and watch the canyon.
'Round about here is where I met a couple of German tourists who asked me to snap their picture in front of the canyon. They also offered to take my picture, but that's when my batteries went south. They took my picture with their camera and offered to send it to me when they got home, so I'll put it up here if/when that happens.
They also wanted to know how far it was to the Kokee Museum. Gee, uh, does this trail even go to the Kokee Museum? They weren't sure, but apparently someone had told them to "just follow the trail" to get there. I showed them the map in my hiking book with the dense interwoven trails, and invited them to hike with me and I'd at least get them back to civilization. And thus Sebastien and Rebekka became my hiking partners for the rest of the day.
From around this point the trail veered in away from the canyon edge, so the best views were mainly of flowers from that point on. We had a nice conversation comparing the hiking in Hawaii, California, and the Alps; discussing the current economy and our respective countries' recovery efforts; and various other small talk.
When we got to a multiway intersection near the Halemanu-Kokee Trail, I looked deeper in my hiking book and found the proper route for them to take to the Kokee Museum. However, they decided that they'd had enough, so we headed back to my car, and I gave them a ride back to their car.
