Moanalua Valley Park Closed For Duration Of Haiku Stairs Dismantling
Continued trespassing to the summit, an active construction zone, led to the city’s and state’s joint decision to close another access point leading to Haiku Stairs.
To deter trespassing hikers, Moanalua Valley Neighborhood Park at the back of Moanalua Valley will close as the city’s contractor continues to dismantle the Haiku Stairs.
It’s an expansion of the closure that the state instituted last month for the same reason.
Haiku Stairs, a World War II-era installation that climbs a ridge from Kaneohe to the top of the Koolau mountain range, lured hikers for decades to its sweeping vistas over much of the Windward Coast.
Accessing the stairs has been illegal for much of that time. Honolulu mayors have had different opinions on what to do about them, including former Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s plan to institute managed access. But liability concerns, plus neighbors who complained about noisy and littering hikers, led Mayor Rick Blangiardi in 2021 to decide to remove the stairs.
Many hikers continued to access the summit legally by going up the other side of the mountain range through Moanalua Valley Neighborhood Park. When the dismantling started last month, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources closed that summit trail, known as Middle Ridge. But that hasn’t stopped trespassing.
“It has become increasingly clear that dozens of hikers have ignored the partial closure,” DLNR Chair Dawn Chang said in a joint news release by the mayor’s office and the state DLNR.
The city has jurisdiction over Moanalua Valley Neighborhood Park and the state has jurisdiction over the trails that lead farther into the valley.
“The popularity of the Middle Ridge ‘social trail’ has created large erosion scars, and the route is inherently unsafe and damaging to the native forest. Adding in active helicopter operations exacerbates unsafe conditions and law enforcement will arrest or cite anyone who violates the closure,” the news release says.
Moanalua Valley Neighborhood Park will remain closed for the duration of the stairs’ removal, scheduled to take about six months.
The Friends of Haiku Stairs filed two lawsuits against the stairs’ removal over the past year. A judge decided against them on the first lawsuit, and while the second lawsuit is ongoing, a different judge allowed the city to proceed with removing the stairs in May.
