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Pig Damage on the Kawailoa Trail

Posted: March 23, 2009

I joined the trail maintenance crew of the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club (HTMC) to help the Sierra Club clear the Kawailoa Trail above Haleiwa for their upcoming hike in April.

The Kawailoa Trail was built in 1934 during same time frame as the Koolau Summit Trail (KST) as a Depression era public works project by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).  Like other CCC trails of the time, the Kawailoa Trail is a contour trail that maintains a fairly consistent grade as it snakes its way across the landscape from the agricultural fields above Haleiwa to the start of the KST in Northern Oahu.  The trail is 4.1 miles long with a gain of elevation of 1408 feet.

After driving more than 5 miles through a series of roads and locked gates, we arrived at the pig hunter’s road and hiked up and down several hills covered in eucalyptus trees and norfolk pines before we reached the Kawailoa Trailhead.

Although the Kawailoa Trail has not been cleared for well over a dozen years, the uluhe choked trail was still very much passable many thanks to pig hunters.  As we made our way along the trail we saw evidence of pigs around each turn in the trail.

Pigs rototilled the earth in search of worms and other morsels to eat in the soil.  We also saw a number of tunnels through the thick uluhe — like the one in the photo above — which the pigs use to move through the thicket of ferns.

One of the more charming sights along the trail were healthy palaa ferns which are a favorite material in traditional Hawaiian leis.  Also known as “lace ferns”, palaa ferns have one more level of lobing than palapalai ferns which makes pala’a fronds almost feather-like.

Ohi’a and koa trees were the dominant trees with uluhe ferns in the understory.  But there was also a sprinkling of kopiko, mauwa, ‘ie’ie and other native trees  throughout the forest.

There were quite a number of hapu’u tree ferns throughout the forest.  In the photo above Dusty Klein passes under large hapu’u fern fronds as he makes his way along the trail.  The weed whacker division of the team cleared the initial part  of the trail while the machete, lopper and sickle divisions cleared the portions farther in along the trail.

Baby hapuu trees ferns thrived in the understory of the forest.  We encountered quite a number of charming little tree ferns growing on moss covered mounds along the trail.

Many pig wallows litered the landscape as we hiked up the trail.  We saw increasinlgy more pig damage the farther we hiked in the trail.

Wayne, Lars, and I hacked through uluhe and chopped away at blow-downs that blocked the trail with our machetes, sickles, and loppers.

After making our way up the trail, we came across a number of charming loulu or native fan palms (Prichardia martii) which are endemic to the Koolau Mountains.

After making our way what I would guess to be about 4 miles up the trail, we came across a horrific sight — a morass of interconnected pig wallows.  The pigs had a veritable rototilling palooza tearing up the landscape, denuding the vegetation, and exposing the underlying muddy substrate.

Despite searching for more than half-an-hour with the spearhead crew — consisting of Jr. Lau, Fish and Kiera — we were unable to pick-up the contour trail on the other end of the morass of interconnected pig wallows.  Since we had reached the designated turn-around time, we had lunch and then turned around to head back the way we had come.

Kawailoa is truly hog heaven — the pig damage on the trail is among the most extensive I have seen.  On our way back out the trail, I told Patrick Rorie about the pig damage we saw and he told me that he stumbled on two huge pigs, the height of large gray hound dogs but with considerably more heft on a previous hike on this trail.

According to Stuart Ball’s History of the Koolau Summit Trail, this section of the KST was apparently already over-run with pigs in the 1930s.  With so many pigs for such an extended period of time, it is little wonder that so much damage has been done to the native habitat.  It is my hope that pig hunters make good use of this reopened trail to make a serious dent in the pig population.

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SOURCES

Hawaii Hiking Trails- Kawailoa Trail

HTMC Newsletter, Oct -Dec 2008, Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club

Ko`olau Summit Trail History, Stuart Ball