Hiking the Staircase of Heaven – Haiku Stairs
About sneaking around guards and fighting the fear of heights – Travel log no. 40
Since we partied the night before we of course didn’t get up as planned at 4.30 am. I woke up around 6:30 am and we arrived at the trail around 10 am. The reason you want to go early is to not get seen by people who could call the police.
That’s whats happened when we tried to go through the first barrier which looked like a defense out of a zombie movie. It was patched with different parts of metal and all over the thing was barbed wire. When we tried to squeeze through it a neighbor talked to us and made us go away.
So we had to climb through a drainage/sewer system to get around the properties to the trailhead.
Right in front of the trailhead is another guard who warns you not to go up. People try to sneak around him too. Getting caught by the police can get you fee’s up to $1,400.
So we hiked a detour through the forest to get into the first part of the staircase.
It was hard to find the right path. But I got lucky and found it not watching what path I took. When I looked back, I just walked over a dirt slope. Juseph didn’t had the right shoes and panicked. It took us a lot of work to overcome his fears.
Finally on the trail the view was just amazing. Climbing up it really felt like going up into heaven. Because the staircase was so steep that you never could see the end. Like in the Jack and the Beanstalk.
Juseph didn’t want to make the whole trail. So I had to discover the old military base myself.
Alright enough text here are the pictures:
On the way back it started to rain and when I was going through jungle. It was super treacherous and I fell several times, but I made it out there and met up with Juseph again save and sound.
It was a real adventure, forbidden, treacherous but beautiful and rewarding a like.