Hiking Twin Falls

We woke up this morning and headed out for the North Shore to do an easy hike. It was the 3 of us and Auntie Jayci and we had so much fun! We decided to hike Twin Falls, despite the fact that this hike is over-commercialized with the fruit & jewelry stand at the trailhead right next to the porta potties and the FOUR groups of Eco-Adventure Tours we passed. I always wonder if the people on those tours feel like suckers when they see a ton of other people hiking the same trails for FREE (and I promise you, the ham sandwich they get for lunch is NOT worth the $60-80/person they pay to go on these hikes!!). Note to blog readers: if you ever come on a Maui Vacation - please don't pay to go on a hike. 99% of these hikes are on public-access land and you can do them yourself for free. You are paying an arm and a leg for a crappy sandwich and a person to tell you a bunch of fluffed up historical stuff they probably memorized out of the same guide book you can buy at Borders in Kahului right after you land. Of course, Joel was kind enough to remind me that passing 4 tours of about 15 people each, means those are 60 tourists pumping money into Maui's ailing economy....but still - it's the principle of the whole thing. I don't know how those tour guides sleep at night!!

Anyway, the hike was fun (even though it was crowded). It sprinkled on us most of the time, which was a nice change from the dry weather we've been having in the Central Valley the past several months. Dean did really well - walking all the way in to the falls by himself and part of the way out before getting tired and whiny - at which point Joel just opted to pick him up and carry him, despite Dean's protests. Dean has never been a "carry me" kind of kid - he always wants to walk on his own, but when he gets tired, he gets slooooow. But he normally does pretty well hiking.Dean had lots of fun pointing out all the banana trees along the trail and we also got to see several varieties of ginger and heliconia, ti, eucalyptus, banyan trees, etc etc etc. It's been a few months since we did any rainforest hiking and it was nice to be back in the jungle!!Dean found a stick and had to use it to poke and prod in every mud puddle he came across, then he'd have to try jumping over the puddles. It was pretty cute. Oh, and he made it about halfway in actually wearing his shoes before sitting down and refusing to go any farther with them on. We gave in and let him take them off. He is a Maui boy after all - "born and raised"! LOL. Local kine feet.
When we got to the waterfall, Dean wanted to jump off some rocks SO BAD. So we found a couple of boulders and let him jump into the water. Then we sat and watched Joel swing into the waterfall on the rope swing (probably courtesy of one of those damn eco-adventure tour guides). The water was COLD - even though it is Maui, most of this stream water is making it's way down from the slopes of our 10,000 ft volcano, Haleakala.
Joel did take Dean out into the water so he could swim under the waterfall, which Dean was pretty excited about doing. But as soon as they finished, Dean asked for his towel and said "Mommy, Dean's frozen".
It was a fun morning!!