Diamond Head (Oahu) - January 19 2024

Koolau Range, Oahu, Hawaii
232m

After going for a relatively involved hike the afternoon prior, I wanted to relax a bit and do something easier on my last full day in Hawaii. My dad was telling me about a hike he did in the past, which was fairly close to our hotel, Diamond Head (not to be confused with Diamond Head in Squamish). I looked it up, and it's only a couple hundred gain and a few kilometres. I also saw it was close enough one could feasibly get there on foot, so I mapped it out, and figured "eh, running worked surprisingly well the last time I tried it, let's go for a run". So my casual hike turned into a 13km road/trail run instead 🙃.

This was my first time running for more than a minute or two after I got injured, so I wasn't sure how it would go, but was confident enough to try it out. I was more worried about my right heel which I'd bruised on Mauna Loa, which was rather unhappy being put into my trail runners (I didn't have road running shoes with me). Once I got moving, though, it quieted down into background pain, so all good there.

The jog down the road from the hotel and up to the start of the road up the mountain was almost exactly 4km, gains up from sea level to about 45m, and took me a rather-lengthy 27 minutes 😅. In my defence, I'm a hiker, not a runner, and it has been over a year since I last did it. I did manage to only stop for traffic lights, at least, which is why this report is a wall of text thus far. The next kilometre gets you up the road to the gate, where I was forced to take a short break (and take the main picture for this trip report) to get my pass scanned. They make non-locals get a pass for an hour-long window to enter, and there are different ones for both hiking-only and parking, so make sure to reserve yours if you plan to go.

Past the gate, I finally got to start "the actual trail". The first few minutes are on a slightly-inclined, sidewalk-esque surface, before the terrain switches to being a fairly even rock instead, which was fairly hard, with only small changes in pitch or shape, making it still easy enough to run on. The crowding of people, especially as the trail got into the switchback section, was a far greater hurdle. From about 130m to 170m the switchbacks were steep and tight, so I only managed to run for about 60% of the time, maybe. Past 170m, there were some stairs (even worse for my ability to keep running) followed by a tight+dark tunnel I didn't feel comfortable running in lest I smack my head, so I got a bit of a break in there.

Once I got out of the tunnel, I was able to run again until the final set of stairs, where I did my best to keep running, but only managed for about 70% of them before I caved and walked my way up in shame. Overall, I managed to get up in 51 minutes, covering 6.5km and a bit over 200m of gain. I stayed up there for about 2.5 minutes before starting the jog back, not wanting to take too much time off of my run, even if I knew it wouldn't be a "good time" by any stretch.

The jog down was a bit easier (unsurprisingly). Getting back to the gate took about 10 minutes, around another 5-6 to get back to the main road, then it was smooth sailing back to the hotel. I snapped one or two pics along the way, and managed to complete the 13km journey (conveniently almost exactly) in about 1:37. That put my pace at 7.5 mins/km, which is a bit depressing considering I used to say over 5 minutes/km was "slow" and under 4.5/km was "decent", but hey, for the first run post-injury, I'll take it.

Overall, I was surprised with how well my body handled the forces of running for the first time, and dealt with my bruised heel plus the previous day's stiffness. I'd recommend this as a fairly tame trail run if you're staying in a similar area and want to make an otherwise trivial peak a bit more interesting. Otherwise, take the bus in with the family and get a peak done while doing something the whole family can tolerate, and still get some good views in the process.

GPX Track + Map