Today Michael and I dropped off our kids with a friend and hiked the 7 mile trail to the Mount ‘Alava summit (1610ft). We hiked through a tropical Samoan rain forest and saw fruit bats, a ginormous hermit crab, a magic tree, and lots of birds. The trail was wet and muddy and quite steep in places. We had perfect weather and it didn’t feel too hot. There was a banana and a coconut plantation about halfway up the trail, and when we got to the top, there were awesome views of both sides of the island. The picture below shows where we started on the hike. We hiked all along the ridge line to where we’re taking the photo from.
At the top of Mount ‘Alava, there are the ruins of a cable car station. A 1.1 mile long cable way built in 1965 once ran between Pago Pago Harbor to Rainmaker mountain and was the only single way cable in the world at that time. It was was damaged by Cyclone Val in December 1991 and was permanently put out of commission.
After we had been on the summit for a few minutes, the huge grey cloud that we had been watching on the horizon quickly spread over us and we couldn’t see anything. It was a weird sensation. The temperate dropped dramatically, we were in the cloud and were amazed that it didn’t let out any rain. This lasted for about 15 minutes, and then blew off and we could see again. Pretty cool. I liked looking down at the harbor, it was so pretty.
We had an hour to kill before our kids would wake up from naps, so we had time to stop for a nice lunch at a Hawaiian restaurant downtown.
It was an amazing date even though I was totally out of shape and my body is really sore now!
monsonmadness 
this is so awesome! Glad it was a wonderful day!
By: emblysmiles on December 4, 2011
at 4:05 am
Beautiful!
By: Lori on December 4, 2011
at 6:23 am
Those last two shots from the mountain top are incredible. I think you and Michael could sell any number of your scenic photos online as framed prints, as a calendar, or in some other format.
By: Christie on December 4, 2011
at 4:23 pm
glad you guys finally got the good weather. beautiful pictures! i was just thinking if you’d like to take a few of your kids up there one day we could watch the rest.
By: melinda temple on December 4, 2011
at 8:57 pm
Did you see me limping in church today??? I am so sore, my kids could not make that hike, especially knowing they’d whine even more than I have done today. I’ve got what I call “Barbie leg syndrome”…I feel like my legs aren’t in the socket properly. I love the adventures we’re having on this island but I AM SO OUT OF SHAPE!
Your turn to try out the adventure trail. I need to heal up for a month or so and forget the pain before I can try it!
By: monsonmadness on December 4, 2011
at 9:00 pm
Gorgeous!
By: Susan crane on December 5, 2011
at 11:09 am