Long Beach Jungle Hike - December 15, 2007

On December 15th, three of us set off to Long Beach to walk either the beaches or the jungle. I have done all of the beaches at Long Beach before, but it was a long time ago. There were 13 beaches the last time I did it. As we looked at the water, there was a consensus to hike in the jungle. I really did want to do the beaches, maybe another time.

So I drove back to where the petroglyphs cave is located. There is a ridge line located next to the cave that has a lot of interesting rocks and limestone forest. So after cutting a walking stick for Judy, we were off into the jungle.
We saw several depressions, where it looked like the top of caves had collapsed in. Finally we came to a depression with what looked like the remains of a cave formation on one side. In the picture below you can see Judy walking over the collapsed ceiling of the cave toward the cave formation.

The cave formation open up to a large cave. In the picture below, you can see Judy walking into the entrance of the cave. The entrance formed a shelf above the cave, with a very large room below the shelf.

In the picture below is Ariuka taking a picture of the room below the shelf we are standing on. the room below must have been 20 or more feet below us and looked way to difficult to get down to without a rope.

Below is a picture of me looking down into the cave. In the bottom of the cave was a lot of wood and some bottles. Most likely there have been there since World War II. It also looked like the cave went down to another level. There really was no way to tell how deep this cave goes without climbing down into it. Maybe another day.

Here, in the picture below, are Ariuka and me taking a picture of paipai (Guamia mariannae) berries. Paipai is only found in the Mariana Islands. Most likely its scientific name was derived from being found in the Mariana Islands - Guamia, Guam - mariannae, Marianas. This a understory tree found in limestone forest. It is slow growing tree that has very hard wood.

Here is a picture of the paipai berries.

As we walked in the jungle, we would cross from limestone forest to secondary forest consisting of tangantangan (Leucaena leucocephala) trees. As we entered the secondary forest we were on the look out for boonie bees, since they are more common here. These bees are the most dangerous thing you will meet in the forest. I have just read that they were most likely introduced to the Mariana Islands during the Japanese period. They seem to be a common paper wasp (Polistes olivaceus click this link will open a pdf file) from Asia.

As we walked in the secondary forest, we found a few of the nests on vines growing through the trees, as in the picture below. As the dry season progress, the bees start to move more into the limestone forest area and build nests.

In the picture below, if you look carefully, you can see rocks that stick up out of the ground into the jungle. It is fairly common on Tinian to see rocks sticking up out of the ground. This is caused by differential erosion. One piece of limestone may resist erosion a little bit more than the surround limestone. This harder limestone protects the rock below it, and the surrounding limestone is worn away, thus forming a pinnacle. Pinnacles, sinkholes, and caverns are common in Karst landscapes (which is found in large areas of eroded limestone like on Tinian).

As we walked through the jungle, I decided it was to time to find a way out. Looking at my GPS, I noticed that there was a road to the east of us (I had plotted the road from an earlier hike to Masalok). So we were off to find the road. Finally, we came out of the jungle into a clearing by the road. Below are Judy and Ariuka leaving the jungle finally!

Below is a picture of the road, with Ariuka taking a picture of Judy taking a picture of her, that leads back to Long Beach and my truck.

As we walked back to the truck, Judy was a little disappointed that we didn't see any artifacts or historical sites. Ariuka suggested that I show Judy the petroglyphs in the cave next to the truck. We had visited this cave on the hike to Masalok last week. In the picture below you can see my flashlight pointing at some stick figures made by the ancient Chamorros more then 400 years ago.

As we sat in the cave, looking at the petroglyphs, the battery compartment of Ariuka's camera open, dropping the batteries into the loose rocks. The great battery hunt was on! In the below you can see Ariuka and me looking for the batteries.

Judy was taking pictures of the us as we looked for the batteries. She happened to notice a flash of light near my foot. If you look carefully, two rock below my foot, you will see one of the batteries from Ariuka's camera.
Only two of the four rechargeable batteries were found in our hunt. After the hunt, we left the cave and head back to the truck to go home.

As for the boonie bee count, it was only one, me of course. After all of the stings I have had, I am still not used to it. If you want to hear some loud and strong words, just be around me when I get stung.

The next hike will be to the Mount Lasu area. We will hike to a beautiful saddle in the ridge, just south of the Shinto shine on Mount Lasu. From there, we will go through a tunnel that goes through the ridge and explore the cliff line. When I was up there two weeks ago, I found a lot of Japanese defensive shelters from World War II. We will be meeting on Saturday, December 22, at 8 AM at Grace Christian School.

As always, everyone is welcome to join in on these hikes.

Masalok Hike - December 8, 2007

On December 8th, eight of us set out to explore the area south of Masalok Beach. I have never been in this area and did not know what to expect. I had been to the beach area, and knew it and the latte site next to it very well.

I would like to thank Mitch, Mr. Tsuchikawa, Dan and Pete for providing pictures for this posting. It seems that I forgot my camera on this hike.

The picture below shows everyone recovering from the ride to Masalok. The road was very overgrown with a lot of small tangantangan trees bent over into the roadway. The people in the back of the truck got hit a lot by the bent over saplings.

Since most of the hikers had not been to Masalok before I showed them the largest latte stone site first. This site has 14 pillar stones in two rows of 7 pillars each. In the picture below you can see me and Mr. Tsuchikawa, entering the site.

This site had recently been cleared by the NMI History class at Northern Marianas College (NMC). They were doing a survey of the Masalok latte sites for their class project. Below are Ariuka and Dan standing between the latte stones.

After visiting the large latte stone site, we walked a little to the east, where there were more latte sites. These latte stones were only a foot or two high and not as impressive as the large latte stones we first visited. The latte sites at Masalok follow a north-south axis, paralleling the shoreline.

As we headed south from the latte sites, the are aopen into a Puting (Barringtonia asiatica) forest. The forest was very open and easy to walk in. In the picture below, you can see James Carmicheal, Dan, and me standing in the open forest. I should mention that James came over 5500 miles from San Francisco, California, just to visit Tinian.

After the Putting forest, the going got a little rougher. We followed a cliff, but really did not get a good look at it because of the canopy formed by the trees and vines. Finally we came to a place that opened up, and we could finally get a good view of the cliff. In the picture below are Dan, me, James, Mr. Tsuchikawa, Mitch and Erica.

A short distance from where we were able to see the cliff, the cliff line ended. We were right next to ocean. Below are Dan and me looking at the waves splashing on the cliffs. As you can see by the sky in the picture and my hair, it rained the whole time we were on the hike, sometimes fairly heavily.

Below is a picture to the north. Masalok Beach is just by the line of waves breaking on the reef, but not visible in this picture. Also note the gray clouds that gave us all of the rain that we experienced on this hike.

The picture below is from the same point as the one above but zoomed in to show the wave action along he shore. The ocean was very rough the day of this hike. Mt. Lasu is visible in the background.

While enjoying the view at the end of the cliff line, I asked if the group wanted to go back or hike some more. Almost all said they wanted to hike some more. I had hoped that they would say they wanted to go back, because I was getting tried of getting wet. Since they wanted to go on, we hiked back along the cliff line until we could find a way up the cliff. After climbing up the cliff, we hit some really bad areas for hiking.

In the picture below, you can see the Pago (Hibiscus tiliaceus). Its stems tend to grow parallel to the ground, which makes it very difficult to travel through a grove of these trees.

As we walked through the jungle, we came out next to a road that runs from Masalok Beach to Marpo Valley. Again, I asked the hikers if they wanted to go back to Masalok Beach or continue hiking. Again, all said they want to hike some more. So off into the jungle we went.

As we walked in the jungle, near the road, I noticed a lot of 1 galleon cans. Most likely someone was growing something they should not have been here. We all had a good laugh and continued.

As we hiked on, we came to a notch in the cliff line. We worked our way down to the bottom of the notch. It was a fairly steep climb down. You can see Dan climbing down, with me toward the bottom.

Down at the bottom of the notch, sort of toward the top of it, I saw a pile of cement bags. As we walked around down in the notch, one of the hikers, either Dan or James, noticed an opening in the cliff face. The face of the opening had been closed up, except for a gun port and an observation port. In the picture below, you can see me crawling through the gun port to see what was inside the man-made cave.

Below is a picture, taken through the gun port, that shows the inside of the cave. Lined up against the cave's wall were ammunitions cases. They look like they held three inch, or so, rounds.

In the picture below, I am standing next to one of the ammunition cases. At the top of the cases was a box that looked like it might have held the detonators for the rounds. We really did not mess around with the cases, since we didn't want to damage them (also they may have still contained explosives, but I sort of doubted it).

Near the first cave was a similar second cave. It had been more disturbed than the first cave. In the picture below is Dan looking around in the second cave.

Below are some of the things we found near the caves. You can see a bottle from the Japanese period, an aluminum holder for ammunition rounds, and part of a six inch round most likely fired from a US Navy ship when Tinian was invaded during World War II.

We continued walking in the jungle, following old coconut crab hunting trails until we came to the edge of the cliff. I climbed up on a rock, near some pandanus trees, and saw that we were on a shear cliff dropping straight to the ocean. Ariuka, Dan and Pete went to the edge of the cliff. The picture below was taken by one of them from the edge of the cliff looking north.

At this point, I had had enough of the rain and decided it was time to go back to the truck. A short walk from the cliff edge, I found the road again. The road was overgrown, but easy to follow back to Masalok Beach.

Once we got back to the truck, we walked down to the beach. Masalok Beach is made up of three small beaches. The picture below was taken from the middle beach facing south, toward that larger beach. You have to run quickly, between the waves, around the rocky point in the picture, to get to the second beach.

On the second beach, we found lots of Bluebottle (Physalia utriculus) washed up on the beach. The Bluebottle is closely related to the Portuguese Man-of-War (Physalia physalia), but is much less dangerous. The Bluebottle is a lot smaller than the Portuguese Man-of-War, with the float being about 1 to 2 inches long.

After visiting the beach, I asked everyone if they wanted to see a cave that had some ancient Chamorro petroglyphs. Everyone was up for the visit to the cave. It is near the road to Long Beach, but you have to know where to look for it.

In the picture below is James entering the cave that has the petroglyphs. It is not a very large cave but it is an interesting cave.

Below is a picture of the petroglyphs. The picture shows a bird design (upper left) and some stick figures toward the lower middle. The fish design is modern and was drawn in the early 1990's by some former students of mine. I am glad they did not draw over the ancient petroglyphs, but it does wreck the experience. I encourage people to not wreck historical sites like this.
The petroglyphs at Long Beach are not as nice as the ones at Dump Coke, but it a lot easier to get to the ones at Long Beach.

I used to use this cave for my NMI History classes and Earth Science classes at NMC. In a small room at the back of the cave, you can find stalagmites, stalactites, columns, and flowstone. In the picture below, Mr. Tsuchikawa is walking toward the small room in the back of the cave.
Additionally part of the roof the cave had fallen in. This allows light to enter the cave, and algae can be found growing on the cave walls. Behind Mitch and Erica, you can see the algae growing on the cave's walls.

Everyone seemed to have a great time on the hike. I did get tired of being wet and was very happy to get home to change clothes. It was nice to get some dry clothing on.

As for the boonie bee count, it was zero, none at all. It was even too wet for the bees!

The next hike will be to the Long Beach area, on December 15, Saturday. We will meet at 8 AM at Grace Christian School. I am not sure what we will be doing, so be prepared. We may try to explore all the beaches at Long Beach if the weather is good and the waves are not too high. If the weather was like it was on this hike, we will explore the forest above the cave with the petroglyphs. I have been in this area and found it to be a pleasant walk. So, you will need to bring reef walkers, shorts and maybe a change of clothing, if we do the beaches. If we explore the forest, bring good walking shoes and a flashlight.

Everyone is welcome to join us on these hikes.

San Jose Cliff Hike - December 1, 2007

On December 1, eight of set off to explore the cliff line right next to San Jose Village, the main town on Tinian. We were to start at the Tinian Cemetery and follow the cliff to the Korean Monument, by the NMC Tinian campus. I have hiked this cliff line before so I knew that there would be interesting things to find.

Below is a picture of the group going on this hike as we get ready to start next to the cemetery. Form left to right are Pete, Melina (behind Erica), Erica, Mitch, Dan, Ariuka, and Rick.
To start the hike, I had to cut a few feet thought the grass to a point that the cliff forms near the cemetery. We hiked up to a notch in the cliff and found a cave that was about 10 feet above the ground. Most of us climbed up to see what what in the cave. On the floor of the cave was a lot of wood that looked like it was from cases used by the Japanese during World War II. Below is a picture of a few of the hikers in the cave with Peter climbing into the cave.

Below is a picture of Ariuka and Mitch climbing into the cave that they are pictured in above.
The slope that we walked on was fairly steep. Also after the last few typhoons that we have had here on Tinian, many trees were knocked down from the cliffs, which made walking difficult. Below is a video to show how difficult the walking was in some places.

As we hiked along the cliff line, we found many remains from and before World War II. Japan controlled the Northern Mariana Islands from 1914 to 1944, so there are many signs of Japanese occupation still found on Tinian.

Below is a water pipe stand that was used to move water between Tinian Town (the Japanese name for what is now called San Jose Village). You can tell if the pipe is from the Japanese period because it is made of cement or some type of ceramic. We even found a section of water pipe nearby.

The Japanese did a complete land survey of the Northern Marianas Islands between 1929 and 1939. Below is most likely one of the markers from this survey. According to Mitch, it has the name of the property's owner on it and a reference number.

As we hiked, we found many caves and bunkers that were made by the Japanese, in an effort to prepare for the invasion of Tinian by the Americans in 1944. Many of these caves were either dug by the Japanese or enlarged by them.

As I walked along the cliff line, I completely walked by one cave. As I waited for everyone, I was wondering what was taking them so long. So some one found me, and said that they had found a very large cave.

The cave was 10 or 12 feet above the ground and you had to use the roots of a banyan tree for hand holds. Below is a picture of Pete standing in the cave and you can see the banyan on the right side of the picture that we used to climb up to the cave.

We believe that many of these caves were used for medical aid stations. There are a lot of ampules, most likely for morphine, and other medical supplies found in these caves.

Below is a picture of Dan and Ariuka next to an oxygen tank, one of several that we found.

The highlight of this hike was a tunnel that is near NMC-Tinian. This tunnel most likely was use by the Japanese to store ammunition for a large gun. It has two openings and is cement lined, with bays for storing ammunition. In the picture, you can see the cement floor and the start of one of the bays to the right.

The picture below is in about the middle of the tunnel. Japanese still leave offerings in this tunnel, which you can see on the cement ledge to the right of Rick, near one of the ammunition bays.

As we left the other entrance to the tunnel, we walked down the slope, through a lot of spiny vines, called pako locally, and came out on the mowed lawn behind NMC.

A short walk from NMC is the Korean Monument. This monument commemorates the dead Koreans from World War II. After traveling in Korea, one can see that this monument follows the traditional monuments, which are found in Korea. These monuments always have lions, rams and wise men, as can been seen in the picture below.

Below are Pete, taking a picture of the back of the monument, and Dan reading it. It is not too complementary to the Japanese, and blames them for killing many Koreans on Tinian. The Korean monument is right next to two crematoriums used by the Japanese to burn the dead as part of the Buddhist religion.
After resting at the Korean Monument, we had a short walk back to the cemetery and our cars. The walk back to the cars was a lot shorter than the walk to the Korean Monument.

As for the boonie bee count, it was only one, and it was NOT me this time. We really didn't see any nests, but we went by one place where they were buzzing around where one of us got stung. It is rare for boonie bees to sting away from their nests.

The next hike will be to the Masalog area. I really don't know what we will find since I have not explored this area very much. I do know there is a nice latte site at Masalog which we will be visiting. Please bring water and a snack to eat, since I really don't know how long we will be out. We will meet at 8 AM at Grace Christian School, on December 8, Saturday. As always, everyone is welcome to join us.

December Hikes

December Hikes

For the month of December we will be hiking to the following areas on Tinian.

For all hikes, meet at 8 AM at Grace Christian School.

December 1, Saturday - San Jose Village Cliff Line
On this hike we will be hiking the cliff line behind Tinian Junior/Senior High School to the Korean Monument. This area has native limestone forest, some steep slopes (no cliffs to climb) and caves and tunnels made by the Japanese during World War II. Please bring a flashlight on this hike.

December 8, Saturday - Masalok Area
I have been told that there might be a small crashed airplane in this area. On this hike we will start above Masalok Beach and head south, in the hope of finding the airplane. I have been told that this area is fairly rough so wear good shoes. Additionally I have never been in this area, pass the beach, so who knows what we will find.

December 15, Saturday - Long Beach
There are two possibilities for this hike. The first possibility is to explore all of the beaches at Long Beach. The last time I did this I counted 13 beaches. Be prepared to get wet. I will be wearing swimming shorts and reef walkers.

If the ocean is too rough, we will explore the forest area above Long Beach, west of the road to the beach. This area has small cliffs and caves. So, bring a flashlight.

December 22, Saturday - Mount Lasu
We will follow the ridge line going south from the Shinto Shrine on Mount Lasu. There is a tunnel that goes through the ridge and down to the an old Japanese road. Usually I follow the road back up to the shrine, but depending on the group, we might go the other way on the road to see where it leads.

December 29, Saturday - Atomic Bomb Assembly Buildings and Lamlam Beach
I have been told there were three buildings built to assembly the different atomic bombs used in World War II. I have been to the first building. On this hike we will try to find the foundations for the other two buildings. After the hike, we will stop at Lamlam beach, one of the invasion beaches used by the Americans during World War II.

As always everyone is welcome to join us on the hikes.