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The 3,922-step 'Stairway to Heaven'
is finally set for repairs. The first stairs were wooden,
built in 1942 to allow access to the summit where
Navy antennas provided navigational
aid to ships at sea

By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Watch your step. Anyone who has hiked or climbed knows
that going down always seems steeper than going up. And rain
doesn't help matters. The Haiku Stairs that rise from Haiku
Valley offer breathtaking views of Windward Oahu.

Volunteers clear the
way for repair of
Haiku Stairs

By Harold Morse
Star-Bulletin

The way to the "Stairway to Heaven" is ready. Volunteers have worked weekends to clear a trail to the base of Haiku Stairs.

This will allow a contractor to bring in equipment to repair the 3,922-step "Stairway to Heaven" that rises in Haiku Valley and offers breathtaking vistas of the Windward side.

John Goody, champion of the Haiku Stairs restoration project on the Kaneohe/Kahaluu vision team, told fellow team members at Kaneohe Community and Senior Center this week that the volunteer removal of brush and boulders took place during the July 8 and July 15 weekends.

City Councilman Steve Holmes said the volunteers have led the way.

"The volunteer effort is probably the big news on the stairs."

"The city's moving ahead with the contract to get the stairs repaired. To do that, a bunch of volunteers worked," Goody said after last week's meeting.

The volunteers accelerated the timetable by doing work the contractor now won't have to do.

Holmes agreed things are moving fast.

By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Sections of the handrails and steps have rusted and need to
be fixed or replaced. A $550,000 allotment will cover an
access road, a trail from the road to the stairs and
construction and repair of the stairway
during fiscal 2000.

"They had a major breakthrough on granting access," he said. He expects further details on the project to reach his Public Works Committee in the next couple of months, as $1.3 million is in the 2001 budget for it, he said.

"This is all 80 percent reimbursable using federal funds."

There was also $100,000 earmarked for a master plan in fiscal 1999.

About $550,000 has been allotted for design and construction of an access road and trail from the road to the stairs and for design and construction and refurbishment and repair of the stairs -- in fiscal 2000.

Holmes said the size of the valley is hard to measure and there are various owners.

"If you count the walls of the valley, which is all owned by the Board of Water Supply and the floor, I think the total is around 600 acres."

Part of the valley floor belongs to the state Department of Transportation as H-3-related land, he said. The Coast Guard turned over 147 acres to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, Holmes said.

To further complicate matters, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources owns a piece of land on top of the ridge, he said.

Once repairs are made, visitors probably will park at an old pet quarantine station and ascend the stairs from there, Goody said.

He recalled the first stairs were wooden, built in 1942, to get to the 2,800-foot summit where Navy antennas were positioned. Signals went out to help ships at sea with navigation.

The Coast Guard took over in 1972 and used the site as a similar aid to navigation. The current metal stairs were built in the 1950s, but the steps and rails have rusted and need repair or replacement.

The City Council has approved a report allowing Mayor Jeremy Harris to accept hiking areas from the state, which received the land from the Coast Guard last July.