Camping on Mt. Alava

We’ve been talking about backpacking on the island for awhile now. It is one of our favorite activities and it has been missing in our tropical life. We left most of our gear behind in Michigan, but were able to borrow what we needed. Our friend Markus joined us (unfortunately, sans Liz, as she was sick) and two bat researchers from Hawaii, Adam and Susannah. We loaded up our gear and headed out for the summit of Mount Alava. It is a 3.6 mile trek along a ridgeline to the top of the mountain. The trail is gorgeous with solid jungle on one side and panoramic views of the Pacific off to the other. Everywhere you look there is green, with the exception of the flowers (to the right is a native orchid). The whole trail is great for bird watching. We saw cardinal and wattled honeyeaters, mynas, Polynesian starlings, swiftlets, tropicbirds, and fairy terns. We heard doves, but did not get to see them. I really want to see a many-colored fruit dove at some point. The view from the top of Mt. Alava is stunning (the picture banner across the top of our blog was taken here). The National Park has a fale at the top of the mountain, where we pitched our tents. There is now a notebook for visitors to sign and I was surprised to see how many people have been on the top of Mt. Alava in the last six months. Hopefully, my parents can add their names next week! After a bit of a rest (and Emma asking multiple times when dinner was going to be ready), we cooked some food. It never ceases to amaze me how tasty everyday food is when cooked outdoors after a long hike. With the little day light we had left, we played Scrabble and cards. It was cloudy out so the sunset and star gazing were a bit disappointing, but we did see some cool views of the “greater” Pago Pago area at night. It almost made me feel like I was looking down on a big metropolis. As expected, the mosquitoes became unbearable as night set in so we called it an early night and crawled into our tents.
Before going to sleep, the bat researchers asked if anyone wanted to join them on their morning jaunt to look for a bat roost. Given that it involved a 6 a.m. wake-up call and that I had already seen bat roosts, I opted out. Emma, however, was quite excited to join Adam and Susannah. The alarm went off the next morning and without any encouragement, Emma got up, got herself dressed, ate a granola bar, and grabbed her backpack. They ended up seeing 14 flying foxes and Emma was quite excited that her name was added to the researchers' observation sheets. Emma, our little bat researcher, came back a couple hours later filled with excitement.

After tramping around all morning as a research assistant, we hoped that Emma would have enough energy for the hike back down the mountain. You would think that going down the mountain would be all downhill, but the ridgeline trail is a series of ups and downs. We were all tired and everytime we thought we had climbed our last hill, another one appeared.

The highlight of our hike was seeing several white-tailed tropicbirds fly right over our heads. They had a nest in a tree overhead that they were going in and out of. I had never seen one of these birds so close before. It is amazing to watch them glide out over the jungle with their long tails streaming behind.