When Mike and I first moved to Oahu, we learned there was one climbing crag by the sea at the Northwest tip of the island with pretty good climbing. So, of course, we went to scope it out. It had poured endlessly the day before and we were pretty sure the rock would be too slimy to do any real climbing. Mountain Project gave us directions to the trailhead "located .3 miles East of YMCA between two signs." The trail was .5 miles long. Cool, found it, doesn't look like much though... Hmmm...
The trail entered through a bunch of trash and into an area that looked more like a high school kid pot hangout than a trail to a well used crag. We hiked along what was maybe an animal trail for a ways and finally arrived at a real trail. It forked shortly after. We walked one side of the trail, which clearly went out to the road. So we tried the other side. It went up the canyon. Thinking that looked pretty promising we followed the trail in until we hit a 15' wall of vines/roots with a rope hanging down. Obviously, we had to go up to continue. Challenge accepted!
From there, we ascended canyons walls using wet, muddy ropes, navigated around a big pool using chains bolted to the wall, up what obviously was a waterfall when it rains and finally up the side of the canyon to what could be a climbing wall. It was not the right climbing wall, more a project long abandoned. A few bolts, an old bucket, and some tools stashed under an overhang, were abandoned. The views of the North Shore and Mokuleia Beach were spectacular! Every time we were about to give up and backtracked, we found another rope or chain leading up.
Finally we ran out of up minus one very unstable looking cable. Command decision was to head back down. We back tracked down along the muddy ropes and vertical root wall back to our original point of indecision. We picked the other trail thinking it would be something real and ended up walking through the trees on unbalance lava rocks until we came to a really nicely maintained trail with a big sign that read "H4 Tsunami Escape Route". We used that to walk out through the YMCA and back to the car. Three hours after we started, we were mud splattered, scraped, and grinning ear to ear. It was a great little adventure!
Consequently, we drove .3 miles WEST of the YMCA, and there was a very nice, well-used trail complete with a note about stolen climbing shoes. Plenty of adventure for later. A Google search tells me the canyon is called Crystal Canyon. There isn't much on it, a local treasure not many have frequented. I loved it!
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