Tachonga Hike - January 12, 2007

On January 12, four of us set off to explore the area south of Tachonga Beach. I had been in this area a lot over the years, but have never gone past the dumping site that can be seen on the cliff line south of the beach. Today, we were going to explore the area to the south of the dumping platform.

In the picture below, you can see Judy, me and Erica as we set off from Tachonga Beach. Tachonga Beach is one of the best beaches on Tinian and where most of the tourists hang out.

At the start of this hike, we walked along the beach toward the south, until the sand ends. At this point, we headed into the jungle to find a great latte site. In the picture are Erica, Mitch and Judy just before we headed into the jungle. You can also see the white sand that makes up Tachonga Beach.

In the picture below is Mitch sitting on an ancient Chamorro grinding stone. The Chamorros were one of the few cultures to grow rice in Micronesia. These stones could have been used to grind rice or other plant material. Most of these stones are basalt and had to be imported from the Northern Islands, since basalt is not found naturally on Tinian.

As always, everyone was taking pictures. If you look carefully in the background, on the left side of the picture, in front of Mitch's head, you will see a latte pillar stone standing in the jungle.

After visiting the grinding stone, we walked to the latte site that you can barely see in the picture of the grinding stone above. In the picture below, you can see Erica standing next to one of the pillar stones. Latte pillar stones are always found in two parallel rows. Each of the pillar stones had a capstone, which can been seen on the ground near the pillar stone on the left side of the picture below.

One of the pillar stones from the latte site in the picture above had been moved about 30 or 40 feet to the east of the site. The stone can still be found, but currently a large umumu tree is growing on it, as you can see in the picture below.

From the latte site, we headed back the way we came, for a little ways, before heading south through the jungle. As we followed an old trail, which I had cut through this area about three weeks ago, we came out upon an old Japanese property marker. It also had been flagged by a more recent survey of the area as shown in the picture below.

The first Japanese bunker was just past the flagged Japanese property marker. This bunker is made up of old railroad rails, thick sheets of metal, cement bags, and limestone rocks on top for camouflage. All of the hikers on this trip, Judy, Mitch, me and Erica, are sitting in front of this bunker in the picture below.

After this first bunker we headed toward the shoreline. The shore here is made up of eroded limestone, which we call moon rock here on Tinian. It is fairly difficult to walk on and you have to watch your footing carefully. In the picture below, Judy and Mitch are walking carefully over the moon rock.

The reason why I like to go toward the shoreline after the first bunker is that it makes it easier to find the next bunker. A notch has been carved in the cliff that leads to the bunker. This notch was carved by the Japanese to give a clear field of fire towards Tinian Town (now called San Jose Village). In the picture below, we are in the notch that leads to the bunker. I am right in front of the bunker, and just behind Erica's head you can see the gun port opening for the bunker.

Below is a picture of the gun port opening for the bunker in the picture above. In the picture below, you can see that it is partly covered by rocks.

In the picture below, Mitch is looking at the gun port in the bunker. The bunker is a vertical line on the left side of the picture, just to the right of the tree trunk.

In the picture below are Erica and my backpack on the top of the bunker, which is covered in a thin layer of leaves. The top of the opening to the bunker is at the bottom center of the picture below, but it is covered by large rocks and really hard to see.

After the large well preserved bunker, we continued through the jungle until we came to a sort of a clearing with sparse tangantangan trees growing in it. This was an old road way that led to an old dump platform. This platform was most likely used by either the Japanese or Americans to dump trash into the ocean, to be carried away by the current that flows off the reef in this area. In the picture below, you can see me standing on the platform while Mitch and Erica look into the gully that is on the north side of it.

One of the reasons why I like going to this platform is because of the great view of Tachonga Beach, San Jose Village and Goat Island that you can get from here. Also you can look safely over the edge into a really nice reef area, as Judy is doing in the picture below.

From the platform, we continued south along the coastline. This was a new area for me. As we walked along, we spent a lot of time walking through limestone forest and coastal strand communities. It would seem that Mitch and Erica had a swinging time of it, as shown in the picture below.

In reality, Mitch had found some great vines that were growing in a large umumu tree. We had a lot of fun posing for pictures with the vines.

There really was not much to see except some nice limeston forest, that varied with coastal strand and secondary forest of tangantangan. I kept on trying to get near the shore to try to tell exactly where we where. On one try to get to the shore, I happened to rip the seam out of one of the legs of my pants. This happened next to where we found some old truck tires in the jungle, which are in the picture below.

As we hiked in the jungle, we would spy butterflies every now and then. Below is a picture of one of the butterflies on a tree trunk. According to the Butterflies of Micronesia, by Schreiner and Nafus, this is male Hypolimnas bolina, the blue moon or common eggfly. According to Schreiner and Nafus, it is one of the most widely distributed butterflies in the Pacific.

Below is the same butterfly but with its wings closed.

After the tires and jungle, it was time to head back. As we walked back, I happened to notice a clearing in the jungle. It was an old roadway that used to go from the Dynasty Hotel and Casino to the cliff below Lookout on the south end of the island. This road is really overgrown and not used by vehicles any more. In the picture below are all of the hikers standing on the road. We didn't walk on the road but walked in the jungle next to it, where there was less grass and the going was easier.

Of course as we followed the road, we started to run into boonie bee nests. In the picture below, Erica is examining an old boonie bee nest. At least there were no bees on it to sting her.

We found another tire in the jungle as we walked back. This one looked like it had been there for a long time, like the other two tires that we had found earlier.

As we got near where we had started, the forest started to open up. I happened to come upon a bunker in the jungle, which is in the picture below. It was the first time that I had ever seen this particular bunker. As you can see in the picture, it looks like it was made of cement bags that supported a thick sheet metal roof.

Just a little more towards the shoreline was another bunker. It had a collapsed cement roof, as you can see in the picture below. It was not the first time that I had seen this bunker. Since I knew this bunker, I knew exactly where we where. We were just a little inland from the first bunker that we had found on this hike. So we walked down to the first bunker we had encountered on this hike, and followed the trail from it out to the beach.

Once we got back to the trail that led to the latte stone site, Judy suggested that we stay in the beach strand area and out of the sun as we walked back to the car. We all agreed and headed slowly back to the cars in the shade.

As we walked back, I happened to be talking about the butterflies that could be found on the hunek trees (Tournefortia (Messerschmidia) argentea). Judy happened to mention that she sometimes sees the butterflies on this tree too. So we took a careful look at one of the hunek trees and there were a lot the butterflies there. In the picture below, you can see the butterflies ganging up on a young shoot of the hunek tree. These butterflies are the males of Euploea eunice, the blue-branded king crow. The male butterfly visits the hunek tree to get chemicals to make a pheromone to attract the female butterfly (click here to see an article about the use of plant chemicals by butterflies to make pheromones).

Below is a closeup picture of the same butterflies as in the picture above.

The picture below shows the leaves and flowers of the hunek tree. The young leaves are edible and are fairly pleasant tasting. The leaves are also excellent defogger for diving masks. You just crush a little bit of the leaf and rub it on the inside of the mask. After that, you rinse the mask with water and you are ready for some fog free diving.

After the short walk back to the truck, it was short ride back to the village. Everyone had a pleasant time on this easy hike. Because I enjoy this hike, I do it fairly often. Read the October 15, 2007 for more pictures and another description of this hike.

As for the boonie bee count, it was only one, me again. I got stung on the shoulder and elbow as we walked back following the road. I also happened to get two large spines in my shoe as we walked from the large bunker to the dump platform. See the October 15th hike for more information about these spines.

I would like to thank the other hikers, Judy and Mitch, for helping in providing pictures for this posting.

The next hike will be to the Chiget cliff line. See the October 20, 2007, hike for information about this hike. This might turn into an all day hike, so bring a lunch and plenty of water. We will meet at Grace Christian School at 8 AM on Saturday, January 19.

Everyone is welcome to join on these hikes.

Atomic Bomb Assembly Buildings

I happened to receive a message from John Coster-Mullen that had a picture of the area that we had hiked to on December 29, 2007. This picture was taken by Leon Smith in 1945 and shows the three Atomic Bomb Assembly Buildings.

To help preserve these three sites, John Coster-Mullen and I would like to encourage everyone to not climb the berms or remove material from these sites.

Taken by Leon Smith, 1945
Click on the Picture to look at a large image.

Tinian Shinto Shrine - Janurary 5, 2008

On Saturday, January 5, four of us set off to try to find the latte stone site near the Tinian Shinto Shrine. One of the first problems we had was getting a vehicle to get to the starting point. My truck was in the repair shop, so someone else needed to provide a ride. Judy had walked to the meeting place at Grace Christian School, and she does not own a car. Mitch and Erica showed up walking, but I asked them if they could provide a ride. They said yes, and we had to wait while they went home to get their car. After Mitch got her car, we loaded up and headed off to the Tinian Shrine.

The Tinian Shinto Shrine is the best preserved shrine on Tinian. It is just above the Carolinas Heights subdivision, but if you go the normal way to this subdivision, it is a little hard to find. Below, in the picture, is the sign at the shrine. Just behind the sign is the torii gate for the shrine.
There is a Japanese name post for the shrine near the torii gate, but according to Mitch, the sign is most likely not from this shrine. She thinks it is from a shrine that was in the old Tinian Town, which is now the current San Jose Village. I can't remember the name Mitch used for this shrine, but she was certain it was not named the Tinian Shinto Shrine.

(Just got a comment from Mitch, see the comment section to this posting, that says that the name of this shrine on an old Japanese map is Sumiyoshi Shinto Shrine. The Tinian Shinto Shrine is near the current church in San Jose Village. The base of the torii gate can be seen near the road that runs on the south side of the church.)

In the picture below are Erica, Mitch and Judy about halfway from the torii gate to the house at the top. The current house is made of cement, but when I first came to Tinian, in the early 1990's, the house was made of wood with a beautiful copper roof. Termites slowly ate the earlier house until it collasped.

While I was at the shrine, I marked its location on my GPS unit, just in case I happened to get a little confused in the jungle, which is easy to do. In the picture below, I am typing in the name for the shrine waypoint into my GPS unit. As for getting confused, when I first came to the island of Tinian, I happened to visit this shrine. I was fascinated by the jungle and decided to just walk a little ways into it to see what it was like. It took me over an hour to find my way out again!

As we headed off into the jungle, we followed a coconut crab hunting trail. It went through a lot of coconut palms with coconuts all over the ground, which you can see in the picture below. The trail was fairly easy to follow, but it soon ended in an area that was overgrown with vines and weeds, which I really did not want to travel through. So we turned around and headed back towards the shrine.

As we followed the coconut crab hunting trail, before turning back, we came upon the vine flowers we had seen on the Mt. Lasu trip. In the picture below, you can see two of the flower bunches and part of the vine they are growing from.
As we left the trail, we headed up the slope, which was fairly steep. There was one place that was really slippery and I had to help the other hikers up it. Below is a picture of me, Judy and Erica heading up the slope. It was not too bad of a hike up, except that it was steep.

In the picture below, you can see Judy and Erica climbing up the slope near the top of the cliff line.
The next thing I knew, we were at the top of the cliff. Below is a picture of the top of the Carolinas Plateau from a spot near were we had climbed cliff (not a real climb, more sort of a very steep walk up).
On the way to the cliff, we came across the saprophytic plants that we had seen on the hike to Mt. Lasu. In the picture below, you can see that these plants come in two color varieties, a red and white variety. While at Mt. Lasu, we only saw the white variety.
We followed the cliff line to the north. As we began to follow the cliff, we came upon several openings that allowed us to get great views of the village or Marpo Heights. Below is a picture of one of the openings with the village in the far distance. Below this picture is a zoomed picture of the village from the same location.

As we hiked along the cliff line we found a lot of stone walls, caves and defensive shelters that the Japanese had built during World War II. In the picture below is Erica helping Judy down one of the rocky areas near one of these WWII Japanese shelters.

In one of the shelters, we found the soles of shoes, as can be seen in the picture below. I have seen shoes in other shelters and caves on Tinian before. I really don't know why shoes were left in these areas. They might have been left behind when bodies were dragged out of these shelters or caves during World War II, but I really don't know.

In another shelter/cave we found what look like two electrical motors or generators and a hitch of some sort. They are visible in the picture below.

Here, in the picture below, is Judy climbing over a downed tree's roots that led into another shelter area. As you can see from Judy's appearance the hike was very strenuous with a lot of ups and downs. There were a few times where we had to turn around because the vines got too thick or the cliff was too steep.

We came upon an area where there was a huge overhang about 30 or 40 feet above us (see the picture below). At the base overhang were a lot of Japanese shelters. We followed the cliff line which led into a flat area with more shelters and caves.

Below is a picture of a six-inch shell that we found on the way to the shelters mentioned above, past the overhang. Someone had set it upon its base and it was also covered with vines and weeds until I removed them to walk past shell.
Once we got up into the shelter area above the overhang, I thought we would have to turn around, since I didn't see any other way down the cliff. I did a little exploring just to the north of the shelters and saw a small stone wall. Behind the stone wall was a tunnel that dropped down below the cliff. In the picture below you can see Judy entering the tunnel.

Beside the steep slopes, cliffs and loose rocks, the hike was also fairly hard because of the vines and pandanus plants. In the picture below, along with some of the other pictures in the hike posting, you can see some of the vines we had to work our way through.

In the picture below I am working my way around a pandanus plant. They have saw edged leaves and spines on their roots. I still have a small cut on the bridge of my nose from one of the leaves. I really did get tried of the pandanus leaves on this hike.
After the tunnel, we decided that it was time to head down to the road that I had spotted below the cliff we were on. The hike down was fairly hard and we had to climb down a few cliffs to get out. But, we also did find a few more interesting Japanese shelters on the way down.

As we neared the bottom, just after climbing down a fairly difficult cliff, we met someone that lived nearby. He had been out working on his farm and heard voices out in the jungle. He went to investigate and found us. Judy and I are talking to him in the picture below.
A short walk from where we met our guide out, we were out of the jungle and near his family's house. We asked him to take a picture of us as we ended this hike. In the picture below are the very tried hikers, Erica, Mitch, me, and Judy.

We didn't find the latte stone site on this hike. The best guess for its location is in the middle of our hike. I belive that we ended up circling it. According to the person that we met just before getting out of the jungle, the latte site is back toward the shrine. I will have to come up to this area by myself and see if I can find it. I can usually travel faster and easier through the jungle by myself.

As for the boonie bee count, it was only one, me. I got stung a total of six or seven times on two different occasions. I happened to have gotten stung below my left eye and had to put some Sting-Eze on it real fast. The Sting-Eze got rid of the pain and I think it even helped to stop the eye from swelling up too much. I did get stung once, a long time ago, on my upper lid on my left eye and it swelled the eye shut for a few days.

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

The next hike will be to the south end of Tachonga to visit the latte site there. We will also look at some Japanese bunkers and maybe explore a little bit more south from the bunkers. This is a fairly easy hike. The most difficult part is when we walk near the shoreline. For more information about this hike see October 13, 1007, hike. This hike will be on Saturday, January 12th. We will meet at 8 AM at Grace Christian School.

Everyone is welcome to join us on these hikes.

January 2008 Hikes

The following are the hikes for January. 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.

January 5, Saturday - Hike to the Latte site above the Tinian Shinto Shine. There is a nice Latte site at the top of the cliff on the Carolinas Plateau. I have been only to this site once before, but it is an unusual site because of its location. This hike will be across some fairly steep slopes, and we may have to climb one small cliff at the top. The hardest part of the hike will be going up the slope from the shine to the cliff line.

January 12, Saturday - Latte site south of Tachonga and beyond. I have been requested to return to the Latte site at the south end of Tachonga. From here we will walk south to visit some Japanese bunkers and the dump platform. I hope to continue for a little ways past the platform to see what else there might be along this coast. I haven't been past the platform before. See the the October 15th hike for more details.

January 19, Saturday - Return to Chiget cliff line. We will try to explore the Chiget cliff line again. I hope to make this an all day hike, so bring plenty of water and a lunch. See the October 20th hike for more details.

January 26, Saturday - Climb Mount Lasu. This is something I have wanted to do for awhile. We will start at the Japanese defensive cave site on the bottom cliff line and climb up to the Shinto Shrine on the top of the plateau. After the climb, we will climb back down and explore the middle cliff line a little, depending on how much time it takes to do the climb. I have never been to the middle cliff line area before.

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