Kaleo Lancaster (Island Trails) has been wanting to do ridge three of Kaupo cliffs for the past few months! This past Saturday was the perfect opportunity to do it. Being that I worked a 14 hour shift the day before and I had to work the next day at 230 so I wanted to start early! So with a short time limit we decided to start at 7 am. I met up with Keoni and Kaleo in Waimanalo and carpooled to the Tom-Tom trail head. By the time we got everything all ready we finally set off at 740am. Kaleo and I on separate occasions had done Kaupo cliffs so we were familiar with the area. Kaleo was very surprised on how open and well marked the trail was compared to the first time he had done it. The first time I tried to do Kaupo cliffs we ended up going up the wrong ridge which led to a crumbly scary mess. As we reached ridge three there was a rock face that we had to climb to gain the ridge. Once on the ridge we could see the entire ridge and how fun it looked. But now we had a problem Keoni hurt his ankle. With the okay that he could make it back to the car safely we decided to continue on. Ridge three was fun! There are a few rock faces that must be climbed and some that needed to be contoured. All in all there were some really fun parts. Ridge three eventually connects back up with the original Kaupo cliff trail. We reached the top from the road in one hour and thirty minutes. We then took a quick break and headed towards tom tom on the KST trail. At the top of Tom Tom we took a one minute breather and jammed it down. Back at the car Keoni was waiting patiently drinking his beer telling us his story how a lady yelled at him on the way back out. We were done by 1030. It only took us 3 hours to do now I had choke time to rest up before I had to go to work! cheeeee..
