Kauai Hikes – Kuilau Trail
This hike is one of the more beautiful foliage walks, following an old road turned trail that gently guides you up to a glorious view of the Makaleha Mountains. At the beginning of the path you’ll catch glimpses to the west of Kawaikini and Mt. Waialeale, the wettest place on earth. For the first part of the trail you are treated to a smorgasbord of native and non-native plants from guava to the hala tree. At roughly the one mile point is an excellent spot to take a break. This grassy plateau with impressive views offers a picnic table and a forest of ohia trees which often produce a bright red bloom. The panoramas extend west across the lush hillsides of shrubs, vines and trees, and beautiful valley to Mount Waialeale.
The trail picks up to the east and descends slightly into a narrow, twisting ridge with lush, tropical greenery. After a quick ascent you’ll be treated to a lovely view of Nonou Mountain (Sleeping Giant). Further down the trail you will come to a wooden footbridge which crosses the Opaeka’a Stream. A junction lies up ahead and you need to take the left fork into a grouping of eucalyptuses and ferns. Just ahead is a beautiful veiw of Kapehua’ala, the highest peak of the Makaleha Mountains. The trail ends about 2.2 miles in at the Moalepe Trail. The total length of the two trails is 4.5 miles and is a popular bicycle and equestrian route.
Directions: To reach the trailhead take Highway 580 (Kuamo’o Road) from Wailua for 7 miles until you reach Keahua Arboretum. There is a spillway across the road and parking for the Arboretum. The trail starts about 100 yards before the Arboretum.
Length: 2.1 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
Elevation: 700 feet
Geocaching History
Geocaching, was first coined in 2000. The prefix geo to represent earth, global, and geography. And the word cache to mean a hiding place someone would use to temporarily store items, or more recently used as a computer storage designed to quickly retrieve frequently used information. The combination of Earth, hiding, and technology makes geocaching an excellent term for this activity.
At first geocaching was confined to experienced GPS users who already used the technology for outdoor activities such as backpacking and boating. With the help of a few pioneers, the idea of treasure hunting and using tech-gadgets represented the marriage of two popular interests. Later a website was born to create tools, and a database to improve the cache-hunting experience. Additional features, like searching for caches by zip codes, made it easier for new players to find listings for nearby caches. At the time the site was launched there were 75 known caches in the world.
Slashdot (online techie magazine), The New York Times, and CNN picked up the story starting a domino effect of articles written in magazines, newspapers, and other media outlets around the world. However, because there were so few caches in the world, many would-be participants discovered they didn’t have a cache listed nearby. Many wondered whether anyone would bother looking for a cache if they hid one in their area. The growing community chanted the mantra “If you hide it, they will come”. After some reassurances, pioneers of the hobby started placing caches just to see whether people would go find them. And they did.
More and more people have become involved in geocaching – techies, GPS enthusiasts, couples, families, and groups from all walks of life. The excitement of the hunt appeals to both the inner and outer child. Today you can do a search on just about anywhere in the world and be able to walk, bike, or drive to a nearby hidden cache. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica.
more – Kauai Geocaching
Kauai Geocaching
What better place for geocaching than Kauai. Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate a hidden container (geocache) outdoors and then share your experiences online. To put it another way, goecaching uses multi-billion dollar satellites to find tupperware containers in the woods, and is enjoyed by people of all age groups, all over the world, with a sense of community, and support for the environment.
Normally you’ll find a tupperware container, ammo box, bucket filled with goodies, or smaller container too small to contain items except for a log book. The coordinates listed on the traditional cache page are the exact location for the cache. A multi-cache involves two or more locations, the final location being a physical container. Most multi-caches have a hint to find the second cache, and the second cache has hints to the third, and so on. Once you find the cache, the general rule of thumb is, “If you take an item, leave an item, and write in the logbook.” On the day this was posted, there were 914,940 active caches worldwide. In the last 7 days, there were 694,043 new logs written by 90,920 account holders.
Easy steps to start geocaching
Register for a free membership at geocaching.com.
Click “Hide & Seek a Cache.”
Enter your postal code and click “search.”
Choose any geocache from the list and click on its name.
Enter the coordinates of the geocache into your GPS Device.
Use your GPS device to assist you in finding the hidden geocache.
Sign the logbook and return the geocache to its original location.
Share your geocaching stories and photos online.
more – Geocaching History
