MnGCA

dornole · Geocacher Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 352

Getting excited to go . . . if there are any caches to recommend in particular on Big Island, or in Honolulu, love to hear it! Tried to find Hawaii geocaching forum but all the posts are a year old, sadly.

bflentje · Geocacher Joined: 29 May 2006 Posts: 3649

Looks for the high favorites. My sis lives there and would love to go visit the caches she talks about.

kendrick0861 · Geocacher Joined: 05 Jun 2009 Posts: 107

I recently came back from the big island. Started in Hilo (east side) and worked my way all around the big island. I highly recomend Under the rainbow in Pololu Valley. Very beautiful place and if your up for a short hike you can see the next valley at the Zorro's Gift Cache. Hilo is a tropical area and there are many cool waterfalls to see. Akaka Falls is one of the more popular ones to see. Pololu Valley is further north of Hilo and its a really cool drive getting there. The highway you take there just ends and you hike down 500' to a black sand beach at the bottom. The view close to were you start is awsome and there is a cache close to the start of the trail but be mindful of the many muggles that go there. I didnt attempt it because of this.

On the west side of the island you have Kona and many many beaches full of caches. I started at the northern tip at a small airport/ windfarm at the Captain Cooked #4 cache and worked my way south to Kona. Hapuna Beach is a popular one before you reach Kona from the north. Some of the more interesting caches I found there were Petroglyphs and Lava Lounge (wear good shoes and pants here). Both of these caches are not at the beach but they are in some really cool places. If you try the Petroglyphs and use theprovided parking cords don't go to the beach and follow the trail there is another paved trail leading away from the beach there that winds thru this forest to the site where they are and the cache is located.

The south is where the volcano is located. By land you can see lots of old lava flows but you will see this everyhwhere on the island at almost every beach. The difference at the national park is the size of these flows. They are old and cool but huge since your basicly on the volcano itself. No worries though when I was there all you can see is smoke coming out of a crater about 8 miles away. Didn't see anything like on TV where people watch the lava flow into the ocean since it wasn't flowing that way anymore. I did take a helicopter tour and I saw where its erupting now though (very far from the national park viewing area at another crater). Oh don't touch the sea turtle that come up on shore. I guess you can get a heavy fine for disturbing them. I saw 4 while I was there and I thought they were dead but they are just hanging out for a while before going back out to sea. Be careful on the beaches while walking on the lava. It will feel solid like blacktop but once it gets wet it is very slippery.

I never spent too much time in one location there but there is so much to see. If anything I would put Pololu Valley at the top of my list to see if you never been there before. Even the locals like that part of the island.

Pear Head · Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 7:37 pm Post subject: Re: Hawaii caches?

dornole · Geocacher Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 352

Wow thanks Kendrick!

MNMizzou · Posted: Tue May 01, 2012 10:45 am Post subject:

We had a lot of fun doing the webcam on top of Mauna Kea (bring a winter jacket if you're going up there, it sits over 14,000 feet and can get very chilly) Also a great one at South Point, but I think it may have been archived. Lots of really cool Earthcaches and Virtuals inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, really got to see some cool areas of that park!