Waimea Bay is one of the most famous beaches in Hawaii. It’s best known for big wave surfing and more specifically, The Eddie. What many people may not know though, is that Waimea Bay is also home to some of the best bouldering on Oahu.

In case you’re not familiar with climbing, “bouldering” is a type of rock climbing. It’s pretty much free climbing (meaning, no ropes) but you only go up 10 to 2o feet. Since the heights are low if you fall you just push off the rock and land on either crash pads or in this case, sand. And to make the most of the short climbing distance, climbers set up “problems” for each other. You pick a point A and point B on the rock then figure out how to do the route using only specific holds. On outdoor rock, you can usually see where the holds are by the white marks left by chalk climbers use on their hands.

Bouldering is a super niche sport but I’m not sure why more people don’t do it. It’s incredibly addicting. And at Waimea, you get to climb on the beach. Which is awesome.

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I’ve read that this hike is easy. I thought it was pretty tough. Lanipo is a 7.5 mile (round-trip) hike up one of the ridges, called Mauna Lani Heights, above Kaimuki. It can take anywhere from 4 and a half to 6 hours depending on how fast you hike. Craig, Eva and I went up here over the weekend.

I think the intensity of this hike has a lot to do with the conditions of the day. For us, the biggest challenge was mud. It rained the day before and even sprinkled during our hike. It felt like almost half the trail was muddy and we were slipping and sliding all over the place.

The shape of this ridge goes up then down then up then down then … well you get the picture. Combine this with the mud and you’ve got a hike that’s sort of an endurance challenge. Try as we might, we all ended up on our asses several times, our knees were sore and shaky, and when the sun burned through the clouds it felt like we were hiking in an oven. It was a test of will but to tell you the truth, I kind of liked it.

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I see this Bug parked across the street from my apartment from time to time. I love how they just leave their board on the roof rack. Such a cool and iconic ride.

I see pictures of this temple all over friends’ Facebook pages. I’m sure you can see why. I’ve yet to check it out myself but luckily, our friend and photography enthusiast Howard made it out recently. He sent me these great pics recently.

The temple is in an area in Kaneohe (the east side of the island) called Valley of the Temples. From what I’ve read the temple is a replica of a temple in Japan with the same name. It was built to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii.

On the Byodo In grounds you’ll find a nine foot tall wooden Lotus Buddha, a five-foot 300 pound brass Peace Bell and a 2 acre koi pond. See the full post for more pics.

The temple is non-denominational so do be shying about visiting. And be sure to bring a camera and post your pics on Facebook.

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