Hikes On Tinian

Lion's Head 2011

2011-04-30T11:59:00.023+10:00

Sunday April 10 2011. We started our hike from the Marpo Well to Lion's Head at 10:30 AM. I have not gone to Lion's Head since Mr. Cole left Tinian.

Today's Hikers were Oneal, Lina and me(Mitch).

I downloaded coordinates from Mr. Cole's geocahing website into my GPS, which I had just bought recently

There were many remains from WWII on the way to go Lion's Head, such as beer bottles, plates, pots and a lot of Japanese shelter were built on way to Lion's Head.

I remember this trail. Mr. Cole took this trail when I first time went on a hike to Lion's Head.

We were supposed to climb up one or two cliffs. We found good place to go up the cliff.

It was about a 15 feet high slope which is not a very difficult climb.

After we went up on the cliff , we continued to hike South East. We found a red paint marker. It seemed to lead us Lion's Head. We took a rest and had lunch about 600 feet away from Lion's Head. It was already passed 1:00pm.

The red marker was gone so we had to really depend on GPS.

It took about three hours from the Marpo Well. We finally arrived at Lion's Head.

The King Fisher was resting on the next Lion's Head.

Everybody was happy to get to Lion's Head and could see beautiful bird.

We will return to Lion's Head by next week again. We are planing to hike with my friends who want to hike to Lion's Head.

We could not find Mr. Cole's cache this time. It's seems to be gone.

By Mitch

Hike Group

2010-10-26T21:27:00.002+10:00

Potential hikers. Since I am no longer in Tinian, if someone has interest in taking over this group please contact me (Jude) at: heyjude71@hotmail.com or leave a comment here.

(Kahet )Tachibana Shinto Shrine Hike, August 2008

2008-09-24T12:14:00.013+10:00

(Kahet )Tachibana Shinto Shrine Hike, August 2008

The weather has not been too bad these few days and so I decided to go on a hike to the Tachibana Shinto Shrine. It was not easy to walk in the jungle because it was a lot bushier compared to our last hikes. During the Japanese time the area was called “Kahet” which means orange in Chamorro. They called it Kahet because there were so many orange trees in that area during the Japanese time. The Japanese word “Tachibana” means wild orange.
The Tachibana Shrine is covered with growing Tagantagan and grass. The site is about 0.24 miles west from the Seabee Monument. The parking area for the shrine is surrounded by pine trees. The site is about 580 feet from the parking area. The flame tree was planted during the Japanese period and so it is thought that there could be sites of interest where ever those trees are found.
This is the jungle where we entered heading to Tachibana Shrine.

The photo above is of Lina and Erica hiking in the jungle.

There are an abundance of bamboo trees in the jungle where the site is. Weeds have difficulty growing in the bamboo tree forest.
The concrete foundations of the shrine remains and the fence is slowly breaking apart every year.

We are now on our way to the torii gate. If you walk to the left of the foundation you will be able to find it.

I drew this map so you can easily imagine how they build shrine and placed these structures.

This is the first lantern, the top part of the lantern has disappeared.

The second lantern still has its upper structure intact. I cleared off the lantern area because I could not get a good picture. The vines and weeds covered the entire lanterns

This is the right side of the leg.

The torii gate between the two lantern lay fallen on the ground. I cleaned the area too because I could not get a good picture of it. I wanted to take a picture of the entire gate but I didn’t have room to back up and so I decided to take a picture for each part of it.

This is the opposite side of the leg.

I put the two pictures together. (please click the picture to see lager image.)

There is a washing area for your hands and mouth to purify yourself before entering the shrine. This is a custom that is practiced in Japan.

There is a concrete foundation and its size is about 16 feet long. It seems to look like a water tank. I'm not sure but it's used to set the deity’s house on top of the stairs.

I am in the picture above. I am pulling up weeds around torii gate area.

We are returning back to the car and on the way back we found this mushroom.

On our next hike I plan to look for the missing part of the lantern.

By Mitch

Tinian beach old Leprosy sanitarium site

2008-09-11T17:51:00.016+10:00

Tinian beach old Leprosy sanitarium site. July 2008

Erica Beach is also called Tinian Beach, Leprosarium Beach, or aka Nasarinu .
There was a sanitarium for leprosy patients near Erica beach. Other sanitariums were also built in Palau, Guam, Saipan, as well on Tinian at Erica Beach.
Erica(My dauter) and I walked on what was left of the sanitarium site.

You can get to Erica Beach by turning left of the Tinian Dump and there is a fork in the road. If you turn right you can see the graveyard for the leprosy patients who has passed away on Tinian. If you turn left you will be able to go to Erica Beach.

When driving into Erica Beach you can see the entrance to the sanitarium on the left side.
You can see the concrete walkways just right after the entrance area.
During the World War II, leprosy patients were sent to the sanitarium. It was said that the patients were strictly isolated in this area because they were afraid that the disease was easily transferable which is not true.

The surrounding areas is covered by fresh weeds. This is the second set of stairs.

There are long sidewalks that seem like they used to be used as hallways for the sanitarium.

There is a pile of cement bags that was used to create some kind of structure.

We were not sure what it was used for.

Because there are many snake plants in this area, there might have been a Japanese garden in this area. The Japanese used to use snake plants to build gardens.

It looks like a maze in the sanitarium.

Only the mark of the wall in a square building remains.

There is a square building structure where Erica is standing.

Erica is leaving the site.

There used to be a Guamanian who used to live on Tinian who was admitted to the sanitarium. He is still alive until this day.
After looking through the site we walked down to Erica Beach to pick some shells.

I asked Mr. Borja about some facts about the area from the Tinian Historical Preservation Office. I would like to express my thanks to him for telling me about the site.

By Mitch

Westside of Calorinas cliff line and two caves May 17, 2008

2008-05-21T17:10:00.020+10:00

On Saturday May 17th , Five of us set off to hike under the west side of the Calorinas lime stone forest trail to explore two caves and to hike along the cliff line.We are at the grassy parking area near the first cave and we’re going to enter jungle behind it. The picture above is of Rose, Kaori, Erica, and Lina from the left to right. I took this picture.

Rose started heading to first cave. This area is great hiking spot for a lime stone forest.It took 5 minutes to get to the first cave from where we parked our car.

Rose is standing in the entrance of the cave which is only about 3x3 feet.

Rose going down into cave 1.

After we went down into cave we found a lot of fragments of Japanese ceramic plates and cups. The Japanese used to live in the cave as a shelter during the World War II.

We had to go down into second layer of the cave, so we had to use a rope which was provided by Rose. It was really steep and hard to get down.
The picture above is Kaori kneeling down as she began her descent into the second level. Rose was telling Kaori where she should put her foot to step down safely.

At the Bottom is cave where limestone cave was very beautiful.

The cave’s ceiling was high enough to for us to stand up without bumping our heads.

Since the entrance was so small, we never thought that the cave was this big. You can see Rose in the background with a flashlight from a distance.

This land club lives in bottom of the cave 1.　　　　

A lot of cutlery, plates, and tools have been left behind.

These look like fuel containers; however they may have been used to store drinking water.

There was big container filled with water that has been collected from the dripping water coming from the ceiling of the cave.

Another world not imaginable is in here separated from the outside. White spots appeared on picture above, due to moisture collected on our camera lenses. It looks like a world of fantasy.

It was really wide at the bottom of cave 1.

It is time to go out from cave 1 because we are going to see the next cave.

We climbed out through the entrance of the cave. It was easier to climb out than to climb in.

Everyone enjoyed cave 1 and now we are going to follow the cliff line to the south. Rose is standing in front of the cliff line.

Before we start hiking Rose showed us the concrete tank near the cliff line.

There were two kinds of shapes; one is round the other one was square. I am not sure what they were used for.

There was a deep well near the concrete tank. I think that well was full of water from underground in the past because there were collections of water from the drops of water coming from the cave. So I think these tanks were used to collect water from the well.

We entered cliff line because Rose wanted to show us the Okinawan Monument. Both sides are cliffs of sheer Lime Stone. The Japanese call this area the folding screen rock because the walls are wavy.

I’m standing under big Banyans, in Chamorro they’re called Nunu.

In the picture above Rose and Erica stand in front of the Monument. This monument was built for the Mr. Ginoza’s family.

Kaori offers water to the monument in a traditional Japanese style.

A little after the monument we must return to search for the second cave.

On the way we found baby coconuts crab under the rock.There is a lot of nature around this area.

Rose turned to the left on the way back and she said there is a very interesting cave a short way down south.

This is the entrance of cave 2. Rose has already made it in the cave on her own, and is now waiting for us to follow. Erica trying to enter but it’s really small and hard to get in.

She changed her mind and decide to enter legs first.

The picture above is Kaori entering cave 2. There is 90 degree steep slope just right after she got into cave.

Lina took this picture from middle of the cave. It looks like a thick rope but it is a root from plant outside. It was a life line to hold to getting into the cave.

Lina took this picture, too. At last I got into the entrance and trying to reach to the bottom.

Rose was already on the bottom and leading us deeper into the cave.

It’s looks quite narrow at the bottom of the cave but this is just a part of the it and there is a more wide area ahead.

It was not big as the first cave but there is pool on the bottom of this cave.

The water was cool and little salty. It’s really clear and beautiful place.

The water is dropping from the ceiling. If the flashlights were turned off you were unable to see anything. It’s absolutely dark world here in the cave.

It’s time to go back to outside because our flashlight has been used for a long period time… and we worry about being stuck in the caves while it’s pitch black.

Everyone was out of the cave safely with Rose’s lead and we were happy to see this cave 2. In the picture from left to right, Kaori, Lina, me, Erica and Rose.

We would like to say big thanks to Rose who led us this great hike.

Everyone is welcome to join these hikes

or to suggest hikes they can lead.

May Hike

2008-05-05T21:00:00.007+10:00

Everyone is welcome for these hikes.

So far, only one hike is scheduled for May.
Saturday May 3 - no hike due to San Jose Fiesta.

Saturday May 10 -

NOTE: This hike has been re-scheduled for May 17. Meet at Jude's - ie: San Nicolas apt bldg near Kammer Beach at 8:00am

Cave. Rose Lazaro will join us and will lead a hike to a cave near the old target range on the way up toward Suicide Cliff.
Depending on how long this hike lasts we may go find some other caves on the way up toward the animal sancturary.
Meet at 8:00 a.m. at the Grace Christian parking lot.
Bring your flashlight.

April 4 and 26, 2008 Return to Tachonga

2008-05-05T19:18:00.015+10:00

First let me apologize for the untimeliness of this hike write-up. Excuses are cheap so I could give you many but the most truthful is that I just HATE doing the blog. If blogging is as tedious for everyone as I find it I doubt there'd be so many zillions of blogs. So there must be something I just don't 'get' about doing it. But for now on with it.

There have actually been two hikes back to the Tachonga Lattes this month. On April 4th, three of us, Mitch, Lina and myself set out to see the lattes and to search for another set of the stones. On the way we stopped to watch a crab on the beach who cooperatively posed for our cameras.

Then we plunged into the jungle where we soon spotted an animal looking rock. We decided it must be a gaurdian rock as it is near the beginning of the trail we take to the latte stone site.

Continuing onward, we came to the grinding stone. Lina tried her hand at grinding. Grinding stones were once used in this area to grind grain into to meal - I think.
Looking off to the right , we could already see our old friends the lattes. The growth around them was low and light and the sun was in a good postition for getting a picture of several of them at once. Given the spacing of the still upright pillar stones, if these were used as the base for a house or other building (as is assumed today) it must have been a very long one.
Lina wanted to sit on top of one of the pillars, but never quite made it to the top. Ater strolling around the lattes we went over to see the huge umumu tree near them. There the ever alert Mitch spotted a bird's nest with 3 eggs in it. We were careful not to touch the nest and only tipped the branch far enough to see into it.
Next we began our search going northward. There are other stones nearby that we knew about but we wanted to find another set of lattes that we knew should be in the area but that we'd never seen. After a short hike we came to a rather clear grassy area with clusters of limestones.
After clearing some of the tall grass we could see that we'd been successful and had found another set of lattes. These are considerably smaller and closer together than the others.
We continued onward but the boonie bee presence became too evident and after I was stung on the hand we decided to head for the beach. We came to a stand of banana plants suggesting that this was once an inhabited area but saw no more lattes. We were always in earshot of the ocean so it wasn't long before it came into view and we left the jungle behind.
Almost back at the beach we paused to admire a newly sprouted coconut and to marvel at its ability to thrive in the sandy floor of the light jungle area near the beach.

On April 26, 2008 the same three of us plus Erika and Kim went back. This time on the way down the beach we saw something in the water. At first we thought turtle but then decided it was not. Perhaps a large fish eating something. We didn't actually get a picture of it as it would only be partially visible on the surface for seconds at a time. Mitch took this picture of the rest of us trying to figure out what it was.
When we got to the grinding stone Kim took her turn at grinding.
Then Kim, Mitch and I posed on the 'teacup' stone of one of the lattes for the obligatory picture. Since only Kim had never been here before we took less pictures than usual this trip.
We showed Kim the umumu tree and the now empty bird's nest. It looked a bit worse for the wear. We could see right through it in spots. I suppose, like our own homes, they require maintenance and quickly deteriorate when vacated.
Then we set off toward the new (to us) set of lattes.
This time, they seemed much closer. Once again, Mitch is the photographer for this shot of Kim, Lina, Erika and me resting on one set of the the fallen lattes.
Having already run into boonie bees and knowing the likelihood of many more if we continured on we opted to go back and exit to the beach via our usual path. Even though that meant skirting the nest of bees where I'd already been stung on the other hand from last time. We made it back without mishap. At the beach we examined the shell only of another kind of crab.
That day I was in treatment for an abcessed molar which had me fighting off a migraine and with a new bee sting, as much as I love snorkelling, at that point I opted to go home. The others enjoyed a very uncrowded Tachonga beach.
Both verbal reports and pictures taken indicate that the snorkelling was great!

I want to thank Lina and Mitch for providing most of the pictures this time.

Mt. Lasu Shrine Area GPS Coordinates

2008-04-27T09:01:00.003+10:00

Hi Everyone. I said I would publish GPS coordinates for Tinian on this site every now and then. So, I am going to start with the Mount Lasu area. If you happen to visit Tinian, bring a GPS with you so that you can find some of the more interesting sites on Tinian.

The first is the small hill that used to hold the Japanese Radar on Tinian. It is just to the north of the Shinto Shrine on top of Mt. Lasu. N15 degrees 02.495 minutes, E145 degrees 37.803 minutes.

The next coordinate is to an old crane from World War II. To get to this old crane, you need to get below the cliff that the shrine is on. To do this, to the stairs that go up to the shrine. If you look carefully to the south, just before going up the stairs, there is a train that goes into the Jungle. This trail leads to an old cattle guard and road that takes you below the cliff. As you follow the trail, you will get to an area with a small stone wall to your left, you will be above the wall. You need to leave the road at this point and head north along the cliff. N15 degrees 02.466 minutes, E145 degrees 37.810 minutes.

The next coordinate is for the Bomb Cave. This is a cave is full of artillery shells left by the Japanese from World War II. This cave is to the north from the crane. On the way to this cave, just past the crane is the remains of the old Japanese radar. Once at the radar remains, I have found it best to go down the slope to the flatter terrace area and than climb back up the slope to this cave. N15 degrees 02.569 minutes, E145 degrees 37.867 minutes

Right next to the Bomb Cave is the Window Cave. The Window Cave has a huge stone wall, built by the Japanese, with a window in the wall. It is one of the most interesting features along this cliff below the shrine. N15 degrees 02.587 minutes, E145 degrees 37.852 minutes

South of the Shrine, along the ridge line, is an old Japanese tunnel that cuts through the ridge. It is hard to find, but once located, it is easy to get back to. N15 degrees, 02.408 minutes, E145 degrees 37.781 minutes

Once through this tunnel, if you go to the north a little, there is another cave made by the Japanese. Once at this cave, if you head down the slope a little ways but not all the way to the bottom, and go south, following the cliff, you will find more caves and remains from World War II.

The last set of coordinates I have for this area are for a saddle in the ridge line south of the Shrine. This was one of my favorite places on Tinian because there was always a good breeze here and it was shaded. N15 degrees 02.352 minutes, E145 degrees 37.776 minutes

I do miss Tinian and the freedom to hike about any place you wanted to go. Maybe one of these years I will return.

Saturday April 19, 2008 - San Jose Cliff Line

2008-04-23T18:15:00.042+10:00

My apologies for taking so long to get this entry posted. Before talking about the hike I have to say that I doubt any of us ever appreciated how much work Howard put into this blog. Doing one of these write-ups is far tougher than doing any of the hikes!
Also, Howard when you are reading anything I enter here please feel free to insert corrections, comments or addition in ( parentheses ) wherever needed. Thanks, Jude

On Saturday, April 19th 4 of us, Kim, me, Mitch, and Lina, as shown below, set off from the San Jose Cemetery to explore the cliff line from there to the Northern Marianas College Campus.

Following the route Howard had taken in the past, Mitch led the way straight up a rather steep slope then turned back to get a picture of Lina, me and Kim making our way up to join her.

At the top she showed us a small notch in the cliff that would have been used as a shelter in WWII. To demonstrate its small size I posed inside it. Short though I am I could barely stand up in there. We decided it would have been tight quarters for more than one man with supplies and equipment.

Later Kim demonstrated how small another of these shelters, chiselled out of the face of the cliff, really are. This one was nothing but a small indentation at the base of the cliff, probably enlarged a bit by man.

After climbing, scrambling, slipping or sliding our way back down, Mitch led us along the cliff line. As we went we noticed many freshly cut shrubs and saw evidence that coconut crab hunters had been there recently. Next we came to some old pipe and a series of cement supports for the old pipeline that ran down through there.

In the picture above is a length of pipe on the ground between the green leaves and the cement support. The next picture shows the groove the pipe was supported in. And in the shadows beyond the next support in the series can be seen.

A short ways later Mitch pointed out a different sort of shelter, low to the ground, with an opening partially constructed out of 55 gallon drums apparently filled with large rocks.

Exploring within she found one of the numerous old bottles that we see on the jungle hikes.

We all had to take our turns examining this one as it was so low and so small. Though we thought the earlier one would seem crowded it would was spacious compared to this.

While I was having my turn at the shelter, Mitch, ever the observant one spotted one of the several bird's nests seen on this hike.

In a much larger cave we found medicine ampoules, shards of pottery, and several other items left as reminders of earlier uses of these caves.

Outside were many rusting objects. Mitch's friend in Japan had told her there used to be a railroad line in this area. Some of the bits and tools we saw could fit with that.

A well preserved land marker also reminded us that this secluded area was once more heavily populated. Sounds of boom boxes and traffic nearby served to remind us that we were not really so far from it all today.

Other finds also typical on these hikes are grim reminders of less than peaceful times.

Sometime the solemnity of thinking about our two nations in long ago battles here needed to be broken with a bit of levity. We tried to convince our New Yorker, Kim, that the head of an old sledge hammer was actually a submarine sandwich. She cheerfully pretended to believe us.

The next cave was one of the largest we've seen. Mitch told us it had been a hospital cave. Large though it is for caves around here, it still seemed rather small for the purpose.

It took a bit of a climb to get there. Mitch and Lina, below, negotiate the face of the cliff toward the opening just above Mitch. Watching them, I was wondering how they got patients in and out when it had been used as a hospital cave.

Within were more items that suggested it's former usage. Ampoules, vials, a piece of a glass stirrer, microscope slides, etc.

Moving onward, we soon came to the largest site of the day, a cave/tunnel that had been well reinforced by concrete. We had to proceed with caution as it was 'guarded' from high above by a huge bees nest. Below, taken from the tunnel opening, is Lina looking up toward the bees nest.

This was not the usual boonie bee nest. It looked about 15-20 inches high and a foot or so wide with hundreds or perhaps thousands of bees swarming on and around it. Howard, can you give us more info here? ( edit: in 'comments' Howard says they're honey bees ) In spite of all the bees seen here, there were no signs of booonie bees and no stings on this hike.
Once we were all safely past the bees who seemed rather oblivious of us we explored the tunnel/cave. With an opening at each end, and alcoves in between it was hard to decide if it was a cave or a tunnel.

Near the exit, alerted by water on the floor, we examined the ceiling and found stalactites forming there. Even closer to the exit Lina pointed out a huge spider. One very different from the ones we often 'battle' in the jungle outside. We were content to give him wide berth and were relieved that he didn't seem to mind our presence or all our camera flashes. So, of course, we shutter bugs aimed a few of those flashes at him.

A short hike from the tunnel/cave brought us to the grounds of the now closed college,

and then to the cave now used for the stations of the cross and the Santa Lourdes shrine. We took a refreshment break at one of the tables there.

Then a short walk along the road brought us back to our starting point - the San Jose Cemetery.

Several torrential downpours shortly after the hike ended convinced me that we finished just in time. Actually we'd had one brief shower just after leaving the hospital cave. But the jungle was dense enough close to the cliff that barely a drop reached us though we could see and hear the rain.

For more information and pictures of this same hike see Howard's entry of Dec 1, 2007. And at Mitch's blog entry for this hike: http://michi007.blog70.fc2.com/blog-entry-28.html

A big thank you goes to Mitch and Lina for sharing their pictures to be used in this post.

The next hike will be Saturday April 26 to the Tachonga Lattes. Unless we find more than the two main groups we know, it will be a short hike so will end with snorkelling. Everyone is welcome. Meet at 8a.m. at the Tachonga Beach parking lot.

April Hikes

2008-04-13T20:57:00.013+10:00

Note: post editted to add date of April 26 for the Tachonga hike. for details, see below. Since this will likely be a short hike we are also suggesting that those who wish come prepared to snorkel afterward. Bring snacks and beverage as you see fit.

Hello hikers!
Hikes may be somewhat less frequent (and probably less interesting) without Howard to lead and explain. Neither Mitch nor I has a GPS so we are limited to hikes we can do without one. Also there is a transportation problem since I have no vehicle and Mitch's small car is shared by multiple drivers.
Thus we will begin with hikes close to town and will experiment with having hikers meet at the starting point. For further distant hikes we will have to arrange for transportation in advance. Also, if you have a bush knife you might want to bring it along. With those conditions we will try to continue the hikes when possible.

If you are off island and want a hike that we can handle on a specific date please contact me in advance to make arrangements. tel 433-7171 or post as a comment here. Jude

Everyone is welcome to join these hikes

or to suggest hikes they can lead.

Saturday - April 12. No hike was scheduled in deference to the Red Cross Walk-a-Thon.

Saturday - April 19. San Jose Cliff Hike - for a description of this hike see the Dec 1, 2007 hike.
We will meet at the San Jose Cemetery - behind the High School - at 8 a. m.
Note: Editted to add - Mitch says we should bring our flashlights on this hike, there's a tunnel in which we will need them.

Saturday - April 26, 2008 - Tachonga Lattes. We will meet at the parking lot at Tachonga Beach. We've found one more set of the lattes in the Tachonga area so can lead a hike to those and then backtrack and try to find some of the points of interest that Howard showed us on the Jan 26, 2008 hike. Or we could try to find other sets of the stones as shown on the following map at Long Beach. We discussed the plans and scheduling for this hike during the April 19 hike.

Farewell Party

2008-04-05T20:02:00.008+10:00

On March 28, the hikers gave me a farewell party. This party was at Monster Pizza at the Dynasty Hotel and Casino. I said I would post pictures for this party in my last posting, so here they are.

Below is a picture of everyone that attended the party. Even Mony showed up briefly, but did not stay to eat pizza with us.

Completely unexpected by me was a certificate of appreciation that was prsented to me. Below I am reading the certificate.

Along with the certificate was a boonie bee nest, I think in appreciation of all the bee stings I took for the group. It had a red bow on it and is at the end of my left hand in the picture below.

The certifate was passed around and signed by everyone on the back. In the picture below, Kaori is signing the back with Mictch and Masa looking on. Now I will have to find someone that reads Japanese so that I know what Kaori and Masa wrote.

In the picture below, I am reading what everyone wrote on the back of the certificate. This certificate will be something that I always will treasure. Thank you all for the company on the hikes and the great party.

Farewell to everyone. I leave tomorrow afternoon. I will miss you all and the hikes.

Turtle Cove Cannon - March 29, 2008

2008-04-01T21:49:00.041+10:00

This will be the last hike that I will be posting for awhile. I am leaving Tinian to look for work soon, but I might be back in June or July for a short period of time. I will miss all of the people that have been my regulars on these hikes; I will miss Tinian, where I was free to roam the jungle and cliffs; and I will miss my way of life here on Tinian.

Before we began this hike, Masa presented me with framed picture that was a collage of photographs from the hikes that we all had gone on. He also had unframed copies for the rest of the hikers. I was really touched by this gesture. I also want to thank everyone for the appreciation party that was given for me the night before this hike. I will be posting pictures from that party later this week. Again, Thank You All!

On this hike, 12 of us set off to look at the cannon, tunnels, and beaches by Turtle Cove. Below is a group picture of the hikers at the parking area below the cannon. From left to right are Masa, me, Lisa, Amanda, Jessabel, Stacy, Erica, Judy, Pete, Kimberly, and Bonnie (my sister-in-law, visiting from California), with Mitch taking the picture.

The cannon was a short walk from the parking area. The cannon is in a cave that was a rock shelter that had been enlarged by the Japanese. In the picture below, I am by the cannon and Kimberly and Pete are walking up to it. There are also bent railroad rails in the picture. I don't know what the rails were used for.

Below is a picture of most of the group standing by the cannon. This picture shows the cliff that shelters the cannon. From here, the Japanese could have protected the northern entrance to Tinian harbor with this cannon.

The picture below shows the breech of the cannon. It is missing the breech door. Also, the rails are clearly visible in the picture.

Mitch happened to notice a red insect crawling on a rock. I didn't have my glasses on and didn't get a good look at it, but from the picture, I can tell that it is a hemiptera. These are true bugs and have sucking mouth parts. I have seen similar bugs, not as bright as this one, hanging on vines, and sucking plant juices.

After we left the cannon, we hiked to the bottom of the slope below the cliff. I was a little worried that we had gone too low and might miss something along the cliff line. So, we ended up climbing back up the slope, which was real steep, as can be seen in the picture below of Erica climbing the slope. After getting up the slope, I found there was nowhere to go, so we headed back down the way we had come.

A little further along the slope, I decided again to climb back up it, to see if it was worth the whole group going up. I decided it was not worth the hike up the slope. You can see how steep the slope was in the picture below of me climbing down it.

After going up and down the slope a few times, I found a valley and decided to follow it up the slope. The picture below shows Erica and Stacy nearing the top of the valley and slope. It got real steep again. After we crossed a small ridge, we ended up going down another valley that paralleled the first valley that we had just gone up. It was a lot of ups and downs for the beginning of this hike.

As we followed the base of the slope, it slowly became a cliff! One of the areas that we walked through has Moses in a Basket, Tradescantia spathacea, growing in it. In the mainland U.S. this is a common ground cover plant. In the picture below, the plants with the green and purple leaves is Moses in a Basket growing on the cliff.

Below is a closeup of the flowers of the Moses in a Basket plant. The white flowers are contained in a bracket that forms the basket.

Just a little way past the Moses in the Basket plants was the tunnel that I remember seeing about 12 or 15 years ago. I really don't know if it is a tunnel or just a cave with three entrances. It may have been a natural cave, or a group of natural caves, that were expanded and connected together by the Japanese during World War II. In the picture below, Bonnie, Stacy, me and Lisa are entering the tunnel/cave.

On the floor of tunnel were a bunch of corroded 3 inch shells. The picture shows three of these shells on the cave's floor. The middle one has been almost completely destroyed by corrosion.

In front of Bonnie, in the picture below, is the tunnel that was built by the Japanese. This tunnel runs to another entrance that might have been a natural opening in the cliff's face, or it might have been dug out by the Japanese.

Below is a picture taken by Judy of Mitch taking a picture of Pete in the tunnel. This is the same tunnel that Bonnie is standing in front of in the picture above.

This is the picture that Mitch took, mentioned above, of Pete in the tunnel.

Below is a picture at the third entrance to the tunnel, just before we all left the system of caves and tunnels. In the picture are Kimberly, Lisa, Jessabel, me, Mitch and Pete.

Next to the tunnel-cave system was another cave/shelter. It had some neat nunu (banyan) roots growing in it. The picture below shows Judy standing in the shelter, with the roots on its roof.

Mitch, digging around as always, found some bones in the shelter pictured above. Some of the bones are pictured below. I am not sure if they are human or some other animal's bones.

After the shelter, it was time to head back to the van. The reason why we turned back is because I knew there was nothing else to see along this cliff line. So we walked back through the tangantangan forest, since it was a lot easier to walk through it than trying to follow the cliff back to the cannon.

As we got back to the parking area, there was an area of grass that we had to cross. I knew that there was a road that went through the grass nearer to the ocean. So we followed the grass until we came to the road. It was a lot easier to use the road than to cut a path through the grass. In the picture below is my daughter, Amanda, following the road back to the van.

After everyone had gotten back to the van, I told them that the hike was not over yet, and that we were going to walk to a nearby beach. So after a brief rest, we headed back down the road, through the grass, to a small path. This path leaded to a nice little pocket beach. The picture shows the entrance to the beach from the trail. There are a lot of puting and banalo trees on this beach.

The picture below shows the edge of the beach as you look north. In the picture Bonnie is taking off her shoes to enjoy the beach.

The following picture shows the land side of the beach. This part of the beach has a nice shady area to rest in.
The picture below was taken from about where I was sitting, in the picture above, looking out towards the beach. I really like this beach.

Judy had baked some brownies for me. I decided to share them with the rest of the hikers. Below, in the picture, is Judy getting a piece of a brownie, while Jessabel looks on enjoying her own brownie. Everyone enjoyed the brownies and none were left to carry out.

Mitch and Judy pointed out the rock that is in the picture below, which sort of looks like either a turtle or a camel. I think it looks more like a turtle, and since it is close to the ocean, it must be a turtle. Maybe the beach next to it should be called Turtle Beach, since it is also next to Turtle Cove.

Except for climbing up and down the steep slopes at the beginning of this hike, this was a very good hike, especially with the long break on the beach. I would like to thank Stacy for driving the van for this hike, and Judy for making the brownies. I also need to thank Judy and Mitch for all the pictures in this posting. Seems my camera decided to stay in Bali, instead of coming back with my wife.

The boonie bee count was one. I got stung in shoulder, and it didn't even hurt that much. Maybe I am starting to get use to being stung after all of these hikes.

I am sorry to say there will not be any more Saturday hikes, unless Mitch or Judy organizes them. It was fun while it lasted and I wish I had started these hikes earlier.

Goodbye everyone, I really did enjoy you all on these hikes and as my friends.

Chiget Update

2008-03-30T07:13:00.006+10:00

First, let me say thanks to Howard for adding me as a poster to this blog. All of us hikers have appreciated what you've made possible for us. Thanks heaps.

On a smaller scale some of us will try to keep 'hike Tinian' alive, though it may become even more difficult than we'd anticipated. Below is how Chiget looked with Howard on the beach in January.
Disturbed by reports that Chiget area was being fenced off some of us visited there on Monday, Mar 24. It is a sad view. Howard not only are we losing you, our hike leader - a sad enough prospect in itself - but it seems we are losing hike area access. There is indeed a huge fence.

A thin person can still squeeze through to get to the beach. I imagine even that will be changed eventually.

For the rest the view is pretty dismal.

West Field - March 22, 2008

2008-03-26T18:13:00.029+10:00

On this hike we set off to explore the area just north of the current airport on Tinian. During World War II, this area was called West Field. It was a fighter airbase, which protected the U.S. bombers on their raids over Japan. I knew we would find an old Japanese Shinto Shrine in this area. According to Mitch, the name of the shrine is the Tachibana Shinto Shrine.

There were ten hikers on this hike. Most of them are pictured below, getting ready to start the hike. It took two trucks to get to the starting point for this hike, but I was willing to put everyone in my truck; I have had up to fourteen people in it before. But, everyone decided it was best to take two trucks. In the picture below are Dan, me, Judy, Kimberly, Joe, Erica and Gary. Not pictured are Pete, Masa and Mitch, who took the picture.

After a short walk through some short grass and pass some down trees, we came to a bamboo grove. In the bamboo grove was the shrine. Below are me, Dan, Erica and Mitch looking at the shrine in the grove.

We entered from the backside of the shrine and had to follow a cement fence, which surrounded the most sacred area of the shrine. The base for the gods' house can been seen through the fence in the picture below.

Dan had to clean the top of the foundation for the shrine's house. The steps to the foundation's top are clearly visible in the picture below. Where Dan is standing is where a small wooden house would have been located.

Masa is pictured below leaving an offering at the Shinto Shrine.

After visiting the main part of the Shinto Shrine, we decided to try to find the torii gate for the shrine. As we looked for it, we noticed large foundations for buildings on both sides of the path we were following. These foundations were most likely for buildings that serviced the shrine, maybe where priests or monks lived. In the picture below, one of the foundations is visible behind the trees and vines. By the way, we didn't find the torii gate.

Below is a closeup of the foundation in the picture above. Erica is just barely visible in the picture below.

Once you are on top of the foundations, it is fairly easy to walk because there are very few trees and vines growing there. Below are Kimberly and me standing on one of the building foundations. You can see how clear it is on the foundations, which are really just large cement slabs.

There were a few artifacts near these foundations and on them. Below, Masa is looking at one of these artifacts. It looked like some type of large electrical motor or switch.

Because of the shallow soil found in limestone forest areas, trees have developed ways to help keep upright. Some of these ways are using prop roots, which are common on nunu and pandanus trees, or using buttress roots, which are common on flame and ironwood trees. Pictured below is a flame tree, Delonix regia, which got knocked over maybe in a typhoon. Another adaptation many tropical trees have is that when they get knocked over, they grow advantageous roots from where ever their trunk touches the ground. The flame tree does this.

The picture below shows a great example of a buttress root on a flame tree.

After leaving the shrine, we headed south towards the current airport. We found a few more foundations. These most likely were part of the Seabee base that was in this area, or could have been air operation buildings. We even followed a few old roadways which could have been taxi ways for the fighters at West Field.

It was fairly hard walking with all of the vines in the jungle. Being the leader, I usually had vines wrapping around me until I either cut them or they broke. We also had to watch out for boonie bee nests. There were not that many, but there were enough to keep us alert.

One other nest that we did find was a bird nest. It had baby birds in it. I am fairly certain they are Tinian Monarch young, since this was the most common bird that we saw on the hike. I did see one or two Rufous Fantails, but we saw many many more Monarchs.

We travelled from one kamachili tree to an ironwood tree to another tree, and not finding much. I finally got tried and decided to head west towards 8th Avenue. As we walked towards 8th Avenue, we found more kamachili and ironwood trees. Ironwood trees, Casuarina equisetifolia, also have large buttress roots, as can be seen in the picture below. In the picture, Mitch is climbing over one of the large buttress roots, while Gary and Joe are looking on. Gary was visiting Tinian for a few days, and Joe is the father of Don Farrell, a well-known local historian. Joe is also a World War II veteran, who had just visited Iwo Jima, where he fought during its invasion. (Just a side note, if you want to learn more about Tinian, I highly recommend purchasing some of the history books that Don has written.)

As we headed west, we came upon an old roadway. I can remember about 3 or 4 years ago this road had been cleared and could be driven on. Now it was overgrown, and with trees on the side of it leaning out on to the road. Also, some small trees have started to grow on it. The jungle does cover things very quickly here in the tropics. We followed the road a little ways to the south, but it was difficult to get through some areas because of the trees leaning out into the road.

I decided to head west again towards 8th Avenue. I knew we where close to it. As we left the road, it dropped into a deep wide ditch. In the picture below Masa, Joe and Gary are working their way down the steep slope into the ditch. Of course, when I first went down the slope, I couldn't see where I was placing my feet because of the thick vines. There were also a lot of rotten branches on this slope, because of clearing the road a few years ago, which made the walking even more interesting. After a few people had followed me, it was a lot easier to see your footing, but you still had to be careful because it was easy to slip.

On the other side of the ditch, we had to climb up another slope. After a short distance in the secondary forest, we hit grass. I hate grass. I started to crawl through the grass to push it down and to make a trail for the rest of the hikers to follow. As I was doing this, I suddenly dropped down. There was another steep slope that was hidden by the grass. A few of the hikers slide down this slope instead of trying to walk down it. After the slope, I still had more grass to make a path in. In the picture below, I am finally got out of the grass and I am standing on 8th Avenue. I think it is Mitch and Erica that are still in the grass in the picture below.

The picture below shows Joe about ready to get out of the grass. I think that is Pete standing at the top of the slope thinking about how to get down it.

After a short walk down 8th Avenue, we stopped at the SeaBee's Monument. Below are Masa, Pete, and me look at the map of Tinian as it appeared after the U.S. buildup during World War II.

Below is a closeup of map on the SeaBee's Monument showing the area we were hiking in as it appeared during World War II. It doesn't look that way now!

After visiting the monument, we headed down 86th Street toward our trucks. They were about a quarter mile down the road.

I was fairly tried after this hike. I think fighting all of those vines and the grass got to me. This was not the best hike we have been on, but it was different, as almost all of the hikes are. I was glad to get home and to take a hot shower.

As for the boonie bee count, it was one again. I bet you all can guess who got stung. Yes, it was me, right on the stomach.

I would like to thank Judy and Mitch for providing all of the pictures in this posting. My camera was with my wife in Bali and Java.

The next hike will be to the Japanese canon above Turtle Cove. We will follow the cliff that the canon is on to the north. I have done this once before, about 12 years ago, and have found some interesting caves and tunnels, so bring a flashlight. This will be the last Saturday hike I will be leading on Tinian, since I will be leaving in early April. We will meet at 8 AM, Saturday, March 29, at Grace Christian School.

Please join us on my last hike. I hope that others will continue these hikes on Tinian even after I am gone.

Everyone is Welcome.

Lion's Head - March 15, 2008

2008-03-18T20:56:00.042+10:00

On March 15th, eight hikers set out to climb up to Lion's Head, a rocky outcropping above Marpo Valley on Tinian. This is my third hike to Lion's Head with the Saturday hikers since we started hiking last September. I wanted to do this hike one last time before leaving Tinian in April.

After meeting at 8 AM, at Grace Christian School, we drove to the island's public well in Marpo Valley. I usually park a little closer to the end of the road than I did this time. This time, I parked next to the bend in the road that was just pass the entrance to the well. As we got ready for the hike, another truck pulled in behind mine. It had Mony in it, and he was going to join us on this hike.

As we set off on the hike, I was surprised that we were next to a cliff, which came to within a few feet of the road. I don't remember this cliff coming this close to the road from my previous visits to this area. As we hiked along this cliff, there were a lot of shelters used by the Japanese during World War II. Below is a picture of one of these shelters, with two bottles in the bottom of it.

There were about 4 or 5 of these caves or rock shelters along this little cliff which we were following. Below is another shelter that is made up of several large rocks that are at the base of the cliff. In the picture, you can see another bottle on the floor of the shelter.

Mr. Sakurai, or Uncle Pedro as he likes to be called, who is pictured below in one of the caves, left offerings at many of the Japanese sites on this hike, as he is doing here. His father died here on Tinian during World War II.

Next to the cave pictured above was an old sledge hammer, which is pictured below. The dead leaves in the picture, with the sledge hammer, are from the bamboo grove that is very near this cave.

In the picture below is a cache of bottles that was near a Japanese shelter. Most of these bottles are beer bottles, but most likely they were used by the Japanese to catch rainwater, during the U.S. invasion of Tinian.

As I rounded some small trees near the cliff, which we were following, I saw the land crab, Cardisoma carnifex, pictured below.

About a quarter mile along the cliff, we came upon the old water pipe that ran from the old Japanese water well in Marpo Valley to the top of the Carolinas Plateau, pictured below. This pipe is about 18 inches in diameter. When I first started to hike in this area, trying to find a way to the top of Lion's Head, we used to follow this pipeline to the cliff. I had not seen this pipe for about 10 years. It was nice to see that it still existed as I remembered it.

In the picture below is the tree called paipai in Chamorro, Guamia mariannae. It is an common endemic understory tree in the limestone forest.

This tree is very similar in appearance to gulos, Cynometra ramiflora, and they are found in similar habitats. The way to tell them apart is to look at the leaves. Gulos has compound leaves made up of two large lower leaves and two smaller upper leaves. Paipai has a single lance like leave, as shown in the picture below.

As I was leading the group, I noticed a Tinian Monarch fly off the nest pictured below.

In the nest was the egg. I had thought that this egg, pictuced below, was laid by the Rufous Fantail, Rhipidura rufifrons. I will have to send this picture, and some other pictures, to a friend of mine, who did a study on the Tinian Monarch in the 1990's, to see if this is a Monarch's or Fantail's egg.

For about the first mile of the hike, we walked in a transition zone between tangantangan forest and limestone forest. After this mile we entered pure limestone forest. Below is a picture of Mony walking in the transition zone, just before we entered the limestone forest. The last half mile of the hike, just before Lion's Head, is in secondary tangantangan forest. The hike to Lion's Head is a little under a half mile one way, and with an elevation gain of about 500 feet.

One of the common trees in the limestone forest is the nunu tree, Ficus prolixa. Below are three pictures of an especially large nunu (banyan) tree. As always, it is hard to take a picture of such a large tree, since you can't get far enough away from it in the jungle to get all of it in a single picture.

Because of all the Japanese defensive structures in this area, the fighting must have been very intense during the U.S. invasion of Tinian. This was one of last areas the Japanese were pushed back into before their last stand on the backside of the Carolinas Plateau. So below is another picture of a large 6-inch shell, which are fairly common on Tinian, that we saw on our way to Lion's Head.

Below is a picture of a second nest that we came upon that had an egg in it. It is a little bit different from the first nest in which we found an egg.

The egg was blue, as shown in the picture below. As I said above, I will have to send these egg pictures to a friend of mine, and find out what she can tell me about them.

Another tree that is commonly seen in the forest is the tiger claw tree, Erythrina variegata. This is a fairly large tree. Below is a picture of its flowers, high up in the canopy.

Wild sour orange trees are very common in the forest. They can be found in both the limestone forest and the secondary tangatangan forest. Usually you will notice the fruit on the ground before you see the tree that produced it. Below is a picture of one of the oranges on the ground.

This wild oranges are very sour and locally are called lemons, even if they are much larger than a normal lemon. Below is a picture of the oranges still attached to the tree.

Finally, after the long walk in the jungle and climbing one small cliff, we made it to Lion's Head. Of course, it is easier now to find Lion's Head, since I have it position on my GPS and I have been to it six times since last summer. Below is a 360 degree video of the view from Lion's Head.

For this hike, the weather was perfect for going to Lion's Head. There were only a few clouds and a fairly steady wind. These weather conditions made it easy to see Saipan from Lion's Head, as show in the picture below.

Below is a picture of Mitch and Judy sitting on Lion's Head with Mt. Lasu in the background.

In the picture above, Judy and Mitch are sitting on a fairly flat area that is just below the highest point on Lion's Head. In the picture below are Mitch, Masa, and Mony standing on the highest point on Lion's Head.

To the east of Lion's Head is a second rock promontory. The picture below shows me sitting at the end of this promontory. This second rock outcropping is not visible from the eastern side of the island and is rarely seen. It would only be visible if you were in a boat on the western side of Tinian.

The picture below is toward the top of Carolinas Plateau, towards Suicide Cliff. I always enjoy this view. Suicide Cliff was where the Japanese jumped into the ocean instead of surrendering to the Americans. To the Japanese, it was better to commit suicide than to surrender, because there was no honor in surrender.

Below is Mony standing between Lion's Head and the second rock outcropping. He was trying to get pictures of me standing on the second promontory and of others walking out to it.

After visiting Lion's Head, we headed back to the truck. It was a fairly easy walk back because I could follow the track that my GPS created on the way up. Of course, it is very hard to follow the exact same trail back when traveling cross country. One of the things that we found on the way back was a fairly large stone wall, which is in the picture below.

Behind the wall was a deep hole or cave. In the picture below are Mitch and Mony seeing what is in this cave or hole behind the wall.

We came out of the jungle where I would have normally parked the truck to start this hike. The picture below shows Judy looking back at where Lion's Head is located. The yellow arrow is pointing at Lion's Head.

I wanted to just get in the truck and drive back to the village, but everyone else insisted on taking a group photo. Below is the group photo. In the photo, from left to right, are me, Masa, Kimberly, Judy, Uncle Pedro (in front of Judy), Mony, Mitch and Erica.

This is always a good hike because of the different things you see on the way to Lion's Head. I don't think I have ever walked the same path to Lion's Head and back in all of the times I have been there. Just because I parked in a slightly different place this time, we got to see many more Japanese shelters than are normally find on this hike.

As always, I would like to thank Mitch and Judy for contributing additional photographs for this posting. I will have to rely on them for the photos for the next hike, since my wife has taken my camera to Bali for a week.

The boonie bee count was one on this hike. I got stung on the wrist as we hiked back from Lion's Head. I think this was the only bee nest that we saw on the whole hike.

The next hike will be to the West Field area. This area is just to the north of the current airport on Tinian. We will visit the Shinto Shrine located here and look for the remains of the SeaBee compound that used to be in this area. I have explored a little bit of this area, but I really don't know what we will find, besides the shrine. Most of the hike will be through tangantangan forest. We will meet at 8 AM, on Saturday, March 22, at Grace Christian School.

Everyone Is Welcome On These Hikes.

Harlem Hike - March 8, 2008

2008-03-11T15:51:00.045+10:00

On this hike, we were off to explore an area on the southwest side of North Field. On old maps, from World War II of the U.S. airbase at North Field, this area is labeled as Harlem. The engineers that designed the roads and layout for Tinian noticed that it looked a lot like Manhattan. So, there are roads and areas on Tinian that are named after similar roads and areas on Manhattan. We even have a Central Park on Tinian.

Seven of us set off to explore Harlem and the cliff above it. I had never been to the cliff above Harlem so this would be a new place for me to explore too.

As I drove down 8th Avenue, looking for the road for Harlem, I didn't see it at all. I soon got to the circle on 8th Avenue and knew that I had missed it. I did a loop around the circle and headed back south to see if I could find a way to get to the cliff near the Harlem area. I finally saw a place, along the road edge, where I thought it would be an easy hike through tangtangan forest to the cliff, and stopped the truck to unload everyone.

After everyone had gotten out of the truck, I decided to walk another 50 or so feet down the road to see if there was a better place to enter the jungle. As I walked down the road, I saw a better place to park the truck and decided to move truck. After moving the truck, everyone caught up with me. Right next to where I had parked the truck, there was a road that seemed to go through the grass, following the tangantangan forest I had thought about following to the cliff.

Below is a picture of hikers setting off to explore Harlem. I took this picture from a frame of a video that I had accidental shot with my camera instead of taking a picture that is why it is a little blurry. From left to right are Erica, Kimberly, Mitch, Judy, Masa, and Kaori, with me taking the picture.

Once I saw that the road going though the grass was paved, I was fairly certain that this was the road to Harlem. I was positive that we on the road to Harlem when I saw the large amounts of tar on the road. Below is a picture of one of the large tar pools on the road to Harlem. The tar is very hard after sitting on the road for over 65 years.

The road was overgrown with grass, and the grass was starting to get thicker and thicker as we followed the road. It was soon time to head into the jungle because of the thick grass. It is a lot easier to walk through the jungle than through a field of guinea grass. In the jungle, there were a lot of ferns growing under the tangantangan trees, as can be seen in the picture below. Also in the picture I am walking up hill. The top of the hill was very narrow and must have been an old road.

The roadway on top of the hill ended at a large metal tank, pictured below. Most likely trucks drove up the roadway on the hill to dump gravel into the tank, or other structure now gone, for the asphalt plant, which was at Harlem during World War II.

On one side of the tank was a narrow trough, which is pictured below, with Masa taking a picture of me taking a picture of him. In the above picture, the trough is on the right side of the tank.

On the other side of the tank was a large grass field. We stayed in the jungle to the right side of the tank. As we walked, I noticed a cliff just to our right. I decided to head toward the cliff. As we walked toward the cliff, Mitch noticed a wall running toward the base of the cliff. Below is a picture of the wall's end, the end farthest from the cliff. It had some large metal channel beams in it. These beams must have been about eight inches across.

Soon other hikers spotted another wall about 150 feet away from the first one, along the cliff. Below is a picture of the second wall. Again it ran from the cliff out into the jungle. Toward the jungle end, the wall formed a T with another wall. It looked like the two walls made up the edges of a compound, with the cliff being the back wall for the compound.

The walls were about a foot wide. Below is a picture of me standing on the wall that is pictured above. Again this wall had large metal channel beams in it, which I am standing in between.

We followed the cliff, which was by the walls, toward the east, but it soon ended. After walking though a some more tangantangan forest, we came to the cliff that was on the east side of Harlem. While following the bottom of this cliff, we ended up at a large field of grass. I decided to try to cross the grass field but it proved to be very difficult walking. That is when I decided to climb up the steep slope and back into the jungle. Below, in the picture, are Kimberly, Judy, Kaori, and Masa in the grass field, with me taking the picture just below the forest on the steep slope.

Here is a close up of Masa, Kaori and Judy in the grass. I am not sure if they are happy being on the hike or if they are ready to quit. At least Kaori is smiling.

Above the grass, the cliff was fairly steep. The two pictures below, show Kimberly and Kaori walking carefully along the cliff at about the same place, just before we rested by an umumu tree.

The red leaves, in the pictures, above are young leaves of the gulos tree (Cynometra ramiflora). These leaves contain the pigment anthocyanin. Anthocyanin may protect the young leaves from fungal attack, or from sun damage, because anthocyanin soaks up free radicals.

There were also a lot of bird's nest ferns, Asplenium nidus, growing on the trees and cliffs. Below is a picture of some of these ferns growing on the cliff.

The cliff we were following was very steep, and at one place I had to make a choice of either climbing up or down. I decided to go down. In the picture below are Kaori and Masa climbing down the cliff.

After getting to the bottom of the cliff, I saw that I had made a mistake and that we should have gone up instead of down. So, we had to climb up the steep slope again to get to the base of the upper cliff line. As we got to the top of the slope, we found a small cave/shelter that had two broken bowls in it and a few shoe souls. Below is a picture of one of the bowls.

As we walked along the cliff's bottom, I noticed a hole in the ground under a rock, pictured below. Most likely this is a hole that was dug by a coconut crab. We also found a second hole a few hundred feet from the first one.

While we rested, a Tinian Monarch, Monarcha takatsukasae, came in close to watch us. I was a little too far away to get a picture, but Mitch got a good one of it. The Tinian Monarch is only found on the island of Tinian, in the Mariana Islands.

We also found some cup mushrooms growing on the leaf litter.

A little further along the cliff, there was a tunnel or cave visible in it. After going through the opening, we emerged in a large room that had a tall stone wall protecting its main entrance. Below are Masa, Kaori, Judy and Kimberly standing in the cave.

Below is another picture of the wall the protected the main entrance of the cave.

There was a lot of stuff on this cave's floor. In the picture below are an old metal pan, bottles, wooden planks and other artifacts. We left everything behind, in case a future archaeologist wants to study this area.

The picture below shows a closeup of the wall that protected the cave.

At the base of the wall was an old ammunition case, pictured below. It most likely held rounds for a small canon.

Right at the main entrance, near the stone wall, was an old rusty pick. In the picture below the pick is toward the left side of the middle of the picture, and pointing straight up and down.

As we walked along the bottom of the cliff, I noticed a large rock below us. It looked like it might have an opening in it. I climbed to the bottom of the rock and saw that it was a shelter that was used by the Japanese during War World II, which is pictured below. It was raised about two feet above ground level and could also be entered from the back. Of course, Mitch and Kaori had to climb all the way through this rock shelter, form the back entrance to the front one.

The cliff started to die out, so we headed up the slope to see if we could find more of the cliff line or not. On the way up, I happened to get some large spines in my shoe, like the ones that I had gotten on the Tachonga hike. After getting to the top of the slope, the cliff had disappeared and it looked like we would have to cut our way through a lot of vines and weeds before finding anything. Since it was getting late, I decided it was time to head back to the truck.

As we walked down the slope, we encountered the spines again. This time we found the source. It was on the roots of a plant growing in the ground. After consulting with Carmen Farrell, I found out this was a wild yam called nika in Chamorro. With a little research, I found out that this yam is called Dioscorea esculenta var. spinosa. One article, which I found, called it the 'devil yam.' After seeing the spines on the roots of this plant, I see calling it the devil yam is very appropriate.

The following picture shows a closeup of the spines from the nika plant. We all had to stop to pull the spines out of our shoes. They are about an inch and a half long.

We went almost straight down the slope on our way back to the truck. Because of the recent rainfall, the ground, and the leaves on it, were wet and slippery. At least four of us fell on this hike because of the slippery conditions and steep slopes.

The picture below shows about where we ended the hike along the cliff line. It was by the ironwood trees, gagu, at the top of the cliff. Just before where the ridge drops down on the left side of the picture. The trees at the top of the cliff are about 50 to 60 feet tall, just to give you an idea of how high the cliff was.

After crossing the field in the picture above, we entered the tangatangan forest. It appeared that we were walking on an old road. It was fairly flat, about wide enough for a large truck to drive on, and covered with gravel. As we followed this old road, there were a lot of hot peppers to pick, so we made a lot of rest stops for picking peppers.

On the side of the road, we found an old collapsed tank. This meant that we were getting near the asphalt plant, if not there already. Below is a picture of the tank, covered with vines.

The picture is taken toward 8th Avenue, about where the truck was parked. As you can see, it is grass forever. I did want to go through that grass because of how difficult it is to walk through it. It is very difficult to cut; it is taller than a person; and most of the time you have to fall on it to push it down to make a trail.

Finally the road ended in a large field of grass. We dropped down to the edge of the road, where some tangantangan trees grew. There was a little shelter down there with some metal drums in front of it, as shown in the picture below.

I took a look at my GPS, while we rested, and realized that the road we had followed in was about 75 feet to the south of our resting place. With encouragement from the other hikers, I set off by myself, through the grass, to look for the road. I had to cut through about 50 feet of grass, luckily it has been burned last year and was not too thick, to get to the road. After finding the road, I went back to the others and led them out to the road. As you can see in the picture below, Mitch was real happy to be back on the road!

After leaving Harlem, I decided to stop at the SeaBee Monument. The SeaBee Monument is dedicated to the 107th SeaBees, one of the main U.S. construction battalions on Tinian during World War II. It is where 86th Street meets 8th Avenue. On the monument is a map of Tinian as it appeared during the U.S. buildup at the end of World War II. I am pointing out Harlem to Masa on the map in the picture below.

The main reason why I stopped at the monument was because of Kimberly. She is from New York and I thought she would enjoy see the names of the streets and areas on the map. Below is a picture of all of us standing by the monument, except Mitch, since she is taking the picture.

This was a fairly interesting hike. I wish there was less grass at the Harlem site. I have to wonder what else was hidden by the grass, especially after what we had found on the edges of the area.

Now for the bonnie bee count. It was none. I did almost walk into a nest, but as I saw the bees fly around me, I got away from it fast before I got stung. It was hidden behind some vines and was not visible until we got around the vines. That was the only nest we saw. Because of the rain that had occurred the night before the hike, I did not expect to find many nests.

The next hike will be Lion's Head above Marpo Valley. This is always a good hike with a great view of Tinian and Saipan. I have done this hike in under two and a half hours with two people. With a group, it usually takes about three and a half hours. I enjoy this hike a lot and want to do it one last time before leaving Tinian. We will meet at 8 AM, on Saturday, March 15, at Grace Christian School.

Everyone Is Welcome On These Hikes.

Lake Hagoi - March 1, 2008

2008-03-04T20:26:00.053+10:00

On March First, seven of us set off to explore the area around Lake Hagoi. Lake Hagoi is really not a lake, but a marsh. It does have some open water in the center, but this water does dry out in extremely dry years. I have walked on the dry bottom of Lake Hagoi at least five times in the last 18 years. So, this means that Lake Hagoi will dry out about once every three years. I did not really expect to see Lake Hagoi because it is surrounded by large areas of Pago, Thespesia populnea, and tall reed (Karisso), Phragmites karka.

Below is a picture of Lake Hagoi today. This picture was taken by a friend of Mitch's as he flew back to Saipan.

On this hike, we hoped to find signs of the old village that used to be on the west side of Lake Hagoi. During Japanese times, Lake Hagoi was extensively farmed. I have seen pictures of Lake Hagoi with extensive rice fields.

By the way, Hagoi means lake in Chamorro. So we were going to explore the area around Lake Lake.

On this hike we had three new people, pictured below, along for the first time with us. First there was Kaori, on the left, next Lisa, and our first flat person, Nicole, next to me. Nicole is from the U.S. mainland and goes to the third grade. This picture was taken outside the Grace Christian School, before we left on the hike.

After everyone got into my truck, I drove them all to the North Field area. Once we got to the circle on West Avenue, we took a small side road toward the east. I was not sure where to stop the truck so as to start the hike. There used to be a dirt road that went from the road we were on to the west side of Lake Hagoi, but it had fallen in disuse because of the many typhoons we had since the road was last used. I ended up stopping at a place where I thought the old road might have been. I took a quick look around, but did not see the road. Even so, we all got out of the truck and headed into the jungle.

I tried to hold a straight course toward the north, but ended up going more northeast than straight north. We happened to come upon some large banyan (nunu) trees growing on piles of rocks. As we rounded the banyan trees, we found the remains of an old Japanese torpedo from World War II. Below are pictured the tail fins and propeller of the torpedo.

The torpedo was broken into three sections with the warhead missing. There was the tail section pictured above, and two air tank sections. The Japanese torpedoes from World War II used compressed air to drive them. Below is a picture of one of the torpedo's air tanks.

In the picture below is Lisa sitting next to the other air tank from the torpedo.

Below, in the picture, are some other parts of the torpedo that was near the air tanks.

After the torpedo, I tried to head more towards the west. I wanted to head toward the old village site, which was on the west side of Lake Hagoi. As we walked in the jungle, we came across a path that someone had cut through the jungle. This path was not here last spring, when I had previously been in this area. Next we started to see clumps of banana plants in the jungle, as pictured below. This meant that we had to be near some place that had once been used by people. Bananas need people to spread since they do not make seeds. I felt we must be getting near the old Japanese or Okinawan village we were looking for.

Just past the bananas, we came to a place were we could finally see the lake. The lake is just behind the group in the picture below. The lake is just pass the trees behind the hikers. In the picture are Nicole, Mitch, Kaori, Lisa, Erica and Judy.

Pictured below is a closeup of the tall reeds that border the lake. This picture is a closeup taken from the picture above.

As we followed the edge of that lake toward the northwest, we came upon a huge grove of bamboo. Below is a picture of the dead leaves of the bamboo covering the vines and small shrubs that grew on the edge of the grove.

The picture below is of the same place as pictured above, but it shows more of the surroundings with Judy and Nicole in it.

I had to cut a hole through the old dead bamboo stalks and vines to enter the grove. The picture below shows Mitch entering the bamboo grove through the hole that I had cut. Inside the grove it was fairly easy walking. I did have to cut a few dead bamboo stalks or break them by jumping on them, which is sort of fun to do.

Because the bamboo grove's canopy is so thick, there is not much growing on the ground, except for a few mushrooms. This makes it easy to walk through a bamboo grove. and the dead stalks are easy to break and get out of the way. All you have to watch out for are the small bamboo branches that have large spines on them.

I decided to leave the bamboo grove and head off toward some large tree that I saw west of the bamboo grove. As we walked toward the trees, we found the cleared path that we had seen earlier in the hike. There were also two large coconut trees that I sort of remembered from years ago when I used to visit this area. We really didn't find much by the coconut trees. So, we headed back towards the lake

As we walked back towards the lake, we came upon the largest kamachili tree,
Pithecellobium dulce, that I have ever seen. It is very difficult to take a picture of a tree this large in the jungle. Below are two pictures of this tree. It was huge and must have been planted before World War II.

As we got near the bamboo grove again, we walked across an old coconut trunk that had a lot of small mushrooms growing on it. These mushrooms are pictured below. There were a lot more mushrooms than I expected to see on this hike. Since it is the dry season, there are not normally a lot of mushrooms in the jungle. Of course, we did have a week of rainy weather just before the hike, which would encourage the mushrooms to produce fruiting caps.

We walked in the bamboo grove for awhile until it started to thin out into pago and tangantangan forest. Just a little ways past where we left the bamboo grove, we came upon an old cement tank. At least we think it was a tank. We really don't know what it was used for. In the picture below is Kaori, on the edge of the tank, looking into it.

Below is a picture of Nicole checking out the tank.

In the picture below is the tank and you can see that it is very near a grove of pago. This tank was about the only remains from the old village that we found. We did find an old Kirin beer bottle and some pieces of ceramics, but no other structures. This was a fairly large village, but it could have been almost completely destroyed during World War II, or heavily overgrown by the jungle during the more than 65 years since it had existed. This is why we did find much in this area.

Below is part of a bowl that we found. It was one of the two pieces of ceramics that we found on this hike.

Below is a picture of a small herbaceous plant that we happen to find in the jungle. It was about 2 feet tall with white flowers that were about 2 inches long. The flowers were really beautiful as can be seen in the picture.

We also found a few hot pepper plants, but not as many as we found on the Marpo Valley hike. Pictured below is the flat person, Nicole, picking some peppers to use later.

We also found a patch of snake plants. Since Nicole had never seen snake plants before, she had to stop and take a closer look at them with Judy.

On the hike, we happened to enter a forest of African Tulip trees, Spathodea campanulate. These trees sprout from there roots forming large groves, as shown in the picture below. Because a single tree can dominate an area because of the sprouts from its roots, it is considered an invasive species in many areas. They also have fairly soft wood and are easily damaged by strong winds and typhoons. That is why there is a lot of branches trunks on the ground in the picture below. These trees can grow to be 90 feet tall, but in the Mariana Islands, they rarely get over 40 feet high, because of typhoons.

The African Tulip Tree has large showy red-orange flowers, as shown in the picture below. These beautiful flowers are why this ornamental tree has spread from its home in central Africa to most tropical areas in Asia and the Pacific.

Just pass the African Tulip Tree forest, I saw some kapok trees, Ceiba pentandra. I knew that we were almost to the road that runs from Chulu Beach, one of the World War II invasion beaches, and North Field, because this is one of the two places where I know kapok trees grow in the jungle on Tinian.

Below is a picture of Judy, Nicole, and Kaori as they leave the jungle right next to the road mentioned above.

We followed the Chulu-North Field road to a road that runs on the east side of Lake Hagoi. Below is a picture of the rest of the hikers waiting for Judy, Nicole and Kaori to get out of the jungle.

The picture below is of the kapok trees that line the road from Chulu Beach to North Field.

As we walked along the road, we saw a sign that said that the Lake Hagoi area is a Mariana Common Moorhen (Pulattat) Sanctuary. The Pulattat, Gallinula chloropus guami, is endangered mainly because of habitat destruction. Lake Hagoi is one of the few wetlands in the Mariana Islands where this bird still nests. They build their nests in the reeds above the water and very few predators can reach them. I have been told by a biologist from Guam that the monitor lizard (Hilitai), Varanus indicus, can swim out to the nests and eat the eggs and young, thus endangering this species even more.

Just a short walk down the Chulu-North Field road, we turned down the side road that runs on the west side of Lake Hagoi. This road is not traveled that much and sometimes remains blocked after a typhoon, with downed trees, for months.

There are many interesting plants along this road and Nicole had to stop and look at a few of them. Below is Nicole looking at a payaya plant.

As we walked along the road, we noticed many stands of wild Canna growing beside the road. Most likely they were introduced during the Japanese period as an ornamental plant and have gone wild. I have seen two varieties of Canna on Tinian in the jungle, a red one, as pictured below, and a yellow one. They are usually found in areas that once had settlements.

Below is a picture of the Canna flower.
Mitch and some of the other hikers were interested in seeing Lake Hagoi, and since I knew a fairly easy way to get the lake, I agreed to show them the lake. Below is a picture of the water in Lake Hagoi. We had to make our way on a trail through the tall reeds. I had even taken my shoes off, just in case someone wanted to see the open water. But no one wanted to go any further than the water in the reeds, as pictured below.

Below is a picture of Erica on the trail through the tall reeds to Lake Hagoi.

After putting my shoes back on, I led the hikers back to the road and truck. As I was driving to leave the Lake Hagoi area, I decided to take the road that runs along the south end of North Field and to the circle on Broadway. This road had not been used very often and there was a lot of tall grass overhanging the road. I am not sure how much the people in the back of the truck liked this road, because of the overhanging grass, but I enjoyed the ride back.

On the way back to town, just before we reached the airport, it start to pour down rain. During the hike, we had had a little rain, but it stopped after a few minutes. What we entered was a downpour, which kept raining even after I dropped everyone off at the school. All I can say is on the way back to the village, I was glad I was driving and not in the back of the truck.

Nicole would like to say hi to all of the third graders back in her classes and that she really enjoyed her walk in the jungle.

I would like to thank again Judy and Mitch for the additional pictures I used in this posting.

As for the boonie bee count, it was only one, me of course. I got stung on the left hand while I was trying to cut a bamboo stalk to leave the bamboo grove the second time. We did see a lot of nests and I walked into one that was a foot off the ground. I had a lot of bees flying a round me, but luckily I did not get stung.

The next hike will be to the Harlem area on the southwest side of North Field. This was were the asphalt plant used to be located while the American's built North Field and the road system on Tinian during World War II. From the asphalt plant, I hope to walk to the cliff line near it and explore this area. I have never been to this cliff, so it will be a new place for us to explore. We will meet at 8 AM, on March 8, Saturday, at Grace Christian School.

Everyone Is Welcome On These Hikes.

March 2008 Hikes

2008-02-27T11:07:00.003+10:00

We will be doing the following hikes for March. This will most likely be the last set of hikes I will be leading on Tinian. I plan on leaving for the U.S. Mainland sometime in early April. So, if you have been meaning to come on one of the hikes, this will be your last chance.

All hikes meet at 8 AM at Grace Christian School on Saturday.

March 1, Saturday - Circumnavigation of Lake Hagoi. We will start on the southwest side of Lake Hagoi, where an Okinawan village from the Japanese times was located. It has been years since I have visited this site. From here, we will try to walk around Lake Hagoi staying as close to the water as possible. Most likely we will not see the lake because of the Pago and tall reed. I will even show the hikers the best way to visit Lake Hagoi, which should be done right at the end of the dry season. We might even try to see Lake Hagoi at this point, so be ready to get wet and dirty.

March 8, Saturday - Exploration of the Harlem area by North Field. Harlem was the location for the old asphalt plant when the SeaBees built North Field. This area is on the south west side of North Field, just past the turnoff for the Shinto Shrine on top of Mt. Lasu. From this area we will walk to the cliff line above it and see what is along the cliff. I have not been to the cliff in this area before.

March 15, Saturday - Lion's Head. We hike to the rock outcropping above Marpo Valley, on the north end of Carolinas Plateau. I always enjoy this hike and this will be the third time we have been to Lion's Head since I started the Saturday hikes, click here to see the November 17 hike and here to see the October 6 hike.

March 22, Saturday - Exploration of West Field. We will start at the West Field Shinto Shrine. From here we will head toward the south and try to find the foundations for the old SeaBee base that was located near the shrine. We may even end up on some of the old runways used during World War II.

March 29, Saturday - The Old Japanese Canon. We will drive to the old Japanese canon just past the dump. After looking at the canon, we will follow the cliff toward the north. I know there are some interesting caves and tunnels near this area, so bring a flashlight.

Because of the dry season, be prepared to meet boonie bees!

Everyone is welcome to join us on these hikes.
Just meet at Grace Christian School and be prepared to hike.

Sumiyoshi (Tinian) Shinto Shrine - February 23, 2008

2008-02-25T18:48:00.034+10:00

Again we were off to try to find the latte stones above the Sumiyoshi Shinto Shrine. This shrine is now called the Tinian Shrine. But as was pointed out for the January 5, 2008, hike, the real Tinian Shinto Shrine was near the current Catholic church in San Jose. On this hike there were six of us. This time I was sure we would find the latte stones because I had found them a week and a half ago, and marked their position on my GPS.

We started at the shrine as always. One of the first things you will notice is the large piga, Alocasia indica, going at the base of the shrine. This plant was most likely grown by the ancient Chamorros for food. To find out more about ancient Chamorro agriculture, click this link, but be warned this is a pdf file. This area located at the end of a drainage for the cliff area above, and has fairly deep rich soil. In the picture below, Erica stands next to the large piga plants.

A visit to the shrine is always called for on any hike near it. So the group headed up the path to the top of the shrine. In the picture below are Masa, Stacy, Mitch, Judy and Erica standing under the torii gate that marks the entrance to the Shinto shrine.

At the top of the Sumiyoshi Shinto Shrine is a small house. In the picture below Masa is leaving an offering of rice and salt, which is a traditional Japanese offering. From what I have read, salt is used for purification and rice is offered in prayer to the Shinto deities. Masa did this offerings at other places where Japanese soldiers may have died on this hike.

After visiting the shrine, we set off to find the latte site. The jungle near the shrine is some of the thickest jungle that I know about on Tinian. When I first arrived on Tinian, I visited this Shinto shrine. I wanted to see what the jungle looked like near it. So I set off to do a little exploring. Within ten minutes, I was so turned around that I didn't know where the shrine was any more. It took me another hour to find my way out. The picture below shows how dense the jungle can be in this area.

As we walked upslope toward the latte site, there is an old Japanese road that cuts across the slope. The base of the trees, in the picture below, are growing on the road bed. The slope above this road is very steep.

As you walk up hill, the jungle does open up a little bit, but is still fairly dense. The picture below was taken as we walked up the slope from the road pictured above. You can tell from this picture how steep the slope is.

A short distance above the old overgrown road is the latte site. This site is heavily overgown. Below is one of the larger pillar stones at this site, which has a nunu (banyan) tree growing on it. This stone is about seven feet tall. This is a fairly large latte stone and is part of a group of at least 14 stones, in two parallel rows of seven stones each, at this site.

The next two pictures below show another one of the pillar stones. The second picture shows me standing next to the stone.

Most of the pillar stones in this group were knocked over. Below is a picture of one of the down pillar stones.

The picture below is a capstone for the pillar stones pictured above.

Just to give you an idea of how overgrown this site is, the picture below does have a down pillar stone in it. It is right in the middle of the picture. Because of the overgrown nature of this site, it was very difficult to get a true idea of its size.

Right in front of the latte site pictured above, there is a second set of latte stones. These were shorter stones, maybe four feet high. Below is a picture of one of the pillar stones in this second site. I really did not count the number of stones, but most likely there are eight stones at this site.

The picture below shows how close these two sites are to each other. Below the whitest-gray stone, in the smaller of the two sites, is right in front of one of the downed stones from the larger latte site.

The picture below shows Stacy standing next to one of the smaller pillar stones at the second site.

After visiting the latte site, we continued south below the top of Carolinas Plateau. I can't say we really followed the bottom of the cliff, since in a lot of places there was not a cliff but a very steep slope.

As we walked south we came upon a patch of snake plants, Sansevieria trifasciata. These plants usually indicate a place where the Japanese had a settlement since they were commonly planted around buildings for ground cover. In the picture below Stacy and Erica are walking though the snake plant.
Just past the snake plants, we ended up on the top of plateau. The top of Carolinas Plateau used to be a cattle ranch for MDC (Micronesian Development Corporation). There are still fences running across it, that marked the old pastures. Most of these fences are in disrepair now. Below, in the picture, is a large corner post for one fence lines that used to run right at the edge of the plateau. This post was one of the markers I used for this hike, since I used it to tell me when to head back down the slope to the Shinto shrine on our return.

There are some small cliff areas near the latte site. They are not very high, maybe 10 feet or so, and do not run very far before just becoming a steep slope. In two of these cliff areas, we found Japanese shelters from World War II. Below is a picture of the first shelter with a stone wall that we found. It might have been large enough to hold two or three soldiers.

The picture shows one of the steep slope we had to cross between the cliffs. In the steep slope areas are a series of fox holes. The picture below does not show any fox holes but it does show how difficult it was to walk on these slopes because of the steepness and thick undergrowth.

Pictured below is the second shelter we found. It was much larger than the first one. Judy is just starting to come around the stone wall that helped to protect the entrance to the shelter in the picture. This shelter may have held between 5 to 8 men during World War II.

We continued south for a short distance past the shelter pictured above. The vines started to get thicker, because fewer trees were blocking the sunlight from reaching the ground. It was getting more and more difficult to travel through the jungle. But, at one point we did get a great view of San Jose Village, as is shown in the picture below. The dock area can clearly be seen in the picture below.

Because the undergrowth was getting thick, I decided it was time to head back to the shrine. I really did not want to follow our trail back, so I headed up the slope to the top of Carolinas Plateau, where I hoped the walking would be easier.

As we climbed to the top of the Carolinas, I almost walked in to the boonie bee nest pictured below. I felt a bee hit me in the chest and backed up real fast. Luckily that bee did not sting me. We carefully walked around this nest and no one got stung.

Below is a close up the the bee nest pictured above, after the bees had settled down once they got over me disturbing them.

Once we got to the top, the walking was a lot easier. We sort of followed an old fence line that ran north-south. I tried to avoid open fields, like the one picture below, because lantana, Lantana camara, grows in these open areas. This plant is poisonous and has small spines that are really irritating. They get under the skin and are hard to get out. Also scratches from this plant can take a long time to heal, and be irritating for three or so days afterwards.

After awhile, we found the fence post, which I mentioned above, and walked back through the snake plants to the latte site. We happened to come out a little below the latte pillar stones, but there were many capstones in this area. Most likely they rolled down the slope from the latte site, which is about 50 feet above the capstones.

It was back down the steep slope to the shrine. The picture below was taken just above the old road that was discussed above. It was really steep as you can see from how how Stacy and Judy are going down it.

Right now, it is the dry season, and for animals water becomes crucial. During the dry season, we may not get rain for 3 or 4 days in a row. If there is no rain for two weeks, it is considered a drought. The reason for this is that Tinian is a raised limestone island. Any water that falls on it drains very quickly through the soil and into the aquifer. Water puddles after a heavy rain (2 or 3 inches) rarely last more then a day.

Because of the dryness, animals have to find ways to get water. In the picture below a hermit crab is getting some moisture from an injury in a coconut tree. I really don't know if coconut crabs caused the injury or are they just taking advantage of it. It would be an interesting research project for some tropical biologist to learn how different animals get water during the dry season.

Finally we made it out of the jungle and back to the shrine. The picture below shows Mitch and Judy as they leave the jungle.

So we finally found the latte site above the Sumiyoshi (Tinian) Shinto Shrine. The problem is that it is not the one that I remember finding last spring. The latte stones had found with Dan, Aruika and John, last spring, were much shorter (may 2 or 3 feet high), with a larger set of stones very close to the top edge of the plateau. I will have to do some more hiking in the next month to see if I can find the other site I think is in this area to see if I can find the other site I remember. Well, at least we finally made it to some latte stones!

As always, I would like to thank Mitch and Judy for the additional pictures in this posting.

The boonie bee count for this hike was zero, none, zip. No one got stung. There were a few close calls, but we got lucky this time.

The next hike will be to the Lake Hagoi area at North Field. I want to look for the old Okinawan village that used to be on its west side. It has been over 10 years and many typhoons since I have been to this site. Once we find the village, we will walk all the way around the lake, most likely not seeing it at all because of the pago and tall reed that grows on its edge. Be prepared for bees since a lot of this hike will be through tangangan forest. Meet at 8 A.M., on Saturday, March 1, at Grace Christian School.

Everyone Is Welcome On These Hikes.

Marpo Valley - February 16, 2008

2008-02-19T20:42:00.039+10:00

On February 16th, six of us set off to explore an old Japanese train station in Marpo Valley. This is one of the best preserved train stations from the Japanese time when they grew sugar cane on Tinian. I also wanted a short hike because this weekend was also the Tinian Hot Pepper Festival. I needed to help my wife setup her booth before the festival started.

As I sat talking to Dan and Judy, at Grace Christian School, Mitch, Erica, and Mr. Suzuki walked up with a big Styrofoam box. In the box was a birthday cake for me. On the cake, it said, "Mr. Cole Happy Bee's Day." I think it was very appropriate, especially with the number of bee stings that I have had. I was really surprised and I really appreciated the gesture. My thanks to all for the cake.

After dropping the cake off at my house, since the hike starts less than a quarter mile from there, we headed to where the hike would start from. Right next to the road, where the trail starts, is tall grass. I had already cut a trail through the grass about three days ago, to the train station. The picture below shows the the hikers following me into the grass.

Less then 50 feet from the road is the train station. In the picture below Mitch is standing next to the wall that was right next to the rail bed. There are even steps that go up this small wall, with steps that are only about 6 inches wide. The cement structure above Mitch is a water tank and foundation for maybe a small building.

Below is a picture of some of the tracks that are still found on the old railway bed.

The picture below is taken from the top of the water tank. The water in the tank is about 3 feet deep.

Below is a picture of Erica standing next to the water tank, with the rail bed being on the left side of the picture.

There is another cement structure to the north of the water tank. Between them is a cement stand. This stand is pictured below.

The northern cement structure must have held a large piece of machinery, because of the large anchor bolts embedded in it. This bolts can be seen in the picture below, next to the half-circular depression in the structure.

Mr. Suzuki found an old Japanese gas mask filter near the northern cement structure. He was able to read the writing on the bottom of it, but I don't remember what he said was written on the gas mask.

After visiting the station, we dropped down to the railway to try to follow it toward the north. Below is a picture of Judy on the railway, just below the cement structure with the half-cylinder depression in it.
Just a little to the north, the roadway disappeared, almost at the end of the modern asphalt plant that the train station is near. Below is a picture of the railway just before it disappeared.

We continued toward the north trying to figure out which way the railway went. As we walked, we came upon an old road. As we followed the road, we soon realized that the railway had reappeared and was to our right. The picture below shows edge of the road, next to the train railway.

We continued to follow the road until it disappeared into the jungle. Right before it disappeared, we found some old Japanese bottles. The picture below shows what the bottles looked like when we first found them.

I picked up a few of the bottles to see if they had any writing on them, but we found none. We left the bottles where we had found them.

Being the dry season and not having any rain for a few days, the boonie bees were out in full force. As I led the group through the jungle, besides trying to find an easy trail, I had to be on the outlook for bee nests. The nests varied from the size of a dime, with one to two bees on it, to the size of a softball, with 30 or more bees on it. Below is pictured one of the larger bee nests that we found on the hike, and luckily avoided.

Most of the hike was through secondary tangantangan forest. There were not a lot of down trees and the walking was fairly easy, except for trying to avoid boonie bee nests.

Besides some of the herbs (i.e. weeds) growing on the forest floor, the only tree that we noticed blooming was the Sumak, Aidia cochinchinensis. This plant is found from topical Asia through the Pacific islands, but not on Hawaii. It is one of the more common pioneer species in tangantangan forest, as it slowly changes into limestone forest through a process called succession. The flowers are very fragrant.

Picking the path in the jungle is sometimes fairly easy. In the picture below, you can see the path I choose between the tangantangan trees (Leucaena leucocephala). The path is straight down the center of the picture. Of course, if a bee nest is found, we would have to make a detour around it, which could be easy or not. There was one place where our path was blocked by five bee nests. That was a fairly hard area to get through and not get stung.

We hiked until we hit a fence. In the picture below, the fence is right in front of Dan, covered with vines. At this point, I decided to turn toward the east to find a road that would take us back to the truck. I had hoped that the road was closer than backtracking on the path we had taken to the fence.

Most of our path to the road, which was east of us, was through tangantangan forest. There were a lot of bee nests and hot pepper plants that slowed our progress. There were three places where we had to go through tall grass, Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum). I don't like walking through tall grass because it is very hard to cut through it or push it out of the way. Napier grass was planted on Tinian during the Trust Territory Days, when Ken Jones, from Guam, ran a cattle ranch here. Below is a picture of Dan working his way through the grass.

We stopped often to pick hot peppers as you can see in the picture below.

Finally, we came to civilization, an old watermelon field. Part of the field was still being used to grow tomatoes. A short walk across the field and we were on the road that I had been looking for. It took us a lot more time to get to the road than if we had followed our trail from the fence back to the train station.

The road we found near the agricultural field led to another road that took us back to the truck. The picture shows Erica, Dan and me walking down the main road to my truck.

Mitch had asked if we could stop at San Isidro on the way back to the village. San Isidro is very near to where we had gone hiking. It is currently used for an annual religious festival. In the past, it had also been a site for a quite extensive Chamorro village. There is still one set of latte stones there, as can be seen in the two pictures below.

During the Japanese times, San Isidro had a Japanese Shinto Shrine. This shrine was called the Izumi Shinto Shrine. Below is the picture of the torii gate to the shrine.

This cement lantern-like structure, at the shrine was damaged by a falling tree, most likely during our last major typhoon, ten years or so ago.

The path for the shrine continued down a set of steps that led to the base where the shrine's house would have been.

Below is a picture of the base that would have held the god's house for the Shinto shrine.

After the visit to San Isidro, it was a short drive back to town. The hike took a little longer than I had expected. I had hoped to be done by 10:30 A.M. but I didn't get to the Hot Pepper Festival, to help my wife, until 11:30.

Overall, as always, everyone enjoyed the hike, especially the train station and San Isidro. As for the boonie bee count, it was two, Dan and me. I got stung just above my left eye, which resulted in the eye swelling up. Yes, it was a Bee's Day for me.

The next hike will be to one of the latte sites above the Shinto shrine near Carolinas Heights. We will find latte stones this time since I have marked their position with my GPS two weeks ago. They are not the same as the ones I found last Spring, but they are still of good size and interesting. After visiting the latte stones, we will continue south along the cliff line. Meet at Grace Christian School at 8 AM.

Everyone Is Welcome On These Hikes.

Tinian's Japanese Radar

2008-02-13T19:53:00.037+10:00

When most people think of World War II and radar, they only think of the radar that was used in England to alert the English, during the Blitz, about German bombers. I was surprised to learn that both the Germans and Japanese had radar by the time the war ended. A great web site about the development of radar and its use during War World II is The Wizard War: WW2 & The Origins of Radar (click here to visit this site).

Below is a picture, from Tinian - 60 Years Ago We Were Here by Andy Nazario, that shows the Japanese radar antenna installation on Mt. Lasu, Tinian. I had always thought that this hill was a base for a large gun, but now I know I was wrong after finding this picture.
For this posting to my blog, I will be discussing the remains of this radar antenna as they appear today. I will discuss each part of the antenna as they are found, as if one was hiking from the Mt. Laso Shinto Shrine to where the radar antenna is now located, below the cliff.

Antenna Base

The base of the antenna is right next to the Mt. Laso Shinto Shrine. As you walk up to the cliff behind the shrine, you will notice a small hill to the left (north). Follow the trail to the top of the hill, which is a very short hike. As you climb the hill you will notice that it is faced with stones, sort of like a wall.

At the top of the hill is a flat cement area, with a large raised circle, about 2 inches high, of cement in the middle of it. In the picture below, you can see the cement top of the hill that the person is standing on. As with most things on a tropical island, they get quickly overgrown with weeds and vines.

The picture below is taken just as you near the top of the small hill. You can see some of the rocks that make up the facing of the side of the hill. Also, near where the people wearing the blue jeans are standing, is some cement that has been broken up from top's flooring.

Another picture of the top of the hill. In the top right corner of the picture, you can see part of the arc of the raised circle that is a major part of the top's flooring.

If you continue to the north, across the top of the hill, there is a small trail that goes down to the base of the hill on the west side. Going down the hill, there is a cut off telephone pole in a square cement base.

On the west side of the antenna hill is the metal base plate that used to hold the antenna, and may have allowed it to rotate. Below is a picture of the metal base plate. Visible in the picture is an electric motor and a gear head of some sort. This picture was taken just a little bit to the south side of the base plate.

The picture below is taken from the north side of the base plate. It gives a clear picture of the gear head on the base plate. Also it shows the rock face of the hill that once held the radar antenna.

In the picture blow is my friend Judy standing next to the base plate.

If you look carefully in the picture of the radar antenna, from World War II, at the start of this posting (click on it to enlarge the image), you will notice a metal frame just below the top of the hill, on the side of the hill. This frame is now located right next to the metal base plate, just to the north of it. I am not sure what it was used for, but it was part of the radar antenna. Below are three pictures of this metal frame.

Radar Antenna

The radar antenna is now at the bottom of the cliff below the hill that was its base. To get to the antenna, you need to go back to the shrine and down the steps, which you had to climb to get to it. As you get to the bottom of the steps, look for a trail to the left (south) going into the jungle. Follow this trail for about 100 yards to an old cattle guard. Go across the guard and follow the old road down the hill. About 100 to 150 yards down the hill, the cliff, on the left (north) side of the road, will become less and less until it almost disappears. You will have to go down a small stone embankment at the edge of the road, toward the north, to get to the antenna. Stay next to the cliff that will be on your left.

As you follow the cliff you will come to an old wheeled crane. Go past the crane until you get to the antenna, and try to stay near the cliff. About 100 yards past the crane, at the base of the cliff, is the radar antenna.

The picture below shows part of the gear mechanism that was used to turn the antenna. Just past the middle of the picture is part of the antenna's frame. It is hard in this picture to see the wire mesh that made up the antenna.

The next two pictures show the metal wire mesh that made up the antenna.

The mesh of the wire is about 3 to 4 inches square. The aluminum can in the picture below can be used to get some idea of the wire's mesh size.

The picture below shows the metal slats that held the wire mesh to the frame, with part of the fame showing at the right side of the picture.

In the remains of the radar antenna are two large brown insulators.

The picture below has my hand in it to show the size of the insulators.

Below is a video of the remains of the radar antenna. This video is taken from the upslope side of the antenna.

Mount?

About 50 to 100 feet past the radar antenna, and a little down slope, is a mount of some kind. I really don't know if it was part of the radar or not, but I have decided to include pictures of it, since it is so close to the radar antenna's remains.

The picture below shows a person's legs next to the mount to give an idea of its size.

This is the base of the mount, with the metal arms extending to the other side of the base (The arms are not visible in this picture).

Just below the mount, is a large metal ring. It is about 15 to 20 feet down slope from the mount.

I highly recommend this short hike to experience and learn a little bit about the unknown history of World War II.

North Cliff Mt. Lasu Hike - February 9, 2008

2008-02-11T18:31:00.003+10:00

On February 9th, eight of us set off to explore the cliff below the Shinto Shrine on the top of Mt. Lasu. We were going to explore some previous sites (see the January 26, 2008, hike), but continue along the cliff to the north and west in to a new area.

In the picture below, the hikers, Masa, Mr. & Mrs. Takeuchi, Mr. Aoki, Erica, Judy, and Mitch, get ready to start the hike. Of course everyone wanted to ride in the back of my truck to the shrine on top of Mt. Lasu. I think the ride to and from where the hikes start is part of the fun, but I really don't know since I have to do the driving.

We first visited the Mt. Lasu Shinto Shrine. In the picture below Mitch, Mr. Aoki , Mr. & Mrs. Takeuchi, and Masa are enjoying the view from the cliff edge behind the shrine.

After a brief visit to the shrine, the group climbed up on to the radar hill, next to the shrine. While they went to the top of the hill, I had to go back to the to the old Japanese sign for the shrine to get my machete which I had left on the ground. After joining them on the hill, I asked if they want to see the base for the radar antenna. They all said yes. So we climbed down the west side of the hill to look at the radar's base. In the picture below Mr. Takeuchi stands next to the base plate for the radar antenna.

After visiting the shrine, we headed along the ridge, to the south, to an old road that goes below the cliff top. We followed the road until it was easy to leave it and follow the bottom of the cliff. Near where we had left the road are the remains of an old crane, pictured below.

From the crane, it was a short walk to the remains of the radar antenna. It is really hard to get a good picture of the antenna and I tried to take a video of it, which is below, but it does not do it justice. You really need to see the antenna in person to appreciate it. I have been planning a posting on this blog just about this radar and will do it soon.

I think the thing pictured below was the mount which held the radar antenna, but I will have to look more closely at the picture I have of the antenna from World War II to be sure. This mount was just past the antenna's location.

After leaving the mount, pictured above, I got a little confused and kept on getting too high on the cliff, almost near the top. So it was up and down, with some back tracking, until I decided that we had to go way down the slope. It was a fairly steep slope, but not too bad, as you can see in the picture below. At the bottom of this slope, we found an old wall that was not too high (maybe two feet high) and very long (50 or more feet). It was most likely pre-World War II, but I am not certain.

After getting to the bottom of the slope, we walked only a little ways before we had to climb back up to the cliff face. At the cliff face, we followed it to the north. In the picture below is Masa next to a large shell near the cliff. There are a lot of these shells at the base of the cliff and you get very used to them after awhile.

Just past the shell in the picture above is a cave that is full of 3-inch shells with one larger shell, as can been seen in the picture below. There are more pictures of this cave and the window cave posted on the January 28th hike.

Right next to the shell cave is the window cave. This cave has two windows built into the cliff's face and a third window in a large stone wall across its entrance. The picture below shows Mr. & Mrs Takeuchi and Mr. Aoki in the window in the stone wall.

The picture below show Mrs. Takeuchi looking out through the window in the stone wall.

Below are Judy and Masa entering the window cave.

At the window cave everyone took a break and lots of pictures.

When in the jungle, I usually try to follow marked trails. It is a lot easier than having to cut a path through the jungle. Most of these trails are made by coconut crab hunters, but others are made by people doing surveys. The U.S. military usually has archaeologists and biologist surveying the different areas of Tinian where they might do future training. These trails are usually marked with surveyor's tape or blazes on the trees. The shell below is one of the strangest trail markers that I have seen.
Pandanus is common in the jungle and I try to avoid large patches of it. Below are Mr. Aoki and Masa next to a small pandanus tree that shows off the pandanus prop root system real well. These roots are covered with spines. On this hike there was only one large patch of pandanus that we had to go through but it had a trail already cut in it.

As we walked in the jungle, we came to some fence posts made out of old train rails, most likely from the Japanese sugar train rail system.

Near the fence, above, was an old water tank, as shown in the picture below.

The picture below shows a closeup of the water tank that is pictured above.

Next to the water tank were some large cement structures, most likely foundations for large machinery. They had at least one inch mounting bolts in the concrete to hold something large down. The picture below shows one of these cement structures.

After the water tank, we kept following the cliff line but did not find much. It was fairly open and easy to walk through, except for some vines, as can be seen in the picture below.

We reached a place where the flag markers we had been following seemed to go every which way. I decided to have the group take a rest, as you can see Masa and Mr. & Mrs. Takeuchi doing in the picture below. While everyone rested, I went off to explore. I headed down the slope to see where the flags went. Finding nothing of interest, I decided to continue along the cliff line.

As we followed the cliff, the terrace we were on became narrower and narrower. At one point, we took a look over the edge of the cliff that was growing below us, just to see where we were. After looking carefully out into the distance, I saw the shoreline of Saipan. It was to the far right of our location. This meant that we had rounded the corner of the cliff and were headed west, with North Field below us.

At this point, I decided that the terrace was getting too narrow. Besides it getting narrow, we had not seen any thing of interest for awhile. So, I started to look for a way down the cliff that had grown up below us. It must have been over 50 feet tall. After a very short time, I found a path that I thought we could take safely to the bottom of the cliff. In the picture below Masa is helping Erica down the last part of the cliff.

As soon as we got to the bottom of the cliff, we started to find more shelters and caves that the Japanese had used during World War II. Below is Mr. Aoki in front of one of the shelters that the Japanese had dug into the cliff. From here we headed toward the west a little bit, following the cliff, but the undergrowth was getting heavy and we were running out of time (everyone was thinking about lunch). So, it was time to head back toward the shrine on the top of Mt. Lasu.

As we followed the lower cliff back to the shrine, we found a fairly large cave that was dug into it by the Japanese. In the picture below Masa is entering the cave.

The picture below shows everyone in the cave mentioned above.

We did a fairly quick walk back to the shrine. As we walked back, Mitch asked if we could visit a tunnel that I knew about south of the shrine. I said of course and set my GPS to find it. I had planned on trying to find the cliff side of the tunnel, but we ended up at the crane that we had seen at the beginning of the hike. At that point, I decided to use the road to get to the top of the cliff and follow ridge on the top of the cliff to the tunnel.

The tunnel is not easy to find and you really have to know what you are looking for. The tunnel's entrance is hidden behind a berm of earth. Since I have been to it a lot, it was no problem finding it (I also had a GPS position for it). In the picture below is Judy in the tunnel's entrance walking toward the exit.

The picture below shows me walking down the steep slope that is the entrance for the tunnel.

The picture below shows everyone getting ready to walk out of the cliff side exit for the tunnel. This exit is even hard to find because of the forest and the pile of rubble that makes a very large steep slope below the tunnel.

Right next to the tunnel is a second cave dug by the Japanese. Since I had been to this cave many times, I decided to rest, as can been seen in the picture below, as everyone else explored
it.

After exploring the cave and tunnel, we went back through the tunnel and followed the ridge line back to the Mt. Lasu Shinto Shrine. The picture below shows Judy on the trail right before it comes out at the shrine.

After quick walk down the grass path that forms the lower part of the shrine, we were back at the truck.

At the truck, everyone took a quick water break before loading up for the ride back to town.

This hike was interesting because of the shelters, structures and caves we found from and before World War II. The pace was a little fast because I was also exploring a new area and wanted to see what there was. But everyone had a good time and really enjoyed exploring.

I would like to again thank Judy and Mitch for the some of the additional pictures in this posting.

As for the boonie bee count, it was only one. Erica got stung in an area where I had seen bees but no nest. There may have been a nest and that is why she got stung. We did see a few nests on the hike, but I had thought we had avoided them.

The next hike will be in Marpo Valley area. We will explore an old Japanese rail station from before World War II, when they farmed sugar cane on Tinian. After exploring this station, we will head north, trying to follow the old rail road. I hope to make this a short hike because of the Hot Pepper Festival this weekend. As always we will meet at 8 A.M. at Grace Christian School.

Everyone Is Welcome On These Hikes.

Long Beach Latte Site - February 2, 2008

2008-02-04T16:30:00.001+10:00

Four of us set off on a fine Saturday morning to explore the Latte site above Long Beach. This is a fairly easy hike and I have always enjoyed it because of the variety of communities that we will walk through. You start the hike at a nice beach, climb a small cliff, walk through limestone forest and finally into secondary forest with large ironwood trees.

The hike starts at Long Beach (Unai Dankulo). This is one of the few beaches that you can find star sand at, but you have to look carefully. The picture below is of Long Beach facing north. On the right side of the picture, behind the coconut tree, you can see Saipan in the distance.
The trail starts near the southwest corner of the main beach (Long Beach is really a series of around 13 beaches). It is hard to find and you really have to know where to look to see the start of the trail. Below is picture of the trail just after it starts. It is completely covered by vines and overlapping weeds. You have to bend over a little when first entering the trail, but it soon opens up and is easy to follow.

The trail soon comes to a cliff. You want to go to the right at the cliff. As you follow the cliff, you will come to some steps that have been build into it. These steps were built by either the Marianas Visitor Authority (MVA) or the Historical Preservation Office (HPO). In the picture below Judy is standing on the steps about halfway up the cliff.

At the top of the cliff is a metal sign that gives information about the trail. This trail was setup by either MVA or HPO, for either a tourist or cultural attraction, maybe 8 or 10 years ago. Just to the right of this sign, about 100 to 150 feet away, is a series of large sinkholes. Sinkholes are occur when the top of a cave falls in.

These sinkholes are fairly deep. I would guess they are about 30 or 40 feet deep. The picture below show the first sinkhole. It shows a column and an opening that goes to the second sinkhole in this series.

Below are a picture of Mitch and Ikue looking into the second sinkhole.

The picture below give a better idea of the size of this sinkhole. From the large stalactite in the bottom right of the picture, the sinkhole must drop down another 20 or 30 feet. This sinkhole is a little deeper than the first one and connects to it.

After visiting the sinkholes, we returned to the first sign on the trail. The trail continues toward the west, trough a rocky area with a lot of pinnacles. Pinnacles are caused by differential erosion of the limestone. Some of the limestone is a little harder than the surrounding limestone. Because it is harder, it does not erode as fast as the surrounding limestone and protects the limestone under it from erosion. The picture below shows the trail, looking towards the cliff above Long Beach.

Some of the pinnacles can be quite large, as the one in the picture below.

Also in the limestone forest area are fairly large banyan (nunu) trees. The banyans in the Long Beach area do not get as large as some other areas on Tinian, because this beach is on the east side of Tinian and more exposed to typhoons. Below is Ikue near one of the larger banyans we found on our hike to the latte sites.
This trail is also used by coconut crab hunters. To hunt coconut crabs, a coconut, with a cut in the side of it that goes through the shell of the coconut, is placed on a stake. This attracts the coconut crabs from their hiding places. The coconut crab hunter comes back at night to see what each trap has attracted. Below is a coconut trap that has attracted some hermit crabs.

Along the trail, just after you leave the limestone forest, is another sinkhole. This one is not too deep and can be easily climbed down into. Below is Mitch taking a picture of the sinkhole, which has another coconut crab trap next too it.

As mentioned above, this trail has metal signs along it that explain different aspects of the Chamorro culture. Below are Ikue and Judy reading one of the signs while Mitch takes a picture of the small latte stones next to it.

When first approaching the sign, be careful and look under them. There might be boonie bee nests under them, as in the picture below. If you disturb a sign, you might get stung.
The signs are quite well done, as can be seen in the picture below, too bad the trail has fallen into disrepair.

Not all latter pillar stones are that tall. I have found that most are about 18 to 30 inches tall. As you follow the old trail, you will end up going by about four of these small pillar stone latte sites. In the picture below the latte pillar stones barely stick out of the weeds.

In the picture below is Mitch next to a latte pillar stone and its capstone.

Pictured below is my shoe, with the heel on the ground, pushing against a small latte pillar stone.
There are pinnacles that stick out of the ground that might look like a latte stone. So how do you know if you are at a latte stone site? The stones will be usually in two rows with at least four stones, or more, in each row. The stones will also be fairly evenly spaced apart. Of course, you need to be careful since some of the stones may be missing from a given site.

As we walked under the ironwood trees, Casuarina equisetifolia, the white terns would fly above us. These birds would follow us as we walked along.

One other animal that we encountered on this hike was the boonie bee, which is a common paper wasp from Asia. In the picture below is a large nest of them. Lucky for us there were not that many nest because of the rain the night before the hike.

Finally we arrived at the large latte site that is a little over a third of a mile from where the trail starts. In the picture below is one of the tall latte pillar stones that still is standing. It is about six feet tall and covered in vines.

Below is Ikue and Judy next to the same stone as pictured above. This picture give you an idea of the size of these stones at the major latte site at Long Beach.

The capstones at this latte site are fairly large as you can tell from the picture below. Mitch is just getting ready to step over a fallen pillar stone with the capstone to her left.

One of the stones is slowly being overgrown with a banyan tree as can be seen in the picture below. Most likely this tree will slowly destroy this pillar stone with time.

Ikue is a professional photographer, and she was fascinated with the hermit crabs on the coconut crab traps. She spent a lot time trying to get a good picture of one and I hope she did.

As we entered the limestone forest, on our return, I happened to spot a land crab in the leaf litter. It blended in real well with its surroundings as you can see in the picture below.

After taking pictures of the crab, someone asked if it was alive or not, because of how still it sat. I said it was most likely alive and put the tip of my machete next to it. As I did this, the crab suddenly became very active, raising its claws to defend itself. Every one hurried to turn their cameras back on, but the crab started to head toward a rock very quickly. I got the picture below just as it went around a tree, next to the rock it was heading towards to hide under.

Finally we arrived back at the beach, and spent some time enjoying it and taking pictures. The picture below is again toward the north, like the first picture in this posting. Just around the point, on the left side of picture, the beach continues. Notice that there are now more clouds then there was earlier in the morning.

The picture is taken from about the same place as the photograph above. It shows Long Beach toward the south. Just past the rocks at the south end of this beach is another smaller beach.

The video below gives a 360 degree view of Long Beach.

In the wall at the south end of Long Beach are two Japanese bunkers from World War II. The picture below shows the one nearest the ocean. It is now full of rocks and sand, and is impossible to get into.

The second bunker, pictured below, is more inland and behind some trees. Again, it is full of sand and rocks, and impossible to enter.

One of the traditonal stops on the Long Beach hikes is to look at the petroglyphs in a cave nearby. In the picture below Judy is entering the cave with the petroglyps.

In the picture below Ikue is looking at the petroglyphs. The one that sort of looks like a tunna facing up is modern, and most likely less then twelve years old. It was done by one of my former students. Please, if you visit this cave, don't damage this site anymore than it already is.

In the back of this cave is a room that has some neat cave structures. You have to walk over some loose rocks to get to this room. The picture below is taken through the mouth of the room, toward where the petroglyphs are located.

This is a fairly easy hike, and I do recommend this hike if you want a little adventure, but not too much adventure. You should have a guide to find the large latte stone site, but you can find the smaller sites by following the flags that mark the old cultural trail. If you have a GPS, the coordinates to the large latte site are N 15 degrees and 02.313 minutes, and E 145 degrees and 38.741 minutes.

I would like to thank Judy for the additional pictures used in this posting.

As for the boonie bee count, it was zero. We did see some very large nests, and even a few small ones with one or two bees on them, but no one walked into any of the nests.

The next hike will be on Saturday, February 9. We will be going back to the Mt. Lasu are to explore the cliff line from the Shinto Shrine toward the northwest. We will visit the old Japanese radar and the window cave (see the January 28 hike). After the window cave, I really don't know what we will find. We will meet at 8 AM at Grace Christian School.

Everyone Is Welcome On These Hikes.

February 2008 Hikes

2008-01-31T09:52:00.001+10:00

The following are the hikes for February. I am starting to run out of ideas, so if anyone has any place they would like to explore, let me know, please.

As always, all hikes meet at 8 AM at Grace Christian School on Saturday.

February 2, Saturday - Hike to the Latte site above Long Beach. This is one of the Latte sites on Tinian. On this hike we will visit sinkholes, short latte stones, and the main latte site. This will be an easy hike through tangantangan secondary forest. Be prepared for boonie bees.

February 9, Saturday - Mt. Lasu upper cliff line. We will drive to the Shinto Shrine at the top of Mt. Lasu. From here we will drop down below the cliff and follow it to the north and west. We will see the old Japanese radar and window cave on this hike (see the January 26 hike for pictures). After visiting the window cave, we will continue to explore the cliff line pass where I have been before. Depending on the time we finish or the group's desires, we may explore the foundations for the old U.S. Navy hospital.

February 16, Saturday - Marpo Valley Hike. We will explore an old Japanese train station near the asphalt plant in Marpo Valley. This is one of the best preserved stations I know of from this period. From here we will continue north until we reach the back road to the airport. I am not sure what we will find pass the railroad station.

February 23, Saturday - Hunt for the Latte site near the Tinian Shrine by Carolinas Heights. We will try to find the latte site again near the Shinto Shrine above Carolinas Heights. We tried to find it last month but were not successful (see the January 5th hike). I hope that we avoid the pandanus and most of the cliff's on this hike.

Everyone is welcome to join us on these hikes.
Just meet at Grace Christian School and be prepared to hike.

Mt. Lasu Climb - January 26, 2008

2008-01-28T21:02:00.003+10:00

On January 26th, four of us set off to climb Mt. Lasu on Tinian. This has always been something that I have wanted to do. In my youth, I once climbed over 50 peaks in the Sierra Nevada mountains, in California, during one summer. I have also climbed Mt. Lamlam on Guam, its highest point. So, I also wanted to climb a mountain (okay, its really a plateau) on Tinian.

Before we started the hike, I had to make a quick detour to my house. I had forgotten my GPS unit and did not want to go on this hike without it. We would be traveling into unknown areas and it is easy to get disoriented in the jungle.

We started at the Japanese Defensive Caves site that is between Long Beach and the circle on Broadway, just before North Field. These caves were once a tourist site, but it is no longer maintained. The caves are at the base of the bottom cliff of Mt. Laso, which is about 75 to 100 feet high. In the picture are Erica and Judy standing in the bamboo grove that is next to the caves.

The cliff at the Japanese Defensive Caves is fairly steep and only about 20 or 30 feet high at this point. There are many ramps that can be followed to the top. In the picture below, Mitch is starting the climb up the cliff near the defensive cave site.

As we got above the first cliff, there was a short flat area, still with a slope, where we found a Japanese stone wall from World War II, in the picture below. At the end of the wall was an opening to a small cave that sloped down to a larger room. The slope was very steep with a narrow opening, additionally with a 6 or 7 foot drop at the end of the slope. I decided not to go down the slope, since I saw the larger room had an opening at its other end.

Below is the opening to the larger room of the cave discussed above. If you look carefully, you can see that a wall was built on the upslope side of the cave's entrance. This opening provided an easy climb down into the larger room of this cave complex.

Below is a picture of Mitch entering the larger room of the cave. Behind her, you can see the wall that is part of the cave's entrance.

There were not a lot of artifacts in this cave. Below is a picture of what we found in the larger room of this cave complex. All we found were the remains of a metal can, two aluminum pans, part of a rice bowl and some glass bottles.
Outside the cave was a pick head. Many of the defensive caves on Tinian were either completely dug, or enlarged, by the Japanese during World War II.

In the picture below are Mitch, Erica, and Judy standing just to the north of the cave that we had just finished exploring, with Judy taking a picture of me taking a picture of her. From here we walked around some rocks and headed up the slope to the continuation of the cliff we were climbing.

In the picture below, we started to climb the lower cliff again, just past the cave mentioned above. This cliff was the tallest and hardest to get up on the hike.
The climb up the cliff continues.

Finally, we near the top of the first cliff.

At the top of the cliff was a forest that was dominated by endemic understory trees, paipai and gulos. A short distance from the cliff's edge, the forest changed quickly into tangantangan secondary forest. One of the common plants in this secondary forest is donne sali, Capsicum frutescens. This variety of hot pepper is related to the Thai Bird's Eye Pepper, and is very hot.
I, and the other hikers, collect a few of the peppers as we hike. I usually place the picked peppers in my pants pocket and take them out when I get home. On this trip, because of the length of time we were out, the peppers in my pocket started to burn my leg. I had to get them out fast! I placed them in my waterproof box which I carry with me. When I got home, I emptied out the peppers and took the other items out of the box.

One of the other items in the box, with the peppers, was a Kit Kat candy bar. I placed it in the refrigerator, since it had melted on the hike. Later, my daughter found the candy bar and tried to rip the wrapper open with her teeth. You should have seen her face and heard her when her lips touched the wrapper. The peppers had deposited juice on the wrapper. The candy inside the wrapper was fine, and my daughter did enjoy it once she got the taste of the peppers out of her mouth.

As I lead the hike, I usually clear the path for the other hikers. This mainly consists of cutting vines, small branches and clearing spider webs. Sometimes I will try to tackle larger branches, especially if they are dead. Most dead branches are usually rotten, and one or two whacks with my machete will cause them to break.

So, I started to work on the branch pictured below. After 5 or so hits with the machete, I was about to give up, but Judy challenged me. Another ten blows with the machete, I was through the branch and had also cut the vines near the branch. After I walked past the the cut branch, the other hikers noticed a large boonie bee nest that had been on one of the vines I had just finished cutting. The nest is in the yellow circle in the picture below. The rest of the hikers made a wide circle around this nest. Luckily no one got stung here.

There were many large open areas on the terrace between the upper and lower cliff of Mt. Lasu. Most likely these are the remains of cattle pastures. I hate to walk in the open areas because of the difficulty of getting past the weeds, grasses and vines; much more difficult walking than in the forest. Also there are a lot of plants with spines, like lantana (Lantana camara) and pakao (e.g. Minmosa invisa). I believe the Chamorro word "pakao" is applied to any woody vine that has spines, but the Chamorro-English Dictionary, by Topping, Ogo, and Dungca, says it applies to the plant Caesalpinia major.

In the picture below are Mitch, Erica and Judy in one of the open fields, with the forest that we had just come out of in the background.

The following picture shows us in the same open field as above, but heading toward the upper cliff of Mt. Lasu, which can be seen on the middle left side of this picture.

In the picture below is the upper cliff of Mt. Lasu, from the open area pictured above. If you look at the dip in the middle of the cliff, there are flame trees, Delonix regia, which are near the Shinto shrine at the top of Mt. Lasu.
As we left the open area, and after a short walk through the secondary forest, we soon were in limestone forest near the upper cliff. One of the things, which I noticed near our path, was a piece of metal sticking out of the ground with a shinny aluminum thing on top of it (see the picture below). I think it was a bomb, but I am not sure and I did not play around with it.

Finally we got to the cliff. I thought we might still have to climb it, since my GPS said we had another 150 to 200 feet to go to get to a cave that is near the base of the top cliff of Mt. Lasu. I told every one to take a rest while I explored, to try to find out where we where. I headed north along the cliff and happened to notice a foxhole that I sort of remembered from previous hikes. I took a look at my GPS and it now said I was about 70 feet from the cave that I wanted to go to. I was very surprised and happy at the same time. It meant that we didn't have to climb the cliff and I knew exactly where we where.

I quickly walked back to the rest of the hikers and told them the good news. As we walked to the cave which I wanted to show them, we passed a large shell that you can see in the picture below with Mitch standing next to it.

Finally we made it to the first cave I wanted to show the hikers. I had marked this cave on a previous hike to this area with my GPS. Below is a picture of all the hikers on this hike, Erica, Mitch, Judy, and me in front.

You can not clearly see it in the picture above, but the picture below shows why I wanted to go to this cave. It is full of 3-inch Japanese shells from World War II. You rarely find this many shells in a cave. I encouraged everyone to NOT enter this cave. You can't predict what these old explosives will do.
A little ways from the shell cave is the "window" cave. This was the second cave I wanted to show the rest of the hikers. This cave has three windows in it. If you look carefully in the picture below, I have circled two of the windows. The window on the right has nunu (banyan) roots growing across it.

The third window is built into a wall that blocks the large opening to this cave. It can be seen behind the vines and branches in the picture below.

After a little clearing of the undergrowth, it is a lot easier to the see the window in the picture below, with Erica looking out of it. Above the window is a board that is used as a support for the rocks cemented above it.

The picture below is a view of the wall, with the window in it, from inside the cave.

The picture below shows the middle window (the one covered by nunu roots) from the same point where I took the picture of the wall with the window in it.

The video below give a 360 degree view of the window cave.

After visiting these two caves, we headed south along the cliff, past where we had rested. I wanted to find the old road that led to the shine at the top of Mt. Lasu (see the December 22, 2007, hike). As we hiked towards the road, we passed the remains of the old Japanese radar antenna from World War II, which was near the Shinto shrine on Mt. Lasu. Part of the remains can be seen in the picture below.

The picture below shows some of the metal plates that held the wire mesh in place on the radar antenna.

Below are some insulators that were found with the Japanese radar antenna remains. They are about 8 to 10 inches long.

Next to the road that leads to the shrine is an old crane. In the picture below, I am sitting next to it, most likely checking on our position with the GPS.

At the top of the old road is a cattle guard, see the picture below. It looks like it is made up of old railroad rails. The Japanese had an extensive train system for moving sugar cane around the island before World War II.

A short hike from the cattle guard was the Mt. Lasu Shinto Shrine. Someone had cleared the area a little since my trip here in December to this area. In the picture below is the foundation for where the house for the gods would have stood.

The picture below shows the view from just behind the shrine. This is the area that we had just walked through, with the open fields and tangantangan secondary forest.

Just to the north of where the picture above was taken is a small man-made hill. This hill is the highest point on Mt. Lasu. It was the base for the radar antenna that was previously discussed in this posting. The picture shows all of us on the the top of this hill, and the highest point on Mt. Lasu.

On top of the radar antenna's hill is a round cement structure. It is hard to see in the picture below, but Judy is standing on the edge of it.

Laying against the west side of the radar antenna hill is the base plate for the antenna, which has the electric motor used to turn it. In the picture below, Judy stands next to the base plate.

Since Judy said she had not been to this shrine before, I took her to the Japanese sign for this Shinto shrine. It is almost mandatory that one has their picture taken next to this sign when visiting this site.

After visiting the shrine, it was time to head back to my truck at the Japanese Defensive Caves. We had to cross a lot of open fields to get back, more than we had on the way up. There was one field I refused to cross because there were too many tall lantana plants in it. I hate lantana. Below is a video of the upper cliff line of Mt. Lasu that I took from one of those open fields.

As we neared the lower cliff, I became a little worried because I knew it was a hard cliff to find a way up or down on. At the edge of the cliff, I told everyone to take a rest stop while I looked for a way down. I walked to the edge of the cliff to look for a way down, but it must have been over 50 feet straight down and not climbable.

Then I remembered that my GPS makes what are called tracks; this is an electronic trail that the GPS creates. About every minute or so, the GPS stores a reading of its current location. I took a look at our track on the climb up to the top of Mt. Lasu and saw that we were about 150 feet north of our previous trail. I decided to try to get back to this trail since it had been possible to climb the cliff at that point.

I went back to the group and we started to use the GPS to find our old trail. As I walked toward the old trail, I kept angling toward the cliff and looking for a way down. About 40 feet form the path which we had taken up the cliff, I thought I saw an easier way down. I took a quick look at this new way down the cliff and decided to give it a try. It proved to be a lot easier to get down the cliff at this point than the one we had used to get up the cliff.

I kept following the path of lease resistance down the cliff, until we had gotten to the flat area below the bottom cliff of Mt. Lasu. We ended up a little bit north of the truck in a bamboo grove. Mitch and Judy are in the middle of the grove in the picture below.

As we walked in the bamboo grove, we came upon a large cement structure. This structure may have some connection with the old Japanese railroad used to transport sugar cane.

Just above the cement structure, pictured above, are steps that led up the cliff to more Japanese caves. Erica, in the picture below is at the top of the steps, near a Japanese wall from World War II.

The picture below is taken from inside of one of the caves, towards its entrance, with Judy's legs just visible in the entrance.

The picture below shows Erica, Mitch, and Judy behind the stone wall that protected the openings to the various caves in this area.

A short walk from the caves, we were back to where we had started.

This hike took a little longer than I thought it would. We didn't get back to the truck until 2:25 PM. After this long hike we all were fairly tried and happy to get back to town.

I also learned that there are only two cliffs from the Japanese Defensive Caves to the top of Mt. Lasu. I had been told that there were three cliffs, but we never saw the third one. Either we missed it or it does not exist.

As for the boonie bee count, it was two on this hike. I got stung twice at the same time, and Mitch got stung two different times. After awhile you start to get used to the stings, but they still hurt and are a surprise when they happen.

Next week's hike will be to the latte site at Long Beach. The hikers on this trip have not been to this site and requested I take them there. As always, we will meet at 8 AM at Grace Christian School. See you all there.

Everyone Is Welcome To Join In On These Hikes.

Return to Chiget - January 19, 2007

2008-01-20T19:05:00.001+10:00

For this Saturday hike, we traveled to Chiget, which is a small beach on the southeast edge of the North Field area on Tinian. There were three of us on this hike, Judy, Mitch, and me. This was the second time for me into this area (for more pictures see the October 20, 2007, hike).

Chiget is a small beach that was created by a normal fault zone at the south end of North Field area. As you can see in the picture below, Chiget is a small narrow bay with a large cliff next to it.

Rocks have fallen from the cliff and some are quite large. These rocks litter the bottom of the cliff and make lots of areas where rock shelters can be found. In the picture below is one of these large rocks at the top of the beach at Chiget.

The bay at Chiget may be the only place where eelgrass (Zostera sp.) grows on Tinian. Eelgrass needs a sandy bottom with shallow calm water. Eelgrass is fairly common in the lagoon on Saipan but very rare in the coastal waters of Tinian. In the picture below, you barely can see the tips of the eelgrass sticking out of the water.

In the picture below, Judy is walking next to a very large rock that most likely fell off the cliff. This rock is at the start of the trail that leads to the base of the cliff that we will be following on this hike.

On the large rock in the picture of above is growing one of my favorite plants, Gausali (Bikkia tetrandra). This plant is endemic to the Mariana Islands, growing near the sea on limestone. Its English name is torchwood, and small sections of its stem can be used for candles or bundled together to make torches. The picture below is of Gausali growing on the rock in the picture above.

Below is a close up of the torchwood flower.

After passing the large rock, pictured above, we soon were near the cliff that we followed on this hike. In the picture below, Judy and Mitch are looking at the cliff which we will follow. I have also hidden a geocache near this spot (Chiget - Tinian's first geocache).

Near the start of this hike is a Japanese tunnel that was made by several large boulders leaning on each other. This tunnel ends in a platform with a wall that is about 15 feet above ground level. In the picture below is Judy coming back out of the tunnel. You can also see a red surveyor's tape in the left corner of the picture. Almost all of the archaeological features along this cliff were marked with this surveyor's tape. The Navy does surveys of the North Field area about every five to ten years, which includes archaeological sites.

Just above the tunnel, mentioned above, are some rock shelters where the Japanese hid during World War II. On my last trip here, we explore a few of them, but not very well because of the rain. In the picture below, Judy is entering one of the rock shelters.
Mitch took a careful look in the shelter, pictured above, and found a bone. I am not sure if it is human or not, but in another shelter, a little farther along on the hike, we found some bone fragments that I am fairly certain are human. The bone Mitch found is in the picture below.
After the tunnel and rock shelters, there were a lot of small rough boulders that we had to hike over. We had to be very careful where we stepped because you don't want to fall on these rocks. They have sharp points on them that usually cause some serious scrapes.

Another obstacle on this hike is Pago (Hibiscus tiliaceus), as pictured below. Pago grows branches that are parallel to the ground and difficult to walk over and through. Luckily for us, we were able to go around most of the Pago that grows in the lowlands below the cliff.

Near the bottom of the cliff the forest was fairly open and easy to walk through. One of the reasons for this was because of the dense tree cover. Most of the larger trees in this area are Puting (Barringtonia asiatica). In the picture below is a large Puting tree that had a lot of rock shelters behind it.

The picture shows the seeds of Puting and young saplings.

In the picture below, you can see me as I walk toward one of the rock shelters that is near the Puting tree discussed above. The white bag you can see me carrying is for the aluminum cans that I seem to always find in the jungle. These cans are usually left behind by coconut crab hunters.

In the picture below are some bottles left by the Japanese in a small rock shelter.

Judy and Mitch, in the picture below, are in another rock shelter that we found near the cliff behind the large Puting tree. I think this is the one that we found the bone fragments in which I mentioned above.

This was the last shelter we found behind the Puting tree. As you can see in the picture it was marked by red surveyor's tape. From here we walked back to the Puting tree and continued along the cliff.

As we walked along the cliff, we found a really large Puting tree, which Judy is standing next to its trunk in the picture below.
Along the cliff I noticed a notch which was filled with large rocks, pictured below. I decided to climb up in this notch to see if there was anything worth looking at. Once I got to the top of the notch, I found a canyon full of artifacts from World War II. I did a quick walk through the canyon looking for an easier way to it, which I did find.

As I walked back to the other hikers, I saw the large pile of cement bags that I had found on the October hike. Below is a picture of a small area of this pile of bags. See the October hike for more pictures of these bags.

The easier path that I had found to the canyon was a notch that looked like it had steps in it. Below is a picture of Mitch entering this notch.
In the picture below are Judy and me at the top of the notch that leads to the canyon.
Below is a picture of the first canyon with Mitch entering it. To the right side of Mitch is a huge pile of bottles left by the Japanese during World War II.
Below is a picture of the bottles that are to the right of Mitch in the picture above.
There was also an old metal cup near the bottles in the picture above. This cup was in fairly good shape for being out in the tropical weather for over 60 years.
On a rock toward the end of the canyon was a pile of bullets. I am not sure what caliber they were, but they were large and most likely 50 cal.
Next to the bullets were the souls of shoes. They must be Japanese because of the slit toe design.

It is really hard to get a good picture of this canyon. Below is a short video of the canyon taken by Mitch.

The picture below shows Judy and Mitch looking towards the end of the first canyon. After exploring this canyon, we climbed out of it to explore another canyon right behind it.

The picture below is of the second canyon. It just had a few bottles in it.

The two pictures below are of the same area of the cliff above the second canyon. It was almost straight up, but it looked like it could be climbed if needed.

After exploring the two canyons, we returned to the area next to the cement bags to have lunch. Below are Judy and Mitch enjoying their lunch.
I can't quite remember were this tree, in the picture below, was located. I think it was near the canyon we had just explored or it might have been next to a rock shelters that we found next. I just thought it was neat how the root/trunk has spread out to form a ring on the rock, as can be seen in the picture below.

After lunch we climbed up on a small shelf, above the cliff's base, where I found a cave. At least I thought it was a cave. In the picture below, you can see Judy in the entrance to what I thought was a cave. (I happened to have left my camera at the entrance to the cave and have to thank Judy and Mitch for all the pictures from this part of the hike).What I thought was a cave turned out to be a tunnel. In the picture below, you can see light from the other end of the tunnel, which Judy is standing in the entrance of in the picture above.

The tunnel came out into a flat area and was protected by a chest high stone wall, which can be seen in the picture below.

To the left of the wall was a narrow path that led up above the tunnel. This path widen and lead to an area with a few rock shelters. Near the cliff, we found that platforms had been built to make a smooth and level path continuing up the slope. In the picture below, I am on the path that continues up the slope near the cliff's face.

As we walked up the path, we came upon a large stone wall built next to the cliff. The picture below shows me looking behind the wall. There was nothing behind it.

The picture below is taken from upslope and shows the area behind the stone wall.

The path continued up the slope to a rocky area. At the top of this rocky area was a rock shelter carved into the cliff, near its top. It was obvious that the Japanese had dug this large cliff shelter, where the path up the slope ended. After reaching this shelter, we hiked back down the path to the tunnel, and started to follow the cliff line again.

Not far from the tunnel was a large cave/crevice where we had ended the trip in October at. In the picture below, Judy and Mitch are looking into the cave.

It is really hard to take a picture of the large opening of this cave, so below is a short video that tries to show the size of this cave's opening.

About fifty feet from the first opening to this cave/crevice was a second opening. In the picture below you can see the roots of Nunu (Banyan) trees growing into the opening. Also on the rock in the center of the picture is a 3-inch shell, just to the left of the white root in the center of the picture.

Right next to the second opening is a small hole in the cliff. It had roots growing through it and someone had tied a white flag on one of the roots. This hole lead into the large cave that could be seen from the second opening. In the picture below, Judy and Mitch are standing on a slope that leads down to the cave's floor.

In the picture below, I am working my way through the Nunu roots toward a place that we had to climb down about 5 feet.

Judy in the picture below has just finished the small climb down that we had to do to get to the cave's floor. If you look carefully in the picture below, on the rock on the left side of me is the 3-inch shell that was in the picture above of the second cave's opening. I am looking at a small room below the rock, which leads nowhere.

In the picture below is the second opening for the cave, looking out into the forest canopy.

As we worked our way toward the first opening, there was a room off to our right. We could not explore this room because the floor was about 20 feet below us and we had no way to get down to it. Below is a picture of this room.

As we worked our way to the first opening to this cave/crevice system, we had to stop when we reached a steep slope with a lot of loose rocks. This slope lead to a 20 or 30 foot cliff which I could see no way down. I tried to get a picture of the second opening from this rock slope, but there was not enough light. I took the following picture by setting my camera on the cave's floor, turning off the flash, and using the self-timer. As you can see, there is a little light coming in from the first opening, but not much of the cave can be seen.

After the cave, we continued to follow the cliff line. The cliff became a smaller and smaller as we traveled along it. As we followed the cliff, we started to follow a coconut crab hunter's trail because it was easier going. We did not find any more openings, rock walls or shelters past the cave in the pictures above.

As we walked along, I saw the road through the jungle. We had to walk about 100 feet past a large Umumu tree and some pandanus trees to get out. In the picture below is Mitch on the road that leads to my truck, which is located just past the end of the road that you can see in this picture (the road really does not end, but turns toward the north).

It was a short walk down the road and back to my truck. We finished the hike around 1:30 PM. In the picture below, Mitch and Judy are loaded up for the trip back to town. They seem to enjoy riding in the back of my truck. I think the ride is part of the adventure on these hikes.

As always I would thank Judy and Mitch for the additional photos and videos in this posting. As for the boonie bee count it was zero. We didn't even see a boonie bee nest on the whole hike.

Everyone really enjoyed this hike. The forest was beautiful, it was easy walking, and we found a lot of stuff from World War II. I think this is one of the best hikes on Tinian and I highly recommend it, just take your time and explore every little hole you find.

The next hike will be to Mt. Lasu. We will start from the Japanese Defensive Caves at the base of the first cliff line on Mt. Lasu, and climb to the Shinto Shrine at the top of the Mt. Lasu. On the way back to the Japanese Defensive Caves, if time permits, we will explore the second cliff line on Mt. Lasu. Mt. Lasu is made up of a series of three cliffs and terraces, and I have never been to the second cliff area. Because I have not been to the middle (second) cliff, I am interested in seeing what might be there. We will meet at Grace Christian School at 8 AM on January 26, 2007.

Everyone is welcome on these hikes.