Mt. Alava hike

Sunday I hiked to the top of Mt. Alava in the National Park. This half of the trail isn't particularly hard since it's just a double track dirt road, but it's long (3.6 miles each way) and it's tall (1610') and it's hot (8o-something degrees) and it's humid (80%) and it's exhausting (no data on this, you'll just have to trust me).

The beginning of the trail is at the star in the picture and the trail/road follows ridgeline for the most part. At the top are the remains of the old cable car that used to take people (including my father-in-law when his navy ship visited the island) from Fagatogo/Utulei to the top of Mt. Alava.

I've been wanting to do this hike for a while, but was a little unsure at how seeing the entire island at once would affect my sanity. There is a huge difference (at least for me) in knowing that the island is less than 55 square miles, and actually seeing all 55 square miles at one time. Especially since we still haven't left those 55 square miles and have no plans to do so in the immediate future.

At first I avoided places where I could see too much of the island at once, refused to drive to the end of the road on each end of the island, and just generally behaved psychotically in my attempts to make sure that there were edges of the island still left to be seen -because if I hadn't actually seen that the island ended in a certain place, I could always imagine that there was land behind those particular mountains instead of ocean.

Well, the Mt. Alava hike was the end of those mental games. I clearly saw just how small the island was and it really didn't feel that small. Small. But not "impossible to live on, I have to get off this rock" small. Maybe the "serpentine island" thing (long and winding, like a serpent sleeping in the ocean) makes the island look bigger than I thought 55 square miles should look or maybe I've finally wrapped my mind around the idea of living so far from a continent that the only thing visible from one of the highest points on the island is a little bit of island and a whole lot of ocean. Regardless, it was a pretty amazing view and I'll definitely be doing it again sometime.