Hiking stick or trekking poles
Take your hiking stick or poles if you usually hike with them. The flight attendants can put your hiking stick in the closet where they hang the carry-on suits and dresses or in the overhead compartments. Hawaii’s terrain can be very slippery when wet, and a stick or poles can be a big help in maintaining your footing.
Spider stick
There are a very few overgrown trails (for example, the Kalapana Trail) where you and some orb spiders may meet unexpectedly, head-on. You probably don’t like collecting spiders with your face, but these critters make it hard not to do so. Here’s one way to avoid them without killing them. Pick up and use a “spider stick”—a long, strong stick that you carefully wave up and down in front of you as you hike. You can feel the tug when the stick connects with a web. Detach the anchor strands that hold the web in your way, and lay them aside on the adjacent shrubbery. An orb spider normally rebuilds most or all of her web daily, so you’ve caused her only minor inconvenience. Your hiking stick or poles can probably double as a spider stick.
Sleeping bag
It should be able to tolerate wet conditions. For example, it could have a Gore-Tex shell or it could have a synthetic fill. You are almost certain to get rained on a bit while camping.
Tent
You’ll need one for protection from the rain and, along the coast, the bugs.
Koster’s curse
Uluhe (false staghorn) fern
Clothes while backpacking
On the one hand, it’s best to go as light as possible; on the other hand, almost nothing—not even synthetics—dries overnight in Hawaii’s damp climate under backpacking conditions. Consider which things you can stand to wear damp and which you can’t stand unless they’re dry. Pack just one or two of the “okay if damp” things. Pack a set of the “gotta be dry!” things for each day plus one or more extras, just in case. (For me, it’s socks.)
At the end of a soggy day of camping out
On those occasional rainy days, you may wonder how you’re going to get reasonably clean without getting any wetter than you already are. The socks you’ve worn all day are “goners” for the time being, wet and muddy on the outside but relatively clean on the inside. While you’re changing into dry clothes, turn your “used” socks inside out and mop yourself off with them.
Hypothermia? On Hawaii?
It’s possible if you go into the mountains. Remember that going higher is equivalent to going north into colder climates, and mountains are often very windy. Please be prepared as you would be for going into any mountainous region.
Biodegradable? Ha, ha, ha!
The following things are popularly supposed to be biodegradable if you bury them: toilet tissue; facial tissue; sanitary napkins; tampons; disposable diapers. That must be a joke. They often last long enough for either running water to exhume them or animals to dig them up. It’s actually pretty easy to carry them out if you put them in a heavy-duty self-sealing bag. (I use a couple of heavy-duty Ziploc bags, one inside the other.)
Extra hints for hiking in lava fields
Boots and clothes: Lava is unbelievably sharp—even the smooth-looking pahoehoe (pronounced pa-hoi-hoi) flows are full of tiny, glassy, sharp edges. Never walk on lava barefoot or in sandals! With every step you take, the lava cuts your shoes, so be sure your shoes are in good shape before you start. Lava is tough on clothes, too. Every time you sit on it to catch your breath, it saws little holes in the seat of your pants.
Stay on the marked route! The rock of lava fields is too hard to make a beaten path through. Typically, you’ll follow cairns through pahoehoe (the smoother form of lava), aa (pronounced ah-ahi; the chunky, rough form), or (rarely) a beaten path through cinders. Cairns are big piles of rocks obviously made by people. The cairns mark out a safe route for you. Lava fields are dangerous places to go wandering around. Apparently solid lava can turn out to be nothing but a fragile shell over a lava tube, collapsing when you put your weight on it. You could be in for a nasty, even fatal, fall. The one time you need to get a little off-route is when you have to go to the bathroom; see below.
Routes on active volcanoes can change: Routes on Mauna Loa and Kilauea can change abruptly because of an eruption. That might make the cairn-marked route vary from its description in this book. Follow the cairns, not the description.
Number 2 in the lava: You can dig a hole in cinders, but digging a hole in aa or pahoehoe is impossible. As a result, too many people leave various gross objects sitting out on the lava: feces, tissues, tampons, etc. If possible, wait until you get to a toilet. Otherwise, look a little off-route for a small crevice in which to defecate (but be careful about going off-route). You may not be able to find a suitable crevice. With or without a crevice, completely cover your feces with rocks. It takes a lot of rocks; you’ll have built quite a little rockpile by the time you’re through, though not one big enough to be confused with a cairn. In aa, you can use the smaller chunks of lava. In pahoehoe, the crust is often easy to break into plates you can build with. Carry your tissues, tampons, etc., out.
Getting hiking and backpacking food
If you are planning to backpack on Hawaii, consider shopping for your hiking and backpacking chow on Hawaii. Food prices are higher in Hawaii, but you have enough stuff to put in your luggage without bringing your food, too. You’ll find supermarkets in the larger towns: Kailua-Kona, Waimea, and Hilo. They have marginally adequate selections of long-lasting, lightweight, quick-cooking foods. I did not find any of the standard freeze-dried backpacking chow, however.
Companions
The standard advice is: never hike alone; never camp alone.
Water
Take your own drinking water for the day. Plan on treating water while backpacking. No open source of water anywhere in the U.S. is safe to drink untreated. Treat water chemically (iodine or chlorine preparations designed for the purpose) or by boiling (1–5 minutes at a rolling boil). It now seems that filtering may be ineffective against the bacterium that causes leptospirosis (below).
At the backcountry cabins and shelters in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the water is supplied by collecting rain from the roofs. It is presumed to be unsafe to drink without treatment and may taste of the roof even if treated. The backcountry water supply is at the mercy of the elements and of previous visitors, so be sure to ask when you get your permit whether there will be adequate water for your trip.
Avoiding leptospirosis
Fresh water on Hawaii may be contaminated with the bacterium that causes leptospirosis. A pamphlet about leptospirosis is available from the Epidemiology Branch of the Hawaii State Department of Health (on Hawaii, call 808-974-6001). The following summarizes some of its contents: Muddy and clear water are both suspect. The bacterium invades through broken skin or the nose, mouth, or eyes. It enters the bloodstream and infects different organs, particularly the kidneys. Precautions that would especially apply to you here are not to go into streams if you have open cuts or abrasions and not to drink (untreated) stream water. Treat water chemically or by boiling it.
If you do swim in fresh water on Hawaii, you should know that the incubation period of leptospirosis is 2-20 days. The onset is sudden, and the symptoms may resemble those of flu: