Stairway to Heaven

Okay, so a few weeks ago one of my good friends Heidi Fairbourn asked me to hike "Stairway to Heaven" with her and a few friends.

Let me tell you a little bit about this hike...

I first heard about it a few years ago before I had any inkling that I would ever be living in Hawaii.  Someone from my student ward returned from a trip here and absolutely raved about this gorgeous hike ... He showed me some pictures and at that point it immediately went on my bucket list.  This is what most of the hike looks like ...

There are 3,942 stairs...  and four platforms, which serve as great places to take a breather...  It was SO intense.  I was mostly nervous because I am by no means an avid hiker, and I was doing this hike with a bunch of fitness gurus, so I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up.  I ended up hiking with Heidi and Chad for the most part, who were AWESOME to encourage me to keep going when the going got tough (and it did!)

This was our fun group!  Actually the guys in the middle is a guard, who usually prohibits hikers from going... however one of our group who shall remain nameless knows the guard and so he let us go up.. Shhhh that parts kind of a secret.  

Here is the first stair... at this point I had so much adrenaline and was SO ready to conquer the mountain!

This is the view from the first platform... you can see the Pali Highway and out into Kaneohe Bay.  

Overlooking Kaneohe and Kailua - from the second platform I think.

Heidi and I takin' a photo break.  Me saying "Hey, let's take a picture" was the code word for I AM NOW DYING AND IF I DON'T TAKE A BREAK WILL COLLAPSE RIGHT HERE!  :)  

It was absolutely beautiful.  

This part of the hike was a little scary because of the sheer steepness on either side of us... You can see the mountain is almost completely vertical here, and the stairs were more like a ladder!

This was the very last climb!! Right behind me is the top.  I was SO HAPPY inside that I made it.  What a great adventure!