Location: Honolulu, HI
Length: 1.5 miles
Difficulty: Easy-Moderate
Duration: 1.5 hours
Elevation Gain: 554 ft

Covered with huge trees, the Trail Hike looked adventurous. It rained on the day of hiking. Hence I was informed that the trail was going to be slippery and I have to be careful. As it was drizzling, I decided to buy a cap and had my left knee braces in place to hold my weak knee.  The guide provided us a walking stick and a poncho as a rain coat. I began my walk. This time my wife decided to stay back which left me with no choice but to do it all alone from the beginning to the end.

Walking amidst green forest, that too in drizzling was fabulous. But the pathway was not flat nor it had the side metal rail to hold on. Walking in such a scenario seemed the major challenge for my hiking this time. I wasn’t also aware of the distance and inclination I might have to face during the walk. I did take it as a challenge. As usual, the walk was fine at starting but things started changing once the climbing was onset.  It was impossible to segment my path due to huge trees and plants on the way. I had no clue about when to stop but decided to run a mind clock to have a halt at every 5 minutes whenever I could find a place to stop in the narrow path.

Bored of walking alone, this time I decided to do a small study to find out how people would answer to a person (Totally a stranger) like me when I ask them questions like, “Am I almost there?” “Do you think I could make it?” I picked 4 different race to get the answers at a different interval who where all returning back.  I am not going to reveal which answer belongs to which race but chances are there you might guess right. This has nothing to put any race down or one better than the other but just to see how the cultural behavior pattern varies from different culture while responding to a stranger.

Below are the responses i got from 4 different individuals from 4 different race.

1. First Person – With a big smile – “You are almost there, worth the hike to see the fall…keep going…”
2. Second Person – This person felt I was about to ask a question so decided to see somewhere else and walked off, I was standing there with no answer.
3. Third Person – With no friendly smile, “You are more than half way, then there will be a steep walk and then you will get close to the falls”
4. Fourth Person – Gave a harsh look and asked “What?” When I repeated my question the answer was “You still have 75% more to go.”

Single trail, four different persons and four different responses

1. Encouraging, Friendly
2. Leave me alone attitude
3. Accurate, detail focused but did not express it in a friendly way
4. Harsh, I am a celebrity leave me alone attitude

Fun part of my hike was finishing the trail by seeing the beautiful water falls. I think, if I missed any of the following points, who knows, how tough my hike would have been!

• Organizers Suggestion to take a walking stick for support and a poncho for being safe in rain – Expert opinion
• My preparation with knee braces and a cap to avoid the rain – Preparation
• Even though it was a mixed type of responses, an approximation on how close I am to my destination did help the progress – Random opinion on progress

Location: Honolulu, HI
Length: 1.6 miles roundtrip
Difficulty: Easy-Moderate
Duration: 2 hours
Elevation Gain: 990 ft

The trail started around 5:30 am. After parking the car, my wife and I decided to do the trail together and take it slow as our sons decided to walk fast.

One knee in pain, with knee braces and with no exposure to hiking I started the walk. At one point of the trail, I was able to see the Title whole path and it was so steep when looked from the bottom. The first thing struck my mind was “I am in no way going to make it, should I quit it now or after a while”? Since I needed my walk for the day, I decided not to quit and started my walk with my wife.

“You can’t make it” screamed my mind. I walked, and the destination extended far and far the more I walked. My concerned wife asked me if we should go back and added flavor to my decision of “quit and go back”. The first part I decided was to remove the flavor, so I told my wife why don’t you walk fast and join our sons, when I could do it slow and in worst case I will halt. She too felt that’s a good idea and started her walk.

I sat in a spot and glanced at the destination which was like a Himalayan peak now. Now the question was, how can I do this with a painful knee? A great idea came in mind, how about using a milestone process in place and see! Here it is distance to be covered and not time. I decided to split the track into 4 segments. As I Finish each segment, I will go for a small halt to relax. I also decided to use the metal trail to hold and move so I could use my hand as well for my walk.

All these played a role in me being able to complete this task

• Making sure I had my knees held on place firm with my knee brace. – PREPARATION
• Allowing my wife to move forward so I don’t get into the comfort zone – AVOID COMFORT ZONE
• Splitting the trail into segments – STRATEGIC PLAN
• Utilizing the metal trail bar to move with my hands –MAX UTILIZATION OF TOOLS

Well, the journey was slow and delayed, but I am proud I was able to do it. The result was I wanted to do more, and I had gone for the next one in two days.