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Boot care

If you’re going to hike a lot, be sure your boot seams are freshly sealed and you’ve freshly waterproofed the entire boot, including the cloth part, if any. Use a heavy-duty waterproofing compound like a wax, and bring some of it along in order to renew the coating if necessary. Chances are your boots will get wet, especially in the winter. And they’ll stay wet, because things dry slowly in the tropical humidity. It’s pretty tough on the boots and, together with the abrasion of mud particles, could cause boot seams to fail.

Hiking stick or trekking poles

Take your hiking stick or poles if you usually hike with them. The flight attendants can put your hiking stick in the closet where they hang the carry-on suits and dresses or in the overhead compartments. Hawaii’s terrain can be very slippery when wet, and a stick or poles can be a big help in maintaining your footing.

Spider stick

There are a very few overgrown trails (for example, the Kalapana Trail) where you and some orb spiders may meet unexpectedly, head-on. You probably don’t like collecting spiders with your face, but these critters make it hard not to do so. Here’s one way to avoid them without killing them. Pick up and use a “spider stick”—a long, strong stick that you carefully wave up and down in front of you as you hike. You can feel the tug when the stick connects with a web. Detach the anchor strands that hold the web in your way, and lay them aside on the adjacent shrubbery. An orb spider normally rebuilds most or all of her web daily, so you’ve caused her only minor inconvenience. Your hiking stick or poles can probably double as a spider stick.