My birthday was on the 26th and I was so thankful to have Kyle come home from 3 weeks on the Big Island on my birthday! He's missed my last two birthdays, so I was blessed to have him home. In the morning I met Mandee and her kids at Starbucks on base for a birthday coffee, then I went to pick up Kyle, later we met his friend, Mike, (who just got back from UAE from a year long deployment) for lunch at McDonald's on base, followed by opening up gifts, then onto the movie theater to watch The Wolverine with popcorn AND soda (we splurged!), finally we headed home and our friends Kyle, Aimee and their friend Holly came over for an all-nighter till we did the Stairway to Heaven hike where we left at 1:30 in the morning.
Ready to open my lovely gifts from my lovely family and friends!
The gang hanging out watching The Dark Knight Rises (the girls are hiding/cuddling on the couch). It's only 10:40...the girls fell asleep, but the rest of us stayed up till we took off for our hike!
Heading up in the dark! The reason we had to start so early or late, depending on who you are, is because they post a security guard at the bottom to stop hikers at 2:30. It's not unsafe, but the trail goes over multiple peoples property (private and government), so they don't know who is liable if someone is injured. We all had head lamps on for the climb up. This is a view of Kaneohe.
We made it! It took us just under 2.5 hours to climb close to 4,000 stairs! We left at 2:15 and got to the top at 4:33. This meant we had to wait for over 2 hours till sunrise...definitely not the fun part. This is the inside of the bunker at the top. It's muddy and concrete, so we brought trash bags to sit on to keep clean, but it didn't help with the padding!
My favorite picture! The peninsula is the Marine Corps Base.
On the way down...we were fortunate to get the view from the previous picture, but about five minutes later the clouds rolled in.
Kyle leading the group back down
Another bunker on the way down with cool graffiti for another photo op :)
Can't get enough of these mountains!
The H3 (highway) down below amazes every time I see it or drive on it!
This is a picture our friend took and she edited it, so it looks different from ours, but I like this shot she got of us better than the one on our camera!
If any of you get the chance and come to the windward side of the island and also don't mind getting up at 1:30 in the morning, then DO this hike! It was definitely worth it! It wasn't as physically grueling as other hikes we've done because this one has hand rails to support you the whole way and the steps are really nice, actually! It is a bit tough to find the trail head, but if you need help just ask us!
This was definitely a great beginning to my 26th year of life!
Amazing pictures!
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