When we attempted to find information about things to do on Oahu, we found that some information was easy to find, while reviews of other things were more difficult to find or nonexistent. This entry is part of a larger series of reviews that I am posting so that other people may learn from our experiences.
One of the things I was really excited about doing in Oahu was hiking. We had read about tons of different trails all over the island. We had a few tour books and had read about some trails on-line. However, it was very difficult for us to get any detailed information about the trails. In particular, the difficulty level of the trails and what could be seen from the trails were details we were looking for that we often couldn't find. Most resources just listed how to get to the trailheads and how long the trails were. I wanted to post this information so that other people with the same questions we had might be able to find it with a google search.
Getting to the Aiea Loop Trail was fairly easy. The trail is located in Keaiwa Heiau State Recreation Area. Take Aiea Heights Drive all of the way to the top of a hill. , then follow signs into the Recreation Area. Keep driving until you get to a parking area near the top of the hill. The trailhead is marked and can be found off the right side of the road.
The trail is well-graded and shady. It is also fairly wide in most places. The trail is 4.5 miles long, and I would rate it as being a fairly easy hike. The only difficult parts are areas where you have to climb over logs that have fallen across the trail. However, all of the logs we encountered had cuts made into them that made it fairly easy to get a foothold when climbing over them. There were only a handful of really steep sections, and they were all very short. Nothing that I, myself, worried about. Actually, the vast majority of the trail could be ridden on a mountain bike, which should tell you about the difficulty level.
It took us about 2.5 hrs to hike the entire loop, which also testifies to the relative ease at which we hiked the trail. In that time, we both drank around 1 liter of water. As with the Lanipo Trail, I should have drank more water out on the trail, as I felt a little dehydrated afterward. When we exited the trail, we had over 2 liters of water in reserve, and felt that we were overequipped. We were not expecting that hike to be as easy as it was.
The trail was a disappointment from a difficulty standpoint because we were hoping it would be challenging. We were also disappointed that there were very few scenic views of the surrounding areas visible from the trail. There was one point at which we could see Pearl Harbor. However, we were looking between trees, so it was not possible to photograph panoramic views of the area (see above image). Most of the hike was through heavily wooded areas, and therefore did not offer many scenic views.
I was bitten by mosquitoes about 5-6 times. Heimlich was not bitten at all. Neither of us were wearing repellant. We started out the hike just after sunrise, and I would expect the mosquitoes to be far worse around sunset. Therefore, if mosquitoes bother you, definitely wear repellent.
Because of the relatively low difficulty level, this trail is probably ideally suited to families. I don't think I would be interested in hiking this trail again, because overall, it wasn't that interesting and didn't offer any scenic views of the surrounding areas.
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