Stairway to Heaven

Oh goodness.

The poor people I went to hike this with.

Hysterical would be an understatement.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a pretty good kid. I like following the rules, I don't like when people are unhappy with me...but I also like adrenaline and feeling like I'm a rebel (lol) and getting good pictures and just getting the most out of Hawaii. So literally two days before I got on the plane back to the mainland, I decided to stay up until 2 AM and hike the infamous Stairway to Heaven. We started out with parking our rental car in a college parking lot (freaking scary! like shouldn't that be a place you don't park at??). We ran into two security guards for the school--picture a group of like 15 college kids dressed in black--and I was freaking out inside. We kept turning down roads to avoid them and ultimately made me decide I was definitely not liking this plan a whole lot. We started making our way to the stairs, but since we didn't want to go where the trail starts (because of the guards), we went a long way that included climbing under barbed wire fences. We had to walk along a road that went under the free way, and then basically trudge through the trees in the dark. I was coming up with places I'd run and hide to if a guard came--I was SO paranoid. There was one point where we had like two friends basically fall down the mountain, but we didn't want to pull out flashlights. At another point a guard shone their flashlight up into the trees because they could hear us and I was FREAKED out. I hid behind a tree and had no idea what to do (I know this all seems very dramatic, but I was seriously freaking out--incase you couldn't tell hahhahaha). We eventually got to the stairs about like a half a mile from the beginning of them, and started to climb. That's when I wasn't scared anymore, because lots of other people were on it too. I was starting to feel a lot better about my choices haha. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating and it had been way colder than usual. So all the hand railings were super wet and slippery, and our jackets were getting soaked from the fog as we kept getting higher and higher. Supposedly the best views of sunrise and of the island were from up there, but we were stuck in a cloud because the sun hadn't melted away the fog yet haha. We did get some pretty good pictures on the way down though! 

It was totally worth it in the end. We got near the bottom of the stairs and could see the guard, so we were like "let's send one person down and have them see what the guard says". So we sent Will down and the guard didn't really seem to care (our back up plan was to run back up the stairs lol), so we just kept walking past him. He did yell at us that we were trespassing though. So I continued to try to come up with a plan as we were walking back to the car (if you get arrested the fine is $1000 and you get a court date....). Luckily our car was there! And not booted or anything! So we all climbed back into the car--soaking and tired from pulling an all nighter. I sat in the trunk of the mini van and it was great. We got back and I showered and changed and then went to church lol. Then I left that next Monday.