Top of The Falls

20x24 Oil Gallery Wrap

When he was thirteen years old, my cousin Tim went camping with twelve other boy scouts at Halape, a remote beach on the south flank of Kilauea Volcano, Hawai’i Island. On one side of the beach was the great blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean. On the other side was a cliff that rose over two thousand feet to the trailhead where their journey began, an eight-mile hike down.

This small beach was sort of a secret little jewel about as far away from civilization as you’d want to be. They camped near the water in a grove of coconut trees, and in the darkening evening, told spooky stories around a campfire before nodding off in their various tents and shelters.

Around four in the morning the first earthquake hit. Its epicenter was shockingly close, only twenty-five miles off shore. The loud, grinding, moving earth jarred the campers awake and sent them scrambling from their tents. When loose boulders from the cliff above began to roll down through their camp, they ran toward the ocean to escape them.

When the quake passed and the ground had settled, they returned to their tents, too shaken to fall back asleep.

A second quake followed not long after, but this one was a 7.7 magnitude monster that generated the largest local tsunami of the century. The beach under their coconut grove campsite sank twelve feet under water, sucking the entire troop of boys down as the ocean surged in over them, thrashing and dragging their breakable bodies inland over jagged stones and refrigerator-sized boulders.

There is much more to this story, but the important thing to know is that, amazingly, all but one adult leader in the scout troop survived.

Tim’s harrowing experience fascinated me for years. I wanted to know more, I wanted the details. It was a story that just wouldn’t let go. Finally, I asked him if he would take me down to Halape to spend the night, just as he and the scouts had in 1975. I assured him that it would only be for one night. I told him that I wanted to write about what had happened to him, but first I needed to experience the place, the ambiance. I needed to know what it was like being there. I wanted to hike the steep 8-mile trail to the cove and spend the night under the stars. I wanted to stand at the edge of the sea and look back and gaze up at Pu’u Kapukapu, the massive cliff where the boulders were jarred loose. I needed to see the scant vegetation and the tall stumps of coconut trees that still rose out of the ocean where the campground had once been. Most of all, I wanted to imagine myself there, on that November night in 1975.

Already I was building a story. I couldn’t help it. The storyteller in me would not stand still, and I had very little power to calm him down.

Hesitantly, Tim agreed to take me.

A few months later, with Tim and his younger brother Michael, I hiked down to Halape from the trailhead at Hilina Pali, two thousand feet above sea level.

The day was blistering hot, the sky clear, the sun a relentless fire. The trail was not often used, and loose rock slowed our descent. Halfway down the 8-mile trek I knew I hadn’t packed in enough water. Even so, Halape lured me on.

When we finally got there I was completely captured by its stark beauty. Except for the constantly moving ocean, the desolate landscape around Halape exuded tranquility and peace. No wonder the scouts wanted to camp here.

I sat by the sea for a moment and made notes in my journal, all the while dodging stinging ants and flying roaches. For the experience, we even boiled and drank stinky water from the catchment cistern at the campground, just as the scouts had in 1975. It was awful, and I kicked myself for not packing more water. Still, gross water was better than no water.

That night we unrolled our sleeping bags on the sand and slept under the stars, the calm ocean swishing in and out over a rocky shoreline only yards away. The night air was warm, and the Milky Way sprang across the dark expanse as clear and bright as you would ever hope to see it. Only once before had I seen so many ice-clear stars. It was breathtaking.

An hour before sunrise the next morning, Tim had had enough. “I’m outta here,” he said, gathering up his sleeping bag. If I’d have gone through what he did, I’d have been antsy to move on, too.

We rose quickly, packed our gear, savaged down a can of peaches, saving a second can for later, and began the long 11-mile hike down the lava rock coast to Chain of Craters Road, where we’d arranged to be picked up by one of Tim’s friends.

Two hours into the hike, the sun was on the verge of killing me. My feet were hot and swelling in my boots. My T-shirt stank of sweat. Bees that came from nowhere swirled around us, looking to drink from the water in our eyes. There was absolutely no shade, just black lava for as far as the eye could see. At one point, we stopped and sat for a few minutes. No one spoke. Too hot to talk.

Michael dropped his backpack and searched for something to eat. Tim squeezed into an 18-inch fissure, trying to escape the blistering sun. I sat with my T-shirt pulled up over my head.

In minutes, the bees came, and we had to move on.

Tim took the lead, setting a gruesome pace that Michael and I could not maintain. Soon Tim was so small in the distance he was more mirage than real.

At one point Michael and I stopped to split a melted Snickers bar … which was a mistake, because almost instantly, we were routed by a swarm of wasps and bees. We sprang up and hurried away, swatting at them with our hats. Michael dropped the Snickers bar and the bees fell on it with deadly intent while we disappeared.

Mercifully — overheated, dehydrated and utterly exhausted — we made it to the road, where we found Tim sitting with his T-shirt hanging over his head.

Our prearranged ride wasn’t there. The road was deserted. No cars, no shade, no cooling breeze, no water, no green grass to lie down on. Just rock and road and shimmering heat waves.

We waited.

And waited.

Sooner or later someone would come. Maybe.

Seeing no bees or wasps, Michael took out the last can of peaches and pried it open with his pocket knife. We divided it up.

Nothing. Ever. Tasted. So. Good.

Thank God for canned peaches packed in syrup.

I wanted to reach out and thank Tim for having the guts to return to Halape. It was, for me, a truly singular journey. I’d gotten pages of detailed notes and an experience I would long remember. But I decided to thank him later. Right now all any of us cared about was water and shade and sleep.

Just as we’d about given up on our ride, a car appeared in the distance. We staggered up to flag it down.

Tourists. A father and daughter, out exploring the bleak lands around the volcano. Lucky for us, they were kind and unafraid of three sweat-soaked, scruffy-looking hitch hikers. Tim told them about our no-show ride. “Hop in,” the father said. “We’ll take you to the nearest phone.”

We sat three abreast in the back seat. Shade, at last. And air conditioning!

As we started on, I clearly remember the father and daughter glancing at each other in the front seat. They both grinned, and lowered their windows.

We must have smelled pretty bad.

A week later, I started writing Night of the Howling Dogs.