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Sleeping Giant
There's a hill on the east side of the island that's called Sleeping Giant, because it vaguely resembles a reclining person. It's somewhat isolated from the rest of the mountains, so you can get a good view of the entire eastern part of the island. One fifth of the entire island, I'd say. I guess Nou'nou was the Hawaiian's name for the hill. We took the Nou'nou East trail. I think it was the shortest and steepest of the three trails there.
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I like the graceful shape of the monkeypod trees.
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In this picture, you can almost see our car in the parking lot that's in the lower right. From there, we climbed switchbacks from that subdivision. When we got to that point on the top of the hill, we went up the ridgetop to an overlook. The rocky ridge going down the hill was one side of our switchbacking traverse, and from where I took the picture of the mountaintop (#11).
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This is looking north to the Anahola mountains. You see those striking spires all the way up and down the northeast side of the island. They say one of them looks like King Kong from a certain angle.
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North (westish)
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More westish.
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You can see theWailua river valley running across the middle of the picture. That's the town of Wailua Homesteads. It seemed like a really nice town.
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Looking south towards Lihu'e.
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This was at the top. First, I had to rest and have some food. That trail took a lot out of me. I think that was partly because it was so hot and that it was my first hike of the year. And, of course, that it was really steep. But mainly the heat. I guess.
10.
There was a trail leading from the overlook. This was a really big monkeypod tree. All the really big branches were broken off. More damage from Hurrican Iniki. Just past it was a trail that led...
11.
there. We didn't go out there. At the time I couldn't remember what was there or how long the trail was, and I was really tired.
Here's a panorama that someone else took.
1. 2. I like the graceful shape of the monkeypod trees.
3. In this picture, you can almost see our car in the parking lot that's in the lower right. From there, we climbed switchbacks from that subdivision. When we got to that point on the top of the hill, we went up the ridgetop to an overlook. The rocky ridge going down the hill was one side of our switchbacking traverse, and from where I took the picture of the mountaintop (#11).
4. This is looking north to the Anahola mountains. You see those striking spires all the way up and down the northeast side of the island. They say one of them looks like King Kong from a certain angle.
5. North (westish)
6. More westish.
7. You can see theWailua river valley running across the middle of the picture. That's the town of Wailua Homesteads. It seemed like a really nice town.
8.Looking south towards Lihu'e.
9. This was at the top. First, I had to rest and have some food. That trail took a lot out of me. I think that was partly because it was so hot and that it was my first hike of the year. And, of course, that it was really steep. But mainly the heat. I guess.
10.There was a trail leading from the overlook. This was a really big monkeypod tree. All the really big branches were broken off. More damage from Hurrican Iniki. Just past it was a trail that led...
11. there. We didn't go out there. At the time I couldn't remember what was there or how long the trail was, and I was really tired.
Here's a panorama that someone else took.
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The legend of the Sleeping Giant is fun. I wrote about that after we came back from our trip and the wedding.
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It was something about a fisherman catching a lot of fish including one that begged to be released. The fisherman decided to free the fish and it immediately turned into a boy which the fisherman then took home. As the boy grew he got bigger, and bigger, and bigger until the island was becoming too small for the "giant". The fisherman did not know what to do so he had one of the goddesses put a spell on the boy that put him to sleep. The only way he could ever be awakened was for someone to go into the valley beneath his sleeping body (the mountains) and sing a certain song. Fortunately, no one has ever figured out the right song! ;-)
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