Along the Trail
The Hawaiian Trail & Mountain Club Newsletter
January - February - March 2007
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
Mike Algiers
As another year draws to a close, I'd like to give you a brief update on the recent activities and accomplishments of your Board and various HTMC committees, as well as a peek at what is on the horizon.
*Trails Committee & Schedule Committee: These two committees deal with the backbone of our club's main focus, which is hiking. They have continued to work on access issues, development of new trails, and providing a weekly mix of varied and enjoyable hikes for both members and guests. You may have already noticed that they have restored two popular hikes to the active roster for the first quarter of 2007, Halawa Ridge and Kaau Crater. As a trade off, they've dropped a few of our less popular hikes to inactive status.(They've endeavored to keep the active list of hikes at a manageable number, which the trail clearing crew can keep up with). However, there may be a couple of NEW hikes added in the near future, so keep tuned to the schedule!
*Trail Maintenance Committee:
Mabel Kekina and her dedicated crew have continued to clear and maintain our trails prior to scheduled hikes, but it's a big job and she would welcome new volunteers. As she says of her crew, "we aren't getting any younger". If you'd like to give it a try, give Mabel a call for details (488 0044).
*Entertainment Committee:
Louise (Ellie) Hobday has taken over the reins of this committee, and her last Potluck/slide show was well attended and enjoyed by all. If you're interested in sharing your slides of a recent adventure or outdoor trip with us, please contact Ellie. She'd be happy to schedule you as a slide show presenter at a future potluck evening.
*Membership Committee:
Our membership roster continues to hover around 500 loyal members. As a reminder, our dues are payable at the first of the year, and there is an envelope included with this mailing, so please return it promptly, in order to remain a member in good standing.(the mailing of followup reminders is costly to the Club).
*Clubhouse Committee:
Tom Mendes has kept the day‑to‑day operations of our clubhouse running smoothly. Remember it's YOUR clubhouse, and available for your day use, as well as overnight stays, and private events. Contact Tom for scheduling and details.
*Renovation Committee:
This committee has been working all year with the architect Glenn Mason, and has recently completed a set of plans for the renovation of the clubhouse. The Board has reviewed and accepted the plans for presentation at the Annual Meeting in April, at which time you, the membership, will have the opportunity to review and vote on them.
*Endowment Committee:
At last year's Annual Meeting, you voted to have the Club set up an endowment fund. This committee has been working to set up the operating procedures for running that fund. Their results will be presented at this year's Annual Meeting for your review and vote of acceptance.
*By Laws Committee:
This committee was reconvened to review a limited number of items in the by laws, and make recommendations for changes. One of these changes may be a slight rise in the annual dues. You will have a chance to vote on this, and all other changes at the Annual Meeting.
As you can see, it takes the efforts of a lot of dedicated volunteers to keep our club running smoothly. We would be happy to welcome you into that circle of volunteers. You might wish to join one of our committees, or to train to become a Hike Coordinator, or even to run for a seat on the Board of Directors (there will be at least two seats becoming vacant at April's Annual Meeting). At a minimum, plan on attending our next potluck/slide show, to meet and socialize with other Club members. Remember, this is YOUR club, and we want you to feel a part of it!
Happy Trails!
RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP - DUES ARE DUE!
Annual dues for 2006 are $20, additional family member dues are $10, and for $400, you can be a life-time member. Please make your checks payable to HTMC and mail to HTMC, PO Box 2238, Honolulu, HI 96804. Please be sure to update your address and phone number. We are also asking you to provide a cell phone number if you have one. Cell phones provide us with an important method of contacting lost or injured hikers. Renewals are due by March 1, 2005. The annual membership phone directory will be mailed with the second quarter (April) newsletter. If you would prefer your phone number not to be listed, please check the box on your renewal envelope or email the membership committee at htmcmembership@yahoo.com
WALKING THROUGH TSAVO
John Hall
[Last month we began an account of a walking safari in Africa enjoyed by four HTMC members. This is the second installment.]
Day 3
It is hard to believe, but the first white men to see this country reported that this semi‑desert scrub land was a dense, dark forest. A small tribe living near‑by who were armed with powerful bows, like the English longbow, came into the forest to hunt elephants for meat. After the Park was formed, they were forbidden to do this, although before he died, the Park Superintendent that made this decision told Iain that it was one of the biggest mistakes he had ever made. The tribe later disintegrated and merged with other peoples. Although these people had probably not had a significant impact on the elephant population, for reasons not well understood the elephants began to increase and eventually destroyed the forest, turning the area into a virtual desert. A drought led to the death of thousands of elephants, and people combed the area collecting tusks from the skeletons for the ivory trade. Somali poachers armed with AK 47 automatic weapons began to invade the Park to kill the remaining living elephants for the same purpose, and killed any park rangers that got in their way. The rangers, at first, were armed only with World War I Enfield rifles, and over 70 of them were killed in what was a virtual war, which ended only when the ivory trade was banned. Mohammed, our guide, was a legendary figure in this war, being in charge of the anti‑poaching patrols and killed 27 of the poachers himself. As mentioned above, he was a tall, gaunt figure with a scar on one cheek where a poacher had tried to slash his throat but missed. As a child, his ears had been pierced and the lobes stretched until a loop of skin large enough to pass a quarter through dangled from each ear. While leading us, his visage was grim as death, although on rare occasions in camp he could break into a wonderful smile. The Samburu are a pastoral tribe with warrior traditions, like the Masai, and only the 4 men who accompanied us on the walks belonged to this group. The rest of the 12 or so local men who staffed the camp belonged to a variety of the other 46 +/‑, generally less militant tribes found in Kenya. Iain said that the folk lore had it that if you hired people from only one tribe, they would combine against you, but if you mixed a number from different tribes together, they would be too suspicious of each other to make trouble for the employer!
7:00 am. We cross the river again to get to the roadless side. The country is opening up a bit ‑ the brush is less dense, but there is still a good bit of ducking and weaving as we walk through it. We encounter a line, like a stick dragged through the soft soil. Iain asks us what it is a sign of, but none of us can think of a good answer. He tells us it is the track of a male elephant in musth, dragging, as he so delicately put it, his "fifth leg" in the dirt. All I can say is that elephants must have a very horny (in every sense) member to endure dragging it along the ground through this rocky, thorn‑filled country! The bull is probably following a herd, which is always made up of females and their offspring, in hopes that one of them may be in estrus. His chances are slim, however. The herd matriarch is very choosy, and no young bull, just because he is handsome, vigorous, and rich, has much chance of gaining her approval. Only an old survivor, who has proved his genetic quality by a healthy long life in this demanding country is likely to be allowed to impregnate one of the females. Intelligent animals, elephants.
Iain points out a dung beetle diving into a hole about 2 inches in diameter in the middle of a pat of fresh elephant dung. This is a large, handsome beetle, whose relatives were worshiped as the sacred scarab of ancient Egypt.
We pass Elephant's Head Peak (Kichwa Tembo) across the river. This is a 5600 foot high (we are at about 2000 feet) crag with impressive sharp spires and sheer walls, apparently a popular rock climbing destination in this area. It is said to be the Guardian of the Plains by the local tribes. There are several baboon troops on our side of the river. The most distant one is complaining loudly about some disturbance ‑ not us, and it falls silent as we approach. There are lion prints in the soft soil by the river here. Probably the lions are watching us, but we don't see them. About noon, we re‑cross the river to Mija Ya Chumvi (Salt Water) Camp.
At 4:00 pm we get in the landrover for a drive. There are lots of animals here, and we see dikdiks by the score, two young giraffes, several herds of impalas, two waterbuck, a troop of baboons, some other monkeys, and a herd of elephants. Iain takes us up the airstrip near the boundary with Tsavo East and we walk across a field and down a sandy gully to a cave, which Colonel Paterson thought was the den of the notorious maneless lions, the Maneaters of Tsavo. Over the years, sand has filled much of the cave, but it is still an impressive spot and we celebrate with champaign.
For hundreds of years, Arab merchants on the coast would send expeditions into the interior to collect ivory and slaves. They would force the slaves to carry the ivory and at about this point, they would decide which men were worth keeping and which were too feeble to bother further with. The latter were turned loose at this point to survive as best they could. Some of them probably found shelter in the cave and died there, which would account for the copper neck rings and other relics that Colonel Paterson thought marked the lion's den. Lions in Africa don't actually live in dens. Most of the abandoned slaves probably died, and the carnivorous animals in this area became accustomed to feeding on human flesh. When the British decided to build a railroad from Mombasa to Nairobi, the route ran through this area. Laborers from India were imported to do the work, but progress was greatly impeded during the effort to build a bridge across the Tsavo River by the attacks of two crafty old male lions who kept carrying off the workers. Over a period of some 3 months, about 137 people disappeared, although the lions were probably not responsible for all of them ‑ as mentioned above, many predators in this area were conditioned to consider humans as fair game. Colonel John Paterson, after many failed attempts, was finally able to kill the two lions, and the bridge was completed.
Day 4
We cross the river. The day starts with a good opportunity to view the rock hyrax as they examine us from their perches on a rocky hill near our line of march.
8:30 am ‑ a short time later, we are signaled to back up silently and move further away from the river. Mohammed has apparently detected a hippo resting in the bush and we want to circle it at a safe distance. I am surprised at how little extra space ‑ perhaps a hundred yards or so ‑ is necessary to avoid these threats. Presumably, we are already fairly far away and only need to increase the distance by a little more to provide the necessary margin of safety.
As we move east, the brush is definitely opening up. We still do a good bit of ducking and weaving, but less than on previous days.
11:00 am. We have a good look at 3 waterbuck on the river bank. As we watch, there is a strange sound as of rapids or a spring pouring into the river, but higher pitched. As we proceed, a flock of thousands upon thousands of small birds whirl into the sky like a cloud of smoke, and swoop and wheel back and forth in a dense, coordinated mass. I have never seen anything like it ‑ an amazing sight ‑ a flock of passenger pigeons must have been like this when they inhabited the beech forests of North America. It was the chirping of these birds, the red‑billed quelea, that we had heard. When they fly, the beating of the wings of such immense numbers of birds make a sound like distant thunder.
We cross the river again to Maneaters Camp, but the program will be varied today, as we will resume our walk at 3:30 pm, to cover more of the ground, and then will be met by the cars and returned to camp. Today we have seen frequent baobabs, which will drop out of the landscape as we move further east.
Afternoon. Another glimpse of a waterbuck. The river passes through a gorge between rocky hills at this point, and there are many candelabra‑like euphorbia trees, like some bizarre giant cacti, growing on these hills. We climb one of the ridges that overlooks a broad valley and see two more waterbuck moving out of sight as we crest the ridge. The euphorbs are in full bloom, with many small yellow cup‑like flowers with a small bladder barely emerging from the center of each. Quite lovely to the eye of the botanist! We have also seen 1 or 2 shrubs of the beautiful red and white desert rose, a plant that is occasionally found in gardens in Hawai'i.
5:00 pm. A good view of 3 crocodiles, 7 or 8 feet long, resting on the river bank. Our guides spot a hippo on the bank and we back off, but she returns to the water and we proceed. A power line crosses our path and a giraffe is walking down the cleared right‑of‑way away from us. We are back at the spot to which we drove yesterday afternoon to see the "lion's den" found by Colonel Paterson. We reach a wide, paved, two‑lane highway with trucks passing every 30 seconds or so. This is the end of Tsavo West and when we are driven back to this point tomorrow to resume our walk, we will be entering Tsavo East, after passing through the ranger station between the two Parks.
Day 5
We drive to Tsavo Bridge, where we ended yesterday's walk.
7:15 am ‑ a distant silhouette of a klipspringer on a rocky ridge top.
7:45. Tsavo Bridge itself, a vital World War I railroad connection between Nairobi and Mombasa on the coast. The Germans, who had colonized the Tanganyika country to the south, (now Tanzania), and the British, in Kenya, fought their own small war here. To protect this vital link, the British made the area beside the bridge the center of their military establishment and there are ruins of their post here. The Germans with 300 men under a brilliant general, carried out a fierce guerrilla war that tied down 20,000 British troops.
8:00 am. There is a small herd of elephants by the river about 100 yards away. They seem uncertain about crossing ‑ nervous about something, although apparently not aware of our presence.
8:30 am ‑ the guides spot a buffalo (unseen by me) near the river and we back up and circle to avoid disturbing it. I get a good look at a rock hyrax, and a glimpse of a tree hyrax as it dives into a burrow in a termite mound.
9:10 am ‑ a hippo alarm. A hippo is walking through the bush by the river. We wait until it is gone and then continue.
9:30 am ‑ another hippo alarm. We make a detour around an unseen hippo sleeping in the brush.
10:15 am. We climb to the top of a spectacular rocky hill. One side of this hill drops in a sheer cliff right into the river. Wonderful view ‑ 5 or 6 lesser kudu in the distance. Iain claims that this is the spot on which he will build his retirement cottage. Or maybe a tourist hotel.
10:45 am. We return to the river on the other side of the hill and have a good look at an elephant bull, about 20 years old, on the opposite bank.
11:00 am. Our rest stop is interrupted by the matriarch of a small herd of elephants that we have inadvertently approached. She can smell us and advances suspiciously with flaring ears. We retreat up the hill. She casts about uneasily and then starts toward us again. We move further up the hill. She returns to the unseen herd and they move inland a bit. We cautiously skirt them next to the river. Elephants have very poor eyesight but acute hearing and sense of smell. It is a curious experience to have them in plain sight, and realize that they are having difficulty determining your location.
11:45 am ‑ the Tsavo River meets the Athi River, coming down from the north, on the other side of the river from us, to form the Galana River. The Athi is much larger than the Tsavo, so the Galana, which we will now be following, is about 3 times the size of the river that we have followed up to now, and is about 100 yards across. The cars meet us here to drive us to the next camp, Lugard's Falls Camp. On the way we startle a bull elephant about 20 yards from the road and have an excellent close‑up view of him. We also have good looks at some lesser kudu, impala, and one of the lovely violet‑breasted rollers ‑ a wonderful bird dressed in spectacular shades of blues and lavenders.
On the afternoon game drive, from 4:00 ‑ 6:30 pm, we see many elephants: single bulls; a female with 3 calves that are perhaps 2, 4, and 6 years old; and several other small herds, most of them with immature young. The elephants here seem to be breeding rapidly and rebuilding their numbers since the end of the poaching. It may not be too long, if the ivory trade does not resume, before overpopulation of elephants is once more a problem for the Parks. Elephants are very destructive animals. They rub against trees to scrape off parasites and often push them over. They feed on the foliage and will break off large limbs to reach it. Sometimes they will seem to attack a tree for no obvious reason and keep working at it until it is uprooted. They strip the bark off of trees to eat. They are quite capable of turning a forest into a desert once their numbers exceed a certain limit.
We encounter a herd of 7 zebras and a number of waterbucks in pairs, several small groups of impala, 2 briefly glimpsed gerenuks, and finally we stop for an hour to watch a group of about 16 sated lions, the nearest 20 feet from the road, dozing in the shrubbery. A vulture rising from the top of the ridge a few hundred yards away alerts us to the site of the kill, and we find the completely stripped carcass of a Cape buffalo ‑ nothing left but the skin and well‑cleaned bones and a vulture. Iain says that the lions in this area specialize in Cape buffalo, although this prey is very formidable, and lions in most areas prefer easier game. He says that recent studies suggest that the social structure of these lions is different from what has been observed in other areas. The males do much of the hunting here, unlike those in other regions where the females are the primary hunters. All the lions in Tsavo East, 70 or more of them, belong to one big pride, with females moving from group to group within this pride as they choose, instead of remaining loyal to one smaller group. This raises interesting questions about the role of the males, and how breeding opportunities are determined.
Male lions usually defend a discrete group of females, and kill all the nursing cubs when they take over a pride in order to bring the females into estrus and give the male a chance to breed before his own, often short, tenure ends. If females are mobile, and can change groups readily, this system would break down. A male could not maintain exclusive access to a group of females, and if mating is promiscuous, would never know which cubs were his and which not. It will be interesting to find out how the social system in these animals functions. These observations support the idea that some animals have a form of what can only be called "culture" which may differ from one group to the next within a species.
[To be continued]
CLUBHOUSE CORNER
Tom Mendez
Our clubhouse is very often enjoyed by our members and guests as a comfortable and quiet retreat, a place to run away to when the rest of the world is moving too fast for comfort. Our friends, the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society enjoy having their meetings at the clubhouse because of its informal country atmosphere. For the same reason, members sponsor gatherings and other activities at the clubhouse for organizations to which they belong.
This kind of activity really uses up whatever life is left in the already used nature of our clubhouse furniture and equipment. Before you toss out any good refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, sofa, tables or chairs and other small appliances, consider offering them for use at the clubhouse. Some of these items at the clubhouse are on their last legs and due for replacement. If you have any of these, please let me know by calling 259‑8688 or send me an email at tjmendes@hawaii.rr.com. Before you contact me, please consider whether or not your item is too worn out to be used in your own home. If it is, it probably is too worn out to be used at the clubhouse.
NEWSLETTER SUBMISSIONS
ALONG THE TRAIL is a quarterly publication of the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club designed to inform the membership of club activities and matters of interest to the hiking community. HTMC members and any other interested parties are welcome to submit articles to ALONG THE TRAIL. Submissions must be received by the 5th day of March, June, September, and December in order to appear in the newsletter published for the quarter, and may be sent in any of the following ways (email preferred):
email: richard27@hawaii.rr.com
FAX: 293-2554
Phone: 293-2554
Mail: Richard McMahon
57-531 Kamehameha Hwy
Kahuku, HI 96731
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Hawaiian Trail & Mountain Club
P.O. Box 2238
Honolulu, HI 96804
Clubhouse: 41-023 Puuone St
Waimanalo, HI 96795
Phone: 259-5443
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