Nounou Waterfalls

The waterfalls on Nounou mountain, the Sleeping Giant, are so ephemeral because there is so little area on the upper slopes to catch and funnel the rain. It takes a lot of rain and a quick break in the clouds to see them. We had another four inches of rain last night, there were a few showers in the morning, and so I was lucky to see them when I went out around noon today. And they lasted long enough for me to go get my camera and tripod. Here are the very rare Nounou waterfalls:

There are actually two waterfalls, the taller one of about 200′ (60 m) on the large black cliff face, and a shorter one of about 40′ (12 m) on the smaller cliff above to the left. In this picture, the lower one is falling straight, and the upper one is being blown almost upwards by the wind. There is so little water flowing that the wind would sometimes blow both of them sideways.

I bet Nounou has memories of many larger waterfalls, when it was a bigger mountain. When clouds obscure the peak, as they have often recently, the cliffs looked like those of the Na Pali coast or maybe Hanalei, reaching up into the rainy forested uplands. According to Chuck Blay’s book “Kauai’s Geologic History,” Nounou mountain is about 5 million years old and part of the original volcanic island-building stage of Kauai. Long ago, the Sleeping Giant was one of the pali, large cliff or escarpment, with streams from the uplands plunging over his shoulders, perhaps into the sea below.

Cold Spell

Back at the end of November, I metioned putting on a long sleeve shirt on a cold 62 °F (16.5 °C) morning. It turns out we had a warm and dry December, but the rainy weather of the past two weeks has kept temperatures low again.

How low? Well, I’ve been wearing long sleeves again, not just at sunrise, but most of the day. And then I’ve been wearing socks in and around the house, much more than I ever did last year. But I have to admit that socks look and feel funny with slippahs (slippers, flip-flops) :

I’m not sure if the locals ever wear socks with their slippahs. I walked around the neighborhood like this and talked to some of the kama ‘aina (island born) neighbors, but they were too polite to mention my fashion faux-pas. One solution to the funny feeling between my toes is to wear Tevas (sports sandals):

However, I am sure that I’ve never seen a local or a resident wear Tevas, with or without socks. Only the tourists wear them—locals prefer their slippahs or just tennis shoes.

If you take a close look at the first picture, I am actually modeling two lowly, yet critical, pieces of gear:

• Scott brand slippahs. If you’re a mainlander like me and you try to wear the cheap $3 flip-flops, your feet will hurt sooner or later. First, the foam sole compresses over time and you feel every sharp pebble, and then the lack of support will flatten the arch of your shoe-trained feet. Locals who grew up in these are immune, tourists can get away with wearing them for a week or two, but if you want to wear slippahs for more than a month, get something bettah.

  Scotts cost $18 at K-mart, but they have a real rubber sole and arch support. My pair has lasted through a year of constant usage and long walks without hurting my feet or ankles. You could probably hike in them if you wanted to imitate the locals. However, if you just want camp slippahs in Kalalau (or in the Sierra in the summer), take the $3 kind because they are much, much lighter.

  And no, I don’t play the guitar or the ukulele, I just liked that design better than plain black.

• White tube socks. Kauai’s red dirt is famous for it’s ability to stain or color your clothes. Since most hikes on Kauai are either muddy or dusty, your shoes and socks will get dirty. This is why the local hike in slippahs, but my feet need trail shoes or hiking boots, which means I need socks.

  You can see that mine have some local color, but sometimes they’re just so muddy you don’t want to wash them with anything else. And some of the less traveled trails are overgrown with invasive plants full of burrs that are near impossible to remove. So, after a good adventure, you sometimes just want to throw your socks in the trash. Instead of tossing expensive hiking socks, I just buy a 12-pack of the cotton tube socks every year, white being cheap and easy to find.

Rain, Rain

I usually publish sunny-weather pictures on this blog, so I thought I’d show you what the rain looks like on Kaua’i. Both of these are from our lanai (covered porch), you’ll recognize the street light from the sunrise photos.

In the neighbor’s yard above, you can see the pink flower-stalks of several mango trees in bloom, the wind-tattered leaves of banana trees, and two branches of our papaya tree in the foreground. The mangos started blooming after the last big rain at the end of January, so we should have another good year for mangos if the rain keeps up another month.

After the rain stopped, I walked up the street to look at Nounou mountain (the Sleeping Giant). A few wispy clouds were still caught up there:

Notice to hikers: all trails on the east side, north shore, and in Kokee will be seriously wet and muddy for the next two weeks. With the winter rains, count on mud puddles until the end of April. During rainy periods, avoid crossing any rivers on hikes, most notably the Waimea river, Hanakapiai stream, and the Wailua river at the start of the infamous Tunnel hike.

The end of last year was very dry and January still had below average rainfall, but February is looking better with 3.3 inches (8.5 cm) at our house yesterday alone. Drought is a serious issue on a small island where surface water runs off quickly and aquifers aren’t that big. Having to water the garden to keep it green takes time and makes the water bill more expensive, so we welcome the regular rains.

The newspaper often reports on big storms, today showing a photo of Wailua falls at high volume. I always forget the waterfalls have spectacular volume for about half a day after storms, though the flood waters are all brown. However, the newspaper did get some of their numbers wrong, claiming less than two inches (5cm) of rain fell on Waialeale last year. In fact, only the month of December saw 1.67 inches (4cm) on Waialeale, its driest month on record, but its 2005 total was still 343.82 inches (8.73 meters), which is 81 percent of normal.

Firery Sunrise

We’ve been having unsettled and cloudy weather lately, but not many colorful sunrises because the clouds block the sun down low. But last week, there was just the right break in the clouds over the horizon to light up everything like a fire. The second photo is a few minutes later, further to the right (south) and makes me think of the embers of the fire.

Any Snow on Kauai?

In a comment to a previous article, Mark suggests that we need artificial snow here. Skiing is as close as the Big Island this time of year, as a matter of fact they were at it just this week:

Photo credit: KITV News 4 via the Honolulu Star Bulletin

Winter storms leave snow on the volcanos of Mauna Loa (”Long Peak” at 13,415′ or 4089m) and Mauna Kea (”White Peak” at 13796′ or 4205m), though it rarely builds up. People ski at Mauna Kea since the road goes all the way up to the telescopes at the summit. Get a friend with a 4-wheel drive and some chains, but don’t take your expensive boards because I bet more than a few rocks poke through. I’ve always wanted to fly over there with my randonnée skis but I’d have to be lucky to time it right. And then I don’t know if I could handle the uphill skiing after driving up there from sea level.

So the Big Islanders are lucky to see some snowy peaks, but it got me thinking: has it ever snowed on Kauai? The highest point here is 5243′ or 1598m near Mt Wailaleale, but sometimes we get a cold winter storm that might freeze up there overnight. I have never heard someone mention snowflakes falling in Kokee, the highest road on Kauai at 4000′ (1240m), but then again, I’ve never asked. A quick Google for “snow on Kauai” yeilds no evidence, although I did learn that a Kauai chief once wooed a snow-goddess of Mauna Kea and the large Poliahu heiau (stone-walled temple) in Wailua, 3 miles from my house, is named after her.

I’ll start asking around, some of the old timers here might be able to tell me, though I’d really like to find someone who has seen the snow falling themselves.