Makaula-O'Oma Trail- Big Island of Hawaii

Giant Fern Trees are everywhere on this hike and grow in elevations between 1500-5000 feet.  This trail is at 3000ish feet above sea level.

Many colorful Chickens and free parking warmly greeted us at the trail head.  

This trail is comprised of millions of tree roots that are reaching their way into the old lava flow and breaking up the lava rock into a pattern that is a bit bumpy to walk on. 

Check out the overabundance of tree roots trying to find a crack in the lava to dig deeper and take root.

 The Upper Trail section was comprised of this entirely.
What's interesting is that this ancient lava flow has become extremely fertile ground that now is a rain forest. 

There were copious amounts of Kahili Ginger plants which are quite tall about 3-4 feet.

In this verdant rain forest is a cacophony of wild birds singing their daily life songs and none of them I recognize.  It is a very large fern shaded trail because we are high up on the slopes above Kona. 

The Fern Trees are much taller than I am.

The sun is getting through but just enough. It's not super hot or humid which is great for hiking.

We chose the Upper Trail head which was meandering and quite interesting due to the up and down nature of this section of the trail.  The trail is 3.7 miles long.

Then we cut back on Hallway Trail which was a soulless loose lava rock wide trail that was loosened by a bulldozer and it was all downhill. Yawn.  But nevertheless there were still some interesting finds below.

This tree stump was its own Biome of living things.  Rain Forests provide so many nutrients to any kind of fern, moss etc.  If you can enlarge this photo to see how many different plants are growing on this is kind of cool to see.

This an ancient Lava Tube and they are all over the Big Island of Hawaii.  Some are so large that you can drive cars through.  This one was big enough for me to get into if I so chose but I had no idea what was living in there?

I had no idea at the time that this was a Passion Fruit otherwise I would have taken it back to our resort and waited till it ripened and made an awesome Passion Fruit Margarita, yum!!

We then cut through to Pipeline Trail and then Lower Jurassic which was the narrowest section but very interesting in its twists and turns and straight up hill.  We eventually made it back to the parking lot and our waiting car after about 1.45 hours of hiking.

Lower Jurassic Trail was definitely the most challenging section narrow and steep uphill all the way, good workout.

There were 3 groups that we passed in total. Most of the time we had the place to ourselves.

Being in a rain forest hike the chances were strong that it would rain and it spit on us for 3/4 of the hike but we never got wet and it was quite refreshing. I also only got bit once by a mosquito which was a miracle because the little bastards love me!

Many times during the trail we came to junctions of two and three trails with no trail markers, don't panic because they all rejoin together eventually. I did entertain the thought that we might have a forced over-night stay in the rain forest if we got lost.

I really would highly recommend this trail to get into nature and a lovely rain forest full of tree ferns!

This trail was approximately 40 minutes from our resort in Waikaloa.  You must drive towards Kona and then drive straight up the mountain which affords some quite awesome views if you look back.  Driving back home we stopped at a lookout from Queen Kamehameha Highway.  The Pacific takes on some jaw dropping colors.

That is turquoise colored Pacific water in that inlet and deeper blue Pacific at the top of the photo.  These are all untouched or un-doctored photos.  I just zoomed in on my max zoom.  The colors are extraordinary.  The above photo reminds me of the Blue Lagoon in Iceland with the exact same milky turquoise color.

There is always a pretty view in Hawaii.