Mauna Kea Oral History Appendix - Office of Mauna Kea Management

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Catch it. I have a letter from about 1903, that Boyd, who at that time was the
Commissioner of Public Lands wrote. I’m going to make a copy of it and send it to you
because he describes walking the trail up from here. When they went to go check, there
was a place by Pu‘u Häloa or something where they would… There’s a trail that runs up
From the back side here, yeah, well, here’s the trail. Here’s the Pu‘ukapu area
Yes.
[looking at map] Here’s the trail that cuts up. He describes coming back into here and he
was talking about when they were in this period of drought. Maybe it was around 1906,
he was just lamenting how dry, where there had always been water before, at that time,
none. That’s why they were working on establishing the forest reserves like that.
Yes.
You know what’s beautiful about that trail, when I went up there in 1948 with Rally We
started from, is that where we started from, Morgan Brown’s, is that this Pu‘ukapu Trail
Yes, we started there.
Where you go across the muddy part
Uh-hmm.
They put tree fern logs and you walked across it, and then the little sprouts are coming
up. It is a beautiful tree fern walk there.
Yes. An alley, just like, of tree fern.
And then when you get up here, being interested in the Hawaiian botany too. Looking
over, is it this one the car goes up to, Rally
Yes.
It’s that one, when you look over.
The north Waipi‘o.
You see all on the pali, on the side there, you see all these indigenous Hawaiian plants.
Yes.
The cattle have not been able to get them, the wild grasses can’t get them.
That’s right.
They have those great big begonia leaves, the Hawaiian begonia. It’s like a begonia leaf,
crispy, but big and growing all on the pali. The Hawaiian gardenia, it’s just beautiful
looking over these cliffs.
Amazing, a beautiful place, it is! This primarily was the water that you folks used for the
ranch, coming down into the community out here
Right.
You folks had to maintain that all the time Was that a spur off of, this doesn’t connect to
the Kohala Ditch right
This is not community water, this is Parker Ranch water.
Parker Ranch is community right
Yes.
It came for the ranch use
It did not service other people, did it
Mauna Kea– “Ka Piko Kaulana o ka ‘Äina”
Kumu Pono Associates LLC
A Collection of Oral History Interviews (HiMK67-050606) A:56