Stairway to Heaven

Yesterday Spring, Matt, Kevin and I hiked up and over the Pali, coming down the set of steps known as the stairway to Heaven. These are about 4000 steps built by the Coast Guard up an impossibly sheer cliff to reach a now defunct communications station. We started on the leeward side of the island in the Moanalua valley. The trail got progressively harder as we went up and by the time we reached the knife-edge ridge my self preservation alarms were going off. That's when Matt said, "this is were we crawl". With a stiff wind blowing over the ridge which was 12 inches wide at some points I tried to make myself as close to the ground as I could. We were basically straddling the ridge top with our left hand on the leeward side of the island and our right hands on the windward side, with 2-3000 feet of nothing on either side. Did I mention the mud? I've probably been more freaked out in my life but I can't remember when. It was a total adrenalin rush and by the time we hit the comm station my heart rate was way up. Coming down the stairs was great because the clouds parted on our way down giving us some incredible views.