The ‘map of three routes’ is like tinder for hikers and policemen.
The hikers lookup how to get there. The policemen look up how the hikers are getting there. And they hookup.
The connection is fireworks - so magical and unexpected.
I have not found good security advice online. What I find is good luck posted as technique.
Hikers who have already been caught are facing 6 months in jail, so posting incriminating evidence online is not their top priority.
1st tip: The guard is a non-issue.
Prior to August of 2017 most people hiked the stairs up and down - even with a guard. That month, under pressure from the community, the Board of Water Supply added funding to maintain police presence in the valley beneath the stairs. Today the police are your only and actual risk. Most people are caught not because a guard or a neighbor called the police, but because the police are like ‘the professional hockey players of catching hikers’.
Even after hiking it almost 300 times, I still continually adapt to the changing climate. I have not gotten a ticket, but it’s been with a lot of respectful, ethical tip-toeing through the valley to gain a ‘sense’ of the place.
That ‘sense’ is your most useful tool.
Avoid routes posted online, use your best sense, be a good neighbor - these are all pluses.
The only route that could be ‘safe’ would be an endorsed legal route.
I never use any of the ‘three routes’. If you are going to use one of the three routes anyway, try route #1 between 3am and 6am.
The most common story of being ticketed is:
“We walked right past the guard and he just told us we were trespassing, but the police were waiting for us and we didn’t see them until we were right next to them. We said we didn’t know it was trespassing, but I guess they hear that a lot. Looking back we would have done things differently. We didn’t know we had to come back to court, etc.”
Tickets are written almost every hour, but few result in an arrest on the spot.
The basic charge is Second Degree Criminal Trespassing.
Cases are heard at Kaneohe District Court 45–939 Pookela St.
If you’re interested, grab some popcorn and head down any day beginning at 8:30am. Leave the popcorn in the car. No food or drinks in the courtroom.
If it’s just a simple ticket with no arrest, there is a court date on the ticket - usually about 6 weeks out. At that date you have the opportunity to plead guilty and go straight to sentencing - but only if you come with a lawyer.
If you’re alone, the judge will explain that your case carries a possible jail term and direct you to a phone by the bailiff which is a direct line to the public defenders office at (808) 586–2100.
Even if you would rather hire your own lawyer, the judge will expect you to create that appointment before you leave. (The cost for your own lawyer, if you choose one later, is about $1,200).
When you set the phone down, you’ll walk back to the judge with your appointment date. The judge explains rule 48, which states that a case can be dismissed if trial does not begin within 180 days. Some days count toward this time and some days do not. Because the court was ready to see you, but you needed more time to see a lawyer, the days until the next court date do not tick down the court’s 180 days.
Your 2nd court date is set about 2 weeks after your initial appointment with your lawyer. Initial appointments with the public defender are about 8 - 10 weeks out, so you’ll see the judge for the second time approximately 4 - 4.5 months after the hike.
There is one exception to this wait. If you were arrested on-site and are in jail waiting to see the judge, the public defender will meet you to help you understand the charges.
In either case, when you do see a judge with your lawyer, you will likely plead that day. If you plead not guilty, a trial date is set another 4 months out for jury selection, etc. This trial rarely lasts longer than one day.
If you plead guilty or no contest, the judge will read immigration rights and explain that, if you are not a citizen of the US, this could result in immediate deportation. You will be waiving your right to a trial by jury and voluntarily agreeing to be sentenced by the judge. The maximum allowable punishment is 6 months in jail and a $1,000 fine. The customary standard is a $1,000 fine and 60 hours of community service.
You last appearance is a compliance date about six months out to show proof that you have fulfilled the requirements of your sentence.
After that, it’s up to you. If you’d like, you can likely get it expunged from your record after a couple years have passed.
The average setback is difficult to calculate because you have to consider variables like impact on professional positions, clearances and licenses, visa & immigration issues, flights, hotels, car rental, missed days of work, legal fees, etc. But it is safe to say that $1,000 is the small slice of the pie.
The most important preparation is to choose an acceptable level of risk and stick with that decision, rather than upping the risk mid-hike to solve an undesired outcome. You don’t want to be sitting in the back of the police car thinking “I didn’t mean for it to go that far.”
Ways to ‘up’ your risk:
(1) Run from police — they grew up trespassing in this valley and know where you are going when you run. Evading arrest is a misdemeanor.
(2) Give a false name. If you say you forgot your ID, they may book you until they can verify your identity. If what you told them is different from what they find, that’s a problem. Identity theft is a felony.
(3) Get caught and go again.
(4) Carry a firearm. Having a gun makes this 1st degree trespassing.
(5) Try to pay someone off. We don’t want a hike to turn into not being able to vote or hold a decent job.
Ways to make it easier:
(1) Just ignore the ticket and don’t come back to Hawai. If you don’t show up at court, there will be a warrant issued for your arrest, but unless you’re ticketed for jaywalking in Waikiki, or get stopped coming back through the airport, etc you won’t get arrested. In order words, they won’t extradite you from Europe. If money is an issue for you, you can use this as a way to buy time until you are able to come back and face the legal process.
(2) Climb up the ridge rather than using the stairs. I’ve used the ridge to access the mountain with experienced hikers on occasion. I understand this route has claimed many lives, and if you take it, you miss the magic of putting stairs to their use, but the State of Hawai’i is very clear about not using the 40’ of anchoring built into each section of stairs.
Rather, it’s a balance beam 1,000’ in the sky.
The Board of Water supply may soon either destroy the stairs or make them legal - we don’t know, but the heat on political offices from the neighborhood continues to build, and something will eventually turn.
In the meantime, the fine is a non-issue if you enter and exit the Moanalua Valley Trail between 7am and 7pm. I recommend you enjoy sunrise before the hike, and start as close to 7am as possible. Give yourself room to get lost a bit and still make it to the summit without rushing. If you’d like, ask me for a video of the Koolau Summit Trail and some of the terrain you may face.
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED: I highly recommend exploring the option of going the backway if you are capable of a round trip on that trail, and choosing another epic view of Oahu if that’s not the case. I’ll phrase this perspective in question form: If I paid you $5,000 each to hike the Moanalua Valley Trail, would you?
(3) A less-commonly savored option is to find someone with experience to lean on.
Hiking should be free, but I’ll draw a corollary to illustrate this school of thought.
Dozens of visitors each day hop in the water with One Ocean Research about 2 miles out to sea off Haleiwa Harbor to snorkel with 20 or so sharks circling under their boat. There is no cage, but they have a professional shark coach on site with a 100% safety record.
I don’t really hire guides. I am a 9-year veteran Navy Diver who served in the SEAL team and don’t need help, or a snorkel rental. I live in Hawai’i and watch people swimming from my window. None of them get bitten and I even have a map to find that shark diving spot so I can combat sidestroke out to the beasts.
My Facebook has a video of me swimming a football field length underwater on one breath.
But I hired a guide to go snorkle.
And it was so worth it!
It was the awe-inspiring understanding, the impressive communication skills to condense years of experience into a short safety brief, and the watchful coach in the water that made our dive enjoyable, rather than ‘possibly survivable’.
The pictures and videos were a plus.
In the end, I want to ‘vote them up’ with my dollars so they can eat at the groccery store and buy more boats because the world needs this.
It wasn’t just snorkling. It was an experience that changed my life.
Now that I’ve been there, I know how they coach the experience and I know where the sharks are, and I can swim out there for free. But I probably won’t - and I’m okay with that.
For hundreds of screenshots like this one, ask me for a link to “the memories we’ve shared”
@Hawaii_Mountain.Man.Matt
