During my quest for info on the Waialeale Trail I stumbled across this site. I downloaded PDF part four and on page 3 I was surprised to find a record for a Waialeale Trail raingage established in 1962 that had somehow escaped my search of rain data. It gave me two tantalizing bits of info.

• First, its name was the first official mention of a Waialeale Trail.
• Second, its coordinates, (22 05 04n 159 32 14w) were nowhere near the un-named trail shown on my Waimea Canyon and Waialeale topos, the one I had assumed was the Waialeale Trail. Interestingly, it plotted close to the divide I'd chosen for my hypothetical "divide" trail.

Did this mean the actual Waialeale Trail wasn't marked on the maps? Later I would wonder Was there a conspiracy to hide the location of the Waialeale Trail rain gage?

Although the Waialeale rain gage (the one with the rep as being the "wettest spot on earth") was clearly marked on the map, I noted that when I plotted it's coordinates given in the PDF, it plotted way out in left field, literally.

At this point, I knew little about datum's. It seems that your coordinates depend upon what datum you're using. Until they started launching satellites, the coordinates in Hawaii were based on the 1927 best location (NAD27 datum) or the even more obscure Old Hawaiian datum (not knowing any old or young Hawaiians, I'll stick with the NAD27). They were close, within a hundred yards or so, and because they could see from one island to the next, they knew the island's positions in relation to each other. Sorta.

But the PDF didn't give the datum and I'd been using the default datum in my TOPO and my Garmin GPS, NAD83/WGS84. So using my handy TOPO program, I switched my "preferences" to the NAD27 datum, and presto, now the Waialeale raingage plotted out exactly as shown on the map and the location of the Waialeale Trail raingage made more sense. The first location had been in the middle of a forest, on the north side of the divide. Now it plotted out in the middle of what I call Bog 2 and almost exactly on the divide.

This enforced my belief in a connector trail southeast from the Mohihi-Waialae trail eventually connecting up with the trail shown on the topo. When I walked across Bog 2, I was surprised to not spot a raingage. At that time the last data I had was from 1999, so had they removed it? I looked around a bit, but found nothing.

Later to my surprise while crossing Bog 3, out of my periphery vision, I spotted something man made a hundred yards or so to my right. I walked over and found the Waialeale Trail raingage, I assumed. They don't put signs on these things.

Eventually, I would find that my assumption was correct on Hawaii's GIS site, specifically on their I-Map, which shows the correct location sans coordinates. Both it and the abandoned Keanakua raingage were within a quarter mile of the Waialeale Trail as shown on the USGS topos, further proof that there was at one time a trail (the Waialeale Trail follows a forested ridgeline. Raingages have to be placed in open areas -- which explains why the gages weren't exactly on the trail, just in nearby open areas. And of course, the Waialae Gaging Station was also serviced by the trail.)

Strangely, even this more recent USGS site, which specifically states the NAD27 Datum, the coordinates are still wrong as is the elevation by about forty feet.

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The best damn Waialeale trail map on the surface of the planet. Warning. Big file.

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