hiking diamond head

I'm pretty sure that if you looked at any Hawaii travel guide, hiking Diamond Head would be listed as one of the top three things that any visitor must do while on Oahu. And while Larry and I typically eschew tourist activities in favor of experiencing things off the beaten path, it would be pretty lame to have traveled to Oahu twice and not climbed the island's most iconic landmark.

We didn't have the chance to hike Diamond Head during our first trip to Oahu, and we almost didn't have the chance to cross it off our list during our second trip either - by the time Larry got out of his business meetings in the late afternoon, we realized that climbing a volcanic tuff cone under the blazing Hawaiian sun would be about as fun as jumping directly into an active volcano. Actually, the latter would have been more pleasant and wouldn't have resulted in scavenging animals picking meat off my sun-parched bones for the following week.

So, an afternoon hike up Diamond Head was out. But on the morning Larry and I were to fly from Oahu to Maui, we were up early and on the trail out of the crater by 7 am. It was, how shall I say this?... HOT AS SHIT. As soon as our feet hit the beginning part of the trail (the flat part) I wished we had started the hike by 6 am. I wished we weren't doing this. I wished I could throw myself directly into an active volcano. If the flat part of the hike was this grueling, how was I going to survive the climb up the side?

Luckily it got better. It was still HOT AS SHIT, but I survived. There are lots of stairs and a decent elevation change, but it's not a long hike. Doable, just do it early and with plenty of water.






Plus, there was a pretty nice view from the top:

Survival of the Fittest Sweatiest.

And hiking back down went much quicker.

So we hiked Diamond Head and survived. It was worth it. It was a good finale to the end of our time in Oahu. We drove back to the hotel and chugged our last cold delicious smoothies at the Hilton Waikiki Beach.

Then we showered, stuffed our clothes into our suitcases, and headed to the airport for a quick flight to the neighboring island of Maui...