Narrator: On the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, in the heart of the Haʻikū Valley east of Pearl Harbor, is situated a controversial staircase known as the Haʻikū Stairs -- popularly referred to as the Stairway to Heaven.

The stairs were built on the windward side of the Koʻolau near Kāneʻohe, ascending from the base of the valley up to the nearly three-thousand-foot summit of Puʻu Keahiakahoe.

The stairs have been at the center of a decades-long feud, while certain neighbors who live near the bottom of the stairs want nothing more than to see the stairs removed, set against activists who want to save the stairs -- along with cultural sites in the back of the valley -- and designate them as an historic landmark, all while government officials debate access rights and liability concerns.

This is a story of the past, present, and uncertain future of this valley and these stairs.

Haʻikū Valley resident: Those of us that live near the main access points to Haʻikū Stairs deal with, you know, relentless trespassing at all hours of the day.

And trust me, when you are woken up at 3 or 4 a.m.

every morning by strangers creeping around your home, or getting spooked by people climbing your wall as you try to enjoy a nice family dinner on your backyard porch, you'd be as frightened and frustrated as I am.

The blatant disrespect that we experience on a daily basis by selfish, entitled individuals who knowingly break the law and disrupt our health and safety is just unacceptable.

We live in anxiety as people climb our fences, wander onto our property, use our water hose without permission, block our driveways, taunt our dogs, and even approach our children.

I've personally installed six security cameras around the perimeter of my home after catching someone in my yard a couple of years ago, and I've been collecting data ever since.

Narrator: Outside City Hall, the Friends of Haʻikū Stairs voice their support to save the stairs and protest any measures to destroy them.

Newsreel: The United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, with its protective ring of Uncle Sam's army posts, the Pearl Harbor Base, makes Hawaiʻi what has recently been called from a military viewpoint.

The most important offshore territory of any nation, anywhere.

Since 1898, American ships of war have used Pearl Harbor, first as a coaling station, later as a super service station for ships, planes, and men.

Now it is amply equipped and ready to protect the western coast, but thoughts of war can never destroy the exquisite charm that nature has given to these islands, which are closely linked to the mainland by wireless, cable, telephone and radio.

Narrator: After years of competing interests with respect to Chinese markets and Asian natural resources in the 1930s, relations between Japan and the United States reached a tipping point.

The Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, killing almost 2,500 people and sinking the principal American battleship fleet.

But minutes before Japanese warplanes bound for Pearl Harbor arrived at Battleship Row, bombs and machine guns also rained destruction upon the Mōkapu Peninsula.

Imperial Japanese pilot Lt.

Fusata Iida succumbed to return fire.

The day after the attack, a Marine rifle squad fired a volley over the bodies of fifteen officers and men killed at Naval Air Station Kāneʻohe.

(music) Narrator: Two experienced high scalers, Bill Adams and Louis Otto, spent three weeks climbing the near-vertical ridge to the peak, cutting holes, placing ladders, and staking wooden stairs into the earth.

The Naval Radio Station at Haʻikū Valley began construction in 1942.

The U.S.

Navy needed reliable, distant long-wave Very Low Frequency, or VLF, transmissions to the Pacific fleet.

The walls of the main building were over five feet thick and made of concrete designed to withstand a 500-pound bomb.

The facility’s massive antenna system consisted of five cable antennas draped from atop one mountain ridge, across the mountain valley to the other ridgetop.

Following completion of the southern access, work began to build cable cars and a tram system to take men and heavy equipment to the top of the ridge.

A pair of 200-kilowatt Alexanderson alternators transferred from the mainland were installed.

These rotating machines were among the first devices capable of generating continuous radio waves needed for transmission of amplitude modulation.

The Haʻikū Radio project was completed in December of 1943.

In 1958, the Radio Station at Haʻikū Valley became an experimental Omega radio-navigation station, and the U.S.

Coast Guard moved into the station in 1972.

Bill Hicks: The lower the frequency, the longer the wavelength, and so you need a larger antenna.

There have only been about 100 VLF transmitters ever built, and prior to World War II there was only one that used cables suspended across a valley that was a Dutch radio transmitter in Indonesia.

And so, this was pretty radical.

The Navy's transmitter at Lualualei on Leeward Oahu was LF, didn't have the range.

You need a huge antenna to transmit VLF.

Some of them were antennas that were anchored on the ground and held aloft by helium balloons.

But stringing antenna wire across a valley was the most practical, durable solution.

Narrator: In southern Sweden, close to Varberg, an Alexanderson alternator is preserved as an historical site.

The transmitter is still in operational condition and its transmissions can reach all over Europe and across the Atlantic to North America.

Today, remnants of Haʻikū radio infrastructure dot the mountains to include anchorages and decaying cable winching equipment.

This structure housed Navy remote control equipment and microwave repeater dishes.

Each mile-long antenna weighed about eight tons, anchored to eight-inch steel I-beams set in 10 feet of concrete poured into solid rock.

On the opposite side of the valley sits the lesser-known, decrepit and treacherous Stairway to Hell, also built to service radio equipment during the war.

Three days after the attack on Oʻahu, the Navy opened a new site at Wahiawā.

Its purpose was to assist in a program of cryptographic security, message traffic control and message traffic analysis.

This was the hub of message generation for Naval Radio Station Haʻikū.

James Neuman: Really, the Pacific theater dwarfed what the European theater.

It was a world war, and a big part of that worldness of it was the fact that the Pacific Ocean was so huge and it was largely a naval, a naval war in many aspects.

The submarine forces in World War II and the contribution that the submarine forces were in World War II in attacking the Japanese merchant shipping, we had to be able to get signals to those, to those submarines.

And so, in order to do that, we had to have a large enough... for a low frequency signal to go that far and to be able to penetrate into the ocean, penetrate through the mountains.

It had to be huge on a scale that we really hadn’t done before and actually reach submarines that were submerged all the way over into Tokyo Bay.

And as a matter of fact, I believe the signal was initially heard in Long Island.

I mean, that's how far, heard strongly in Long Island.

Narrator: The signals transmitted from Haʻikū Valley saved countless American lives and were instrumental in successfully winning the war.

Shown here, U.S.

submarine forces detain Japanese prisoners of war before returning victorious to Pearl Harbor.

Bill Hicks: A global navigation system was developed called Omega, and there were eight VLF transmitters.

VLF, just like the, the radio broadcast of World War II and Haʻikū, was one of the eight worldwide stations.

The other US station was in North Dakota and then the other six were around the globe in other nations.

These stations would transmit a coded pulse every 10 seconds.

A submarine would receive these pulses, identify which ones were transmitting based on their unique code.

And then there was the time of receipt, because even radio waves take time to, to move.

And so, within that ten-second window, you would measure to the millisecond the arrival of the Haʻikū pulse, the arrival of North Dakota pulse and so on.

And those range arcs would intersect and you would you would have a good fix within an accuracy of a couple of miles anywhere in the world.

This was terrific for submarine navigation, other, other military uses as well, but really important for, for submarine use.

I used Omega on my ships.

(music) Scene from Magnum P.I.

: I say, Laseronics.

I do hope you’re not going to use a laser on me.

It's a low frequency transmitting station they use to communicate with their nuclear submarines.

I was stationed here for a while in the Navy.

To reach the subs underwater, the Navy used frequencies so low, the antennas stretched from one mountain to the other.

Look to the left of where they’re anchored.

I don't think they expect anyone climbing down on ‘em from up there.

It's going to be tough getting in there.

(Magnum P.I.

soundtrack) (music) John Flanigan: Since I was at Hawaiʻi Loa [college], I agreed that I could get a room to have a meeting that we should call a meeting.

So, we set up a meeting and publicized it and we got a bunch of people there.

Neil Abercrombie and other notables in the hierarchy.

So, we worked at that.

It went slow, but largely everybody was in favor of it.

John Flanigan: When Harris finally had led a contract for the repair and they were going to start working, we decided we could help that by building a trail so that the workers had a way of getting up there without having to slug through the brush.

So, we spent a really hard day of work building trail and then the next week we came back and did the same thing again.

So, we created that nice trail that went up there.

Then when it didn't open, we decided, we've made some progress.

We've controlled some bad weeds we've recovered some eroded land and stuff.

Let's don't let it go back to the wild.

Let's keep doing it every so often.

So, we'd go up there about two or three times, sometimes four times a year.

Vernon Ansdell: There's so much support for, for preserving the stairs and getting them reopened for the general public that I have no real doubt at all that we're going to win this in the end.

Bill Hicks: A million was appropriated, and in 2001 and 2002, the stairs were made as good as new, maybe even better than new.

We anticipated the imminent ribbon cutting and, and it literally was well, we hit a snag, but we're going to solve it in a few weeks.

Well, we haven't quite solved it yet but we're working on an interim solution.

We'll have it fixed in a couple of months.

The snag was access to the base of the stairs.

Laura Thielen: It's owned, in some cases by Department of Hawaiian Homelands.

In some cases, it's managed by the state Department of Transportation.

In some cases, it's private property owners, and in all cases it's a mix of multiple parties.

Narrator: During the refurbishment of the stairs, the city researched visitor access and parking options for hikers and locations to include a nearby church and community college.

However, all efforts failed to produce acceptable results at that time.

Bill Hicks: Ultimately, in 2004, the city and Department of Hawaiian Homelands negotiated a land swap, so it took two years to hammer this out, but about 70 or 80 acres in Haʻikū Valley would shift from Department of Hawaiian Homelands to the city, and about 60 acres of undeveloped land in Verona Village on the leeward side, which was suitable for housing, would be conveyed from the city to Department of Hawaiian Homelands.

It would be a win for a Department of Hawaiian Homelands.

They would gain land that they could put houses on for Hawaiian Homesteads and it would be a win for the city because they would gain unfettered access to the base of the stairs, which would allow them to finally open them.

That had to be approved by the city council.

It made it to the city council in 2004 with the enthusiastic support of the, the mayor's administration and Department of Hawaiian Homelands and the city council did not act on it.

William Aila, Jr.

: If there are any other state agencies that are interested in a land swap, it's not the best lands on which to do residential because of the slope, because of the soils, and because of the cultural sites that are that are in and around that area.

Sean Pager: You know, every now and then I ask what's going on with the Haʻikū Stairs, you know, why aren't they open?

Or you’d read something in the paper about the city has this plan.

And then they spent money to repair them.

And that was really exciting.

And they were going to be open.

And I was really looking forward to that.

And then they didn't, and so I’d check in again and I’d ask every so often, every few years, what's going on?

Why aren't they open?

And I hear about there's some new, you know, they just need to work out those details with the neighbors are objecting and they want to have a shuttle or something or a land swap, or I kept figuring, okay, I know government here is kind of slow and sometimes they take a while to figure things out, but they're working on it and they are people of goodwill and they'll figure this out.

Narrator: In 2002, a circuit court ruling found the state liable for the Sacred Falls deaths because of poor signage, which further interrupted plans to reopen the Haʻikū Stairs due to fears of legal liability.

Rick Tabor: I probably hiked Sacred Falls at least once a month because people would come visit and that would be where we always took them.

Gosh, I probably hiked it, you know, over a hundred times.

Then I moved back to the mainland, and all of a sudden, I get a call from friends that used to hike with me, telling me that, you know, people were killed there.

You can never totally mitigate safety, but you can prevent liability issues by just being careful.

And that's the reason I promote removing the stairs from there.

You can monetize it, sure, but that still doesn't eliminate the safety risks.

Social media post: When you arrive within location, pay attention to this bridge.

It will be your one and only landmark for this entire trip.

You will have three points of entry to get into the forest.

Option number one takes you down a government road straight to the security guard.

I hear if you bring him biscuits, he will let you pass.

Option three takes you over a relatively tall fence in a residential area.

It was very crowded.

People were puking on the ground.

We opted for option number two.

Rick Tabor: There's too many lawyers and it's very easy to do lawsuits.

As a city, as if we're actually owning it and maintaining it, then we’re liable.

If there's a way around that, yeah, I suppose, but it is a risk.

It is a risk.

And the more that we actually kind of go down this road talking about it and showing pictures of it, the more we say that something is dangerous, the more people are going to want to do it.

So, we're also advertising.

So, I'm mental health, that's my background.

I was petty officer in charge of the mental health clinic at Kāneʻohe Marine Corps Air Station.

And I know if you tell someone not to do something, they're going to do it.

If we tell somebody that it's the most spectacular view in the world, but it's dangerous and it's $1,000 fine if you get caught, which it is, they're going to come from all over the world, you know, to do it.

So yeah, you know, I'd say to your question, if somebody actually is, you know, foolish enough to take on that liability, you know, well, yeah, sure, go for it.

Narrator: Access to the Haʻikū Stairs continues to be forbidden, but thousands of hikers continue to trespass, with flagrant misbehavior, through this Haʻikū Village neighborhood, outraging some of its residents.

(music) Hiker: Oh my gosh!

There it is.

Hiker: It was really scary.

The first one because I swung way out there.

(Helicopter rotors sound) Hiker: Let’s go.

We got the poles.

Let’s go.

Scully's happy.

(music) Hiker: All right, let's send a backflip right here.

Matthew Kievlan: Is it the average Instagrammer, the average TikToker that's not looking for a life changing experience?

Those are some of the people that we need most to know who they are in their essence.

And the wisdom is up there for them.

And the stairs make it so that they would be willing, more willing to come from maybe not doing a hike like that, that might require a backpacking adventure to being willing to go up the mountain and what they find there.

They thought they'd find a photo.

They thought they'd find something cool, but what they find is a life changing experience that they can bring back home and begin to think about what they do with plastic and what they do with animals and how this world, how they can be a part of this world because they got to see who they were while they were there.

If someone can't see what's precious, they are more willing to destroy it.

That goes for the people who are willing to destroy the Stairway to Heaven, as well as the average Instagrammer or oil company executive that don't know who they are in connection with this universe and with this world.

And there in the mountain, they can find that.

And those stairs draw the average person up to an experience that could make them more than average.

News reporter: Just on the other side of this fence is the way to Stairway to Heaven.

It's also private property.

The hiker tells me he was fully aware he was trespassing and willing to pay a fine if he got caught, but he wasn't expecting a booby trap.

A wooden box with nails sticking out of it is posted just above this homeowner’s fence on Kuneki Street in Kāneʻohe.

Utah Utah visitor Jonathan McWillie says he knew he was breaking the law when he slipped and fell, impaling his neck on these nails.

Hiker: It was wet, it had been raining out, and my right foot slipped, which brought me down.

And I just did a direct kind of not really a face plant, but a neck plant on the on the nails.

News reporter: McWillie was rushed to an emergency room and underwent two hours of surgery to stitch up two inch-deep puncture wounds.

The owner of the fence next to the nails wouldn't comment on who put them up.

Police officer: We have 146 complaints that from violent confrontations, loud noises, hikers walking through their property.

Hikers accessing private residences, hikers leaving trash behind the neighborhood and hikers relieving themselves in the street, hikers harassing pets and unauthorized drone flying just to make sure there's no officers in the area.

We have, those are the 146 complaints that we have.

And to mitigate those issues, we had two covert operations in the month of March and June, just to make sure that we're doing our part for the quality of life for those people at the base of the stairs.

And we had 255 citations and 13 arrests as a result of our efforts.

Narrator: Many of those cited by police end up in the Kāneʻohe Division District Court to pay hefty fines, though some trespassers believe the experience is worth the risk.

Fire Rescue Officer: I’m here to share some rescue data on what we call the Stairway to Heaven, also known as the Haʻikū Stairs.

So, we went back from 2015 to 2020, and basically in that area of the Stairway to Heaven, we've conducted on average five rescues a year.

Knowing that at the top there at the ridge, I'm personally I have knowledge of this because I'm a battalion chief in Kāneʻohe.

So, I've been to many of these, knowing that they connect at the top with Moanalua Valley Trail.

I also gathered data from there from the Moanalua Valley side, it depends on where the caller is, where they're reporting from.

It could kind of meld into the stairway side.

So, from the Moanalua Valley side, it averages about nine a year.

So, we're averaging about 14 a year.

Again, there's a there's an area up there called the saddle where they kind of meet, and that's where a lot of the folks hiking from either side get in trouble.

So, I thought it would be appropriate to have both.

A typical response is an initial truck of four people, a rescue truck with five.

We'd have the helicopter with one pilot, we'd have an engine company to secure the landing zone and of course a battalion chief apparatus.

So, we're talking about 16 people.

As far as cost-wise, I mean, it's all well within our, our normal budget for rescue and what we do on a typical, typical year.

Mo Radke: I ran for office and running for office I walked that district and I spoke with folks, so I, I felt their vehemence against the stairs.

And I also felt love and embracing for the stairs.

For some of the folks living in the same neighborhood.

(music) Fire rescue officer: I affected rescues on the Stairway to Heaven, both sending rescue men up the stairs, retrieving people and bringing them down, which is not bad, but also the majority of the time is using the helicopter and a rescue man.

Sometimes hanging from a rope is how it's described, and it's one of the most dangerous things that the fire department does besides getting into an interior of a building fire.

So, it is, rescues are inherently dangerous, but even more so when you involve a helicopter.

So, it is one of the most dangerous things we do.

Holly Sevier: I would like to see a beautiful neighborhood park with adequate parking if people want to catch the bus there, even better, where people can, people in the neighborhood can walk their dogs.

People in the community with like hula hālau can grow native plants, where neighborhood groups like Koʻolau Foundation can grow the plants they want or, you know, do the cultural practices they want to participate in where people can come together as a community.

I don't want to see any more of this barbed wire, you know, keep out no access to our, to our valley, to our neighborhood, when it should be a public park for everyone to enjoy.

John Flanigan: Friends of Haiʻkū Stairs has been in existence more than 20 years now.

Our goal is to get the stairs back open so people can use.

It was open for many years under the Coast Guard with no problems.

It's a wonderful recreational asset.

Historical.

It’s a very important part of the Navy's effort during the war, and it's just something that is too good to let go.

Officer Muredo: Built in ’42, wooden steps, 1952, they put in the metal steps.

About eight years ago they refurbished the completely new railings, few new steps, straightened out sections that were all crooked, dilapidated, or whatever.

The neighbors got so mad, the neighborhood board’s just clamoring like crazy, they got it shut down.

Holly Sevier: As a kumu, I hate wasting money.

I hate wasting money in the community that could be better spent on educating kids, or on educating adults, or on restoring land.

I hate any kind of money wasting and any kind of nonsense.

John Flanigan: Such an important historical cultural site.

That is just a shame to see it go to waste.

It's being invaded by all kinds of invasive species.

When we started doing this, there was hardly any bamboo to be found in the valley, now it's taken it over and of course with nobody there to care for it, it just keeps going.

And the longer it goes, the harder it is to take care of.

We go up there periodically.

We go to the stairs periodically, to help contain the invasive species that are slowly taking over.

We've made a lot of progress.

It's a lot better off now than it was when we started some years ago, but it's a continuing effort.

Every time we go, we find something that's crept back up where we taking care of it.

Radio interview: A volunteer group of anywhere from 25 to 35, depending on how much work needed to be done.

And then flash forward to just a couple of years ago, when I know I think the Board of Water Supply said no, that they didn't want the group going up there because of the liability.

John Flanigan: It always had been under the auspices of the Board of Water Supply, but we didn't know that.

And we were getting permission from Parks and Recreation who had actually no actual right to give us that permission.

But then when the Board of Water Supply found out that they were in charge, they just shut it down.

Oh, my goodness, we're scared we're going to get sued.

This is terrible.

So, they shut us off.

They said, well, you can't go unless you have $1 million insurance.

Okay.

So, we've looked around and we found an insurance company that would back us, and they gave us $1 million insurance and Board of Water Supply still wouldn't let us go in.

Justin Brackett: Here at Uloha, we really focus on protecting and preserving.

We support organizations like Protect and Preserve Hawaiʻi or the Hawaiʻi Trail and Mountain Club, or, you know, the Oʻahu Invasive Species Committee.

There’s so many great organizations on this island, they will all tell you that ripping out the stairs is going to do two things: one, it could destroy some very fragile native environments, and number two, it takes away an opportunity for their volunteers to get to these native environments without causing a lot of harm, without trampling over things.

You know, it gives us access to a lot of the awesome species that this environment allows us to visit.

If we're very lucky enough and we're signed up and everything, and it does it in such a way that you aren't causing the harm that you could potentially otherwise.

Holly Sevier: It absolutely should be a partnership.

That's what the valley needs, is for people to come together for the environmental groups in the valley, for those doing restoration work.

I was volunteering with the Koʻolau Foundation a couple of weeks ago and they're doing some wonderful work.

They're restoring the valley, removing some of the invasive bamboo, restoring it to its natural state.

We should all band together to work to that outcome, and it's a great opportunity to do that.

I don't see why we should do something destructive that doesn't benefit anyone, and it costs potentially millions of dollars when we could use it as something for the betterment of all.

Mahealani Cypher: What we see when we see this beautiful valley is a Hawaiian native forest.

We want to transform this valley back into a native forest.

We want to create outdoor classrooms like hālau style, so that teachers could bring their students up here to teach them science and geography and history and geology and culture, you know, so there's a lot of opportunities for learning activities up here.

We want to renovate this building and turn it into a cultural center and a museum to house the artifacts taken from the H-3 Freeway.

You know, when they did the archeology, there were 800 boxes of artifacts collected.

So, we would like to house them all in this building.

We also want interpretive displays on the history of the lands through which the highway goes, which is the Hālawa area, and coming here through Haʻikū, Kukuiokāne Heiau and down Luluku, and hopefully also to Mōkapu because the freeway goes all the way down to the Marine Base.

So, we want to have this building celebrate the lands through which H-3 was built.

That is part of the mitigation plan that we hope the federal and state governments will agree to.

And they haven't done so.

And it's been over 20 years since the freeway was opened, and mitigation is normally done prior to the opening.

Prior to the construction of the project.

There's a slope below the transmitter building and there's a circle, circular bowl.

The middle of the bowl is covered now like with a meadow that's filled with mostly yellow ginger plants.

And then around it, are a variety of other plants.

So, we want to clear the alien stuff, plant grass on the hillside, and build an earth mound at the bottom like a stage, so that we can have Hawaiian cultural activities on that stage.

We can have slack key music.

We can have a competition.

We could have the Honolulu Symphony, it would be beautiful to have them play music in this valley, because it would echo throughout the valley.

All of this was nice and clean, ready to move in when the Coast Guard departed in 1997.

John Flanigan: There’s all kinds of possibilities, and they would be very positive for the local community.

I mean, the people who live there ought to be working hard for this to happen.

Imagine owning a house that close to a big, wonderful park that had good control, and it just blows my mind that they're fighting against it.

Justin Brackett: I think Kāneʻohe deserves to have an awesome site like that, that it’s proud of, you know, can you imagine just the tourism dollars that will be generated by people that are going to the Stairway to Heaven and eating their lunch before they take the tour, or getting off the tour and going to dinner, you know, buying all the different novelties that come along with a great attraction like that.

And then you could also have at the Omega Station, you could renovate it or something similar to that.

You know, back in the valley, you could have artisans and local Hawaiian people that are able to teach and educate, you know, the public that, hey, this is a very protected and very fragile environment and we need to respect the ʻāina, we need to, to love it and nurture it.

And they're not getting that right now.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of resources out there that are telling the people why it's so important that they protect Hawaiʻi and they be safe while they're traversing around our mountains.

This gives us a platform to do that.

There's going to be a ton of people that want to see it.

Every day they're already going up there.

Let's give them an opportunity to do it legally.

Learn a lot about the environment while they're doing it, and have a guide that, you know, makes sure that they come down safely.

Mahealani Cypher: Well, having been born and raised in the Kāneʻohe area, which is the neighboring ahupuaʻa to this one, which is Heʻeia.

I came up into Haʻikū Valley frequently as a child.

My grandfather was a newspaper distributor in this area.

So, he would, I would load on to the truck with him and we'd come up and drop off a bundle of papers at the Omega Station headquarters in the transmitter building.

So that was my first real introduction to being in Haʻikū Valley.

It wasn't until I was a grandmother that I really got interested in what was here.

In, the 1970s, I worked for the Sun Press newspapers, a group of community newspapers that was distributed in different areas around the island, and one of them was here on the windward side.

And as an editor, I got to review the reports provided by reporters for the newspaper.

And that was the first introduction I had to the H-3 Feeway, which I thought, why is people why are people getting so upset about this?

It's just a road.

And as I read the reports by the reporters, I read the stories.

I saw that it was more than just a road.

There were many problems involving having this project built.

And so, I read all of their reports.

I started reading 13 volumes of the Environmental Impact Statement for H-3, and realized that it had serious potential adverse effects for my community, where I was raised, here in the Kāneʻohe area and for the whole Windward Coast.

New highways bring development and development can bring other problems.

News clip: Whether to build another highway has been a source of controversy for years, resulting in part of this TH-3 being completed and open.

I think we’d open up Pandora's box for a lot more development and perhaps a second Waikīkī along our coastline.

Even with our coastal zone laws that we now have, I do not see the need for TH-3, I've never been a proponent of TH-3.

I know what it's like to go across the Pali and the Wilson daily with that bumper to bumper, and I think the H-3 would just be an advantage to all of us and the windward side.

I liked it when it was more farms and all green, but I guess that's progress.

Mahealani Cypher: The upper area where our crew is working today, our volunteers, is a heiau called Kānehekili Heiau, also known as Kahekili Heiau.

And we want to create a healing garden.

So, it would be a heiau dedicated to healing with medicinal plants.

So, we want to clear the alien plants from that hillside and plant native medicinal plants on that in that area.

So that's the goal for that heiau.

There are several religious sites or heiau throughout the valley, and we believe they're all connected.

We will get the funding needed to honor historic preservation law that requires the feds and state to mitigate impacts of the highway on on Haʻikū Valley.

So, it might take up to 20 years.

It's going to take at least $20 million.

But that is the cost of impacts.

And we expect the state and the feds to honor that, that kuleana, that responsibility.

They can't just build a road and ignore federal law.

So, we are objecting to the federal highway’s determination that they don't need to mitigate Haʻikū Valley.

And we are urging the public to write to their elected officials to urge that they do the right thing.

William Aila, Jr.

: With regards to the proposed project by Koʻolau Foundation, we're willing to listen, but in order for us to consider it seriously, we would have to see a detailed business plan.

We would have to see sources of funding, because it's going to cost a lot of money, in the millions of dollars for the rehabilitation of the Omega Station building, as well as the rehabilitation that they want to do to the cultural sites surrounding the area.

Matthew Kievlan: To know how to sensitively approach this is difficult because it's a place that's very near and dear to the first people of these islands, and I'm not qualified to speak on this, but I do know that humanity has the ability to destroy parts of the universe, including all life on Earth and without the wisdom of how we’re connected to this space, we may do something like a toddler might with a shotgun, unintentionally, inadvertently.

But I truly believe from my experience in that place, that as a good friend said the world would be a better place if everyone could do that hike just once.

Esther Kiaʻāina: Matt, you know, nice to see you.

And you and I have talked and I you seem to clearly treasure and love this place, but I take great offense that you think that those who are for taking down the stairs is about mismanagement.

It's not.

It's about respect for people and respect for our ʻāina, and clearly you have no respect for what was discussed earlier about the the Wao Akua of this area and the sacredness of this area where these people should not be up there.

And you don't seem to want to accept that, you know, so talk about an imbalance.

There's an imbalance in your way of thinking, and you have no right to be up there.

You are not entitled.

You are not privileged to have to be up there all the time.

And so, you talk about your knowledge.

Why don't you talk to the cultural practitioners of this area, and they will share with you their knowledge of the respect that Native Hawaiians have for this place.

Frank Hewett: That same tradition of these designated sacred places that should not be touched or entered, teaches us the same sense of place and connectedness to the people here today.

To be honorable, to have respect as we treat the akua, the ʻaumakua.

The kūpuna and the ʻāina which is the kūpuna, we take the same respect clear across the table here and we give everyone that same respect.

So, once you take that away and then you create, because there is a loss of that connection, then you create the pandemonium and the confusion here.

Because who do we follow in the order now that was taken away.

And this story is exactly the same as Mauna Kea and everywhere else.

Once you take that away, you cause disruption.

You can cause confusion.

So, these have great symbolism for the iwi hānau, the ʻāina, great symbolism, the kind of symbolism that we have to with every last drop of blood, with every bone of our body and the flesh and the skin, we have to stand behind these old traditions.

Once the old traditions are lost, everything will be in confusion.

There will be great disruption, and there will be great turmoil because these sacred places are connected to the akua.

Hiker: Over there is usually where the guard stands.

It doesn't look like there's a guard today, but people have been saying that there's security, but you can usually see the guard up until the last point.

That's where the cops come, too, but the cops hide from that little area.

Samuel Kamakau Charter School official: At the base of the Haʻikū Stairs lies a charming, pre-K through grade 12 school with deep roots in native Hawaiian culture, language, and values.

Given the close proximity of the school and the trail, hikers here often find themselves lost.

In other words, trespassing on school grounds.

Most trespassers are likely genuinely confused and mean no harm.

This, however, cannot be the standard where the safety of young children is concerned.

The proximity of the trail is simply far too close to the school to ensure that intentional or unintentional trespassers do not interfere with the school activities, causing a safety problem for staff and the kids.

Problem does not lie with the school.

The problem is that the Stairway to Heaven was never designed or intended for public use.

Narrator: Another valley non-profit has experienced problems with trespassing hikers up Heʻeia Stream to access the stairs and the Omega Station.

Logan Ayau: So, we're a part of ʻIliʻilikauhale, which is the program that takes care of Waipao, which is this ʻili ʻāina in the back of Haʻikū Valley.

We take good care of about 63 acres, about an acre of loʻi.

And this is an agricultural site for students and community members to come and learn about the land, about Hawaiian culture, sustainability and, you know, a place where people can come, feel welcomed.

Yeah, just a site where people can just give back to.

Narrator: On this day, Navy and Coast Guard service members volunteer to tend taro fields, learn native Hawaiian culture, and honor their shared heritage in the valley.

Logan Ayau: Our goal is to replenish the native population and, you know, bring it back to life.

And and once you bring back the the life of the plants, you can bring back the culture.

This valley is also well known as for lāʻau lapaʻau.

So, you would find a lot of your Hawaiian medicine plants in the back of this valley.

And so people would come and gather when people were sick or needed healing.

And maybe one day we can get back to that and also be that place where we can collect these Hawaiian medicinal plants.

Narrator: In 2004, Medal of Honor recipient Senator Daniel Inouye wrote of the Haʻikū Stairs that the scenic area provides wonderful opportunities for Hawai’i’s residents and visitors to enjoy the superb beauty of our home.

However, state agencies continue to defer to the city to manage the issue.

Kirk Caldwell: I think it's a great asset that should be made available to the people of the city and county of Honolulu, and visitors when they come here in some managed way with managed access.

And that's the big hurdle, is how do we set up that managed access and how do we manage those folks going up there and make sure they're safe?

Because if firefighters have to go and do rescues, it puts their lives in jeopardy too, in a fairly dangerous situation, very steep stairs with a lot of different types of winds that blow around.

But first step is complete.

The final EIS, then get the property transferred to Department of Parks and Rec.

I've talked to Department of Parks and Rec.

They have agreed to take the transfer from the Board of Water Supply and that requires working with the neighborhoods where the access would be made available and working with the council member from that neighborhood, Chair Ikaika Anderson, and of course, the community.

We go to the neighborhood boards, but I think there is a way to do this.

It's a valuable asset.

I think people should have access to all of our beaches, and they should have access to our mountains, and we're going to work in that direction.

Mo Radke: When I was working in a group, it was called the Haʻikū Stairs Task Force, and it was put together by then Councilmember Ikaika Anderson.

I worked closely with some folks from the from the neighborhood and worked very closely with some of the other stakeholder entities, and there was no business plan.

There was no managed access just because everything was unagreeable.

There was some of the stakeholders that were property owners said, no, it's not going to happen.

We shouldn't even explore this.

The residents were like, no, absolutely not.

There's no way.

I was the only, you could call it Pollyanna, call it optimist, call it whatever you want.

I was the only one that was thinking, look, this could be done.

We can manage access away from where you live.

The answer to that was no, no, you can't.

Because even if you put access on the other side, people are still going to sneak up.

And that was you know, I can't dispute that because they feel what they feel.

And for 15, 20 years, that's what they've experienced.

So, I couldn't change that, that mindset.

But the plan itself, I still believe, is sound at its core because it simply reduces the amount of people on the stairs.

You have to have a permit to get onto the stairs, and the access to and from the stairs is control.

It's not a free for all.

You don't park in the neighborhood and go schlepping up there.

You have to go to a predetermined place, dismount, walk to the stairs, climb the stairs, come back to that spot, and then leave.

Hikers: This is a history.

You can't tear down a history.

You shouldn't do that.

I think what city, state should do is repair them and keep them intact.

If they have to charge people to come up and all, they should do that to keep the maintenance going.

It was amazing.

We came up the stairs today.

What do you think about it?

Yeah, I think it's probably the best hike I've ever done in my life.

And it would be, you know, unfortunate if they were to tear it down.

Justin Brackett: My understanding was it was going to be open under managed access so that it would take the strain off of the neighborhood get the cars and the people out of the neighborhood, put them back by the Omega Station where there's a huge parking lot, give them access, you know, so that they can do a tour and have tour guides.

It would employ many, many Hawaiʻi people.

It would enable us all to have a place that we can go and be proud of around the world.

You know, this is a exceptionally popular hike.

I don't care who you talk to.

If you mention in the hiking world, you know the most extreme and most sought after hikes, you know, you get places that come to mind, like, you know, a Half Dome or Joshua Tree or, you know, some of these really beautiful places that can also be a little bit dangerous, but they're open and, and Stairway to Heaven isn't, you know, Stairway to Heaven gets mentioned in there.

People hike fourteeners all the time.

It's way more dangerous to go to the top of Mount Rainier than it is to go up the Stairway to Heaven.

It's an exceptionally different ball game that we're talking about.

We're talking about walking up a really safe set of stairs with, with rails versus climbing, you know, Half Dome where there's a cable and that's it.

You hold to a cable the whole way up, and people go up there all the time.

The National Park lets them come and go by permit process.

I don't understand why we can't do that here.

You know, let people go back to the back of the valley, keep them away from the neighbors.

We don't want them trespassing.

We want them to be going there and experiencing the stairs in a safe environment with managed access, so that the neighbors aren't having to deal with it anymore.

And the people have a safe way to go up.

Hiker: And then I remember reading a Yahoo story that they were that Honolulu was going to rip down the stairs.

So, I wanted to come out and see him for myself before they ripped him down.

And then I found that there's a trail that you could come up to the backside that was still legal to come up.

I don't know, I think it’d be ridiculous to take them down at this point, a fee to come up?

Absolutely.

They've done that in Yosemite with Camp Four, which is a historic climber’s camp, and they tried to tear it down to put in employee housing and just change the valley around.

And, and Tom Frost, one of the historic Yosemite legends, led a coalition to get it, to get it as a national monument.

And so, they were able to save it.

Mo Radke: I mean, how many other memorials, how many other things that are tributes that are built and take Pearl Harbor.

We got to get that Arizona Memorial out of there, get the USS Missouri and tow it back to Bremerton.

Justin Brackett: There should be a historical landmark, in my opinion.

It's amazing the feat that they did to build the stairs.

I'm sure at the time it was an ecological disaster building up that ridge, but it's there now, tearing it out.

It's going to be an even bigger ecological disaster.

It's going to erode a ton of, of dirt and soil down into the neighborhood.

Who knows when that will end and the budget has started at $1 million, it's already ballooned and they haven't even started the destruction process.

It's up to $1.3 million now, and we all know it will now, It will soon be $2 million and then $5 million.

And if we look at the rail as an example, there will probably millions and millions of dollars and years and years of labor all to destroy something that is safe and if managed properly, would take the strain off the neighborhood and enable us all to enjoy.

Narrator: Foot traffic up the Moanalua Valley ridge-line continues to exacerbate erosion, further endangering various species atop the mountain.

The Koʻolau contain fragile ecosystems endangered by negligent visitors.

Advocates believe the stairs help prevent erosion while critics believe visitors should avoid the mountain altogether.

Matthew Kievlan: The erosion is devastating.

The stairs are metal.

Every person that steps on a metal step contributes zero erosion to the mountain.

The thousands of steps on Moanalua Valley Trail, the thousands of steps on Moanalua Valley Trail, creating tremendous erosion.

And eventually that mountain will calve off and create a huge danger for people going the legal way, which people assume is the safe way.

The legal way is not safe by any means.

It's very dangerous, very treacherous, much more dangerous than the stairs.

I've rescued people at 2 in the morning who tried to go the legal way, and ended up almost going down the sheer cliff face into Kāneʻohe.

We lost Daylenn “Moke,” 18 years old, trying to go the legal way, trying to be pono, and he died there.

He was never found.

(music) Narrator: U.S.

Navy Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 37 assisted in the search using advanced infrared technology and electro-optical systems.

Justin Brackett: Moke went up the wrong trail, missed the turnoff for Moanalua Middle.

Continued on Kulana‘ahane Trail all the way to the summit, and at that point you are already to the left of Stairway to Heaven, and if you take a left at the summit, then, which Moke did, then you were on a very, very treacherous, very, very steep and crumbly ridge, which we call the Koʻolau Summit Trail.

And that particular section of is the Moanalua Saddle of the Koʻolau Summit Trail, so he was in a death-defying section of trail.

And unfortunately, we believe he fell off on his way up to try to find Stairway to Heaven.

Magnum P.I.

scene: I was thinking, hey, check it out.

There's a couple of thrill seekers on the Haʻikū Stairs.

Hey, that thing’s still off limits, ain't it?

Yup.

Probably tourists.

Fictional narrative: I told her the truth.

Crystal, please.

Why are you protecting him?

Because he's my son.

He's your brother.

He killed Raina, Dad.

Throwing his life away isn't gonna bring her back, Crystal.

I grabbed her by the arm.

Please listen to me.

I just wanted to keep talking.

No, you're not gonna stop me.

And she lost her balance.

The Price is Right clip: $668.

Yeah.

Melisa.

Melisa, right over there.

Welcome to the show.

You made it.

I made it.

This is on your, this is on your bucket list?

You're on my bucket list.

Oh, hey.

Drew, Drew, Drew.

Thank you.

Well, congratulations.

Hey, this might not be on your bucket list, but it probably might be... Go ahead, George.

You can explore the unforgettable Stairway to Heaven on your trip to beautiful Hawaiʻi.

Sean Pager: It wouldn't just be open to all comers the way it was back in the Coast Guard days, but the key elements would be making sure access to the stairs is through a publicly accessible route with public parking that is well away from neighborhoods.

And that's, that's absolutely critical, because there's no reason why going to the stairs has to mean burdening anybody who lives in the valley.

When the stairs are on public land, far away from any houses.

That would be the basic thing.

And I think there's probably going to be more attention needs to place to sort of making sure people going up there are sensitive to the, the fragile ecosystem and also culturally respectful that it is something that many people in the community and particularly Native Hawaiians, regard to as sort of a sacred place when you're going up that peak, and it should be approached in a respectful manner with some adherence to Hawaiian cultural protocols or at least sensitivity to those.

People speaking at event: You get up at 3:30, you get there at 4:00.

I wouldn't want to live by there, either.

Make it.

It is hard, accessible for people and it's dangerous, too.

Well, if you want to help us, you would like to sign the petition.

You have your phone with the still has to sign up.

Even then, you still get picketers out.

The T-shirts are really nice.

Oh, yeah?

$20.

Like we have.

Sad that we have to spend money doing that.

Right.

Why don't we do it, too?

(Honking, talking) Esther Kiaʻāina: Managed access is not a feasible option and will continue to require city resources and investments of city funds.

We heard it from the parks director.

We know it from the Board of Water Supply Environmental Impact Statement.

Proponents have had decades to facilitate legal access, and attempts have been made with support of two previous administrations from Harris through Caldwell.

Many do not realize the city does not own the lands that lead to the stairs, and it does not own all the lands under the stairs.

After two decades, there is still there is still no clear path forward to secure legal access with the many landowners.

Hikers: Oh, they want to remove the, oh no, they should not do that.

What's going on?

I did not know that, I just knew.

No, no, no, no, this is amazing.

And this should be known.

And the whole world should see this, because the experience is unbelievable and once in a lifetime.

Mo Radke: I would say, let's give it a try.

Let's let's give managed access an opportunity.

Because right now it's just no by, by just saying no.

And sometimes that's the way Hawaiʻi is.

Bill Hicks: The remedy is managed access.

The remedy is, even take the rudimentary managed access that the Coast Guard operated.

That would eliminate the neighborhood problems.

.

A more sophisticated managed access would be the truly the right approach and it was within the grasp of the city again, when the Board of Water Supply conducted a hearing in 2020 early in the pandemic, which had about 4,000 pieces of testimony and hours of oral testimony.

3,600 of the testimony in support of keeping the stairs, fewer than 200 for removing the stairs.

The Board of Water Supply did the right thing.

They said, well, we don't want it as a liability for the Board of Water Supply, we’ll convey it to the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Narrator: On July 2nd, 2020, after a unanimous vote, the Board of Water Supply formally transferred staircase ownership, along with the surrounding 200 acres, to the City and County of Honolulu.

Rick Tabor: I recommended that the county not take control, because then they would be liable when people get injured.

And I know there's only been one death.

Singer: Well, I love, well I love you, don’t you know this is true.

Don’t know why I do these things.

I just don’t why I do, I want to jump, jump, jump, jump on your bones, I do.

I want to jump, jump, jump, jump, jump on your bones.

I swear it’s true.

Bill Hicks: The obvious solution which would properly manage the stairs, provide stewardship of this unique treasure and eradicate trespassing and the issues of the neighborhood once again was presented to the city council, the final city council meeting of the Caldwell administration.

And again, they punted, said, well, we've got new city councilmen coming in, in January and a new mayor, we'll let them handle it.

And then it took a radical turn.

It went from a stated plan to provide managed access to, no, let’s tear down the stairs instead.

It was a 180 diametrically different from the 90% input of the public.

I get it, that the neighbors, after 20 years of frustration, had given up confidence in the government doing it right.

And if I lived in the neighborhood, I would feel that way, too.

(music) Sean Pager: There’s so many simple measures one could do, or just have a really good fence at those choke points the way like marinas do, where there's no other way to get around it.

And you can have motion detectors and you can have some other simple precautions, but I think it's not that hard.

If you are a little bit, a little bit intelligent and determined, you can close access.

Matthew Kievlan: All the way up at the top of the first steep section, a security booth there that has a physical security around it.

Right?

So, you, you can’t get past it, that steep section.

There is literally no way around that barbed wire.

And the security guard has the option to open the door if he pleases or she pleases or they please.

And if the guide just shows I've, I've got these people, they, they went the legal route, not through the neighborhood.

Not bothering anyone.

These eight went with me.

Now we can go to the top.

I think the right number is 6 to 8 per guide.

You bring them on through that barbed wire enclosure and that's it.

It's the most simple plan ever.

Sean Pager: And we're not asking the city to repair this.

Just give it to the community.

Let us take a hand.

Our friends at the Kokonut Koalition, they fixed their staircase using entirely volunteer labor and donated materials.

So, whatever the cost is, it's not going to be measured in taxpayer money.

Narrator: Formed in 2018, the Kokonut Koalition is another nonprofit that works to preserve a World War II radar tramway, now a popular hiking destination on Oʻahu’s East Side.

The coalition successfully worked in partnership with the City and County of Honolulu to implement emergency temporary repairs in 2021 and organized community volunteers in the largest public works program in the history of the state.

At the base of the trailhead, the Friends of Haʻikū Stairs petition hikers to join their cause.

Hikers: And then he just left.

For the rest of the day.

He was like, all right, I got my tickets for the day.

Wait, so police were ticketing people on the mountain?

At the summit, he was putting out $1,000 fines for tourists that were going up there.

Wow.

Where was this?

At the top of stairway.

Yeah.

But it's, it's legal to climb to the top.

Yeah.

People were coming down to, like, turn back now, if not worth it.

I was like, well, after these this many hours, it's definitely worth going out to see the top.

So yeah, I'm all for signing that.

And then if you have social media, please spread the word.

Tulsi Gabbard: Absolutely will.

We really appreciate your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, guys.

Ernest Shih: I think the people supporting the stairs don't have the emotion that the people who want it torn down have, and the people who want it torn down, are relating to their personal situations of people trespassing or breaking in, or going through their yards, which, as we all know, is a product of it being illegal, not a priori related to the stairs, but nevertheless, because the inaction of various government officials.

They don't think any solution is possible except to get rid of the stairs.

And so that's rather unfortunate.

I think the stairs are magnificent.

They're irreplaceable.

You couldn't build them for $100 million, but yet they exist, and they want to take it down.

There's just, you know, Hawaiʻi has a history of getting rid of really nice things and that's unfortunate because this is one of the most magnificent things we have.

Sean Pager: We're addressing our message to leadership, but they have not been responsive.

And I don't see them changing soon until they actually are confronted with the fact that the public does not want removal.

And when the public gets to know the true facts about just how costly, dangerous and difficult removal is going to be in terms of the logistics, in terms of the legal obstacles, in terms of just the scale of the endeavor, ripping a 2.2- mile metal staircase off of 2,300-foot rise in incredibly hostile terrain.

There are all kinds of challenges and expenses, and I think the public is fed up with the city having badly managed projects, and they don't want to pay for that, particularly when there's a much better solution, particularly when removing the stairs actually won't solve the problem and we don't need to remove the stairs.

News reporter: Kualoa Ranch is about 5,000 acres of private property.

If the Haʻikū Stairs were to be rebuilt here, it would be on ag land and going up to conservation land.

If they come down, how about put them up someplace else?

And if that is a viable option, then we'd like to consider putting them up here at Kualoa Ranch.

Vernon Ansdell: I think it's an interesting creative solution, if you like, but I think really the stairs have to stay where they are.

Ernest Shih: This is something that all of Hawaiʻi should enjoy for multiple generations, and we should allow guests to come.

And the guests can help pay for the costs of maintaining the stairs.

Help pay for things that would help, help us offset the impact of tourism.

Jennifer Pierotti: I know personally we've spent as much as $500 to go up the stairs and I would tell anybody it is worth that and more.

You just think that there's no possible way that you can do this, and then you do.

It gives you a sense of accomplishment that I've never seen or felt anywhere else in life.

And I think that the stairs can be saved and maintained in a way to where the privacy and respect of the neighborhood below isn’t intruded by hikers and then people can still experience what is behind that neighborhood.

Ernest Shih: The Sydney Bridge is iconic and people climb up the bridge by permission now.

It used to be illegal and there was a cat and mouse game for many years with the police and people who were wanting to climb the Sydney Bridge for very valid reasons.

It's iconic, the view’s amazing.

It's a thrilling climb.

Well, now they've made, made it a tourist attraction.

It's one of the top ten attractions in Sydney.

I try to go on it but I couldn't afford it.

It was like a couple hundred dollars, but it was, it was fully booked.

So, I envisioned something like that for Stairway to Heaven, that where, where people who really want to experience it and have never done it and dream about doing it all their lives.

They can do it, for a price.

And the people who are local, they can do it because it's supported and it's you have to think about what's it going to be like 5 years, 10 years, 100 years from now, if we can maintain that as a piece of history, as a piece of, of wonderment that was engineered in a fantastic way, I think if we can maintain, it'd be easy to maintain from a financial way, from a physical way.

It'd be really easy to maintain.

So, I don't know why the government would not give us a chance to do it.

Hikers: I’d say $20 to $25 bucks is probably fair.

$15, $25 seems pretty reasonable.

For a reasonable price.

I would say twenty, $20, $25 tops.

I pay like $5 to $10.

It's a challenging hike on its own, right?

So, I feel like I'm the one that should be paid.

Yeah, I think with the how hard this hike is it's so beautiful too, and it's something to be proud of.

I wouldn't mind paying a reasonable fee as well to be able to say, I've done this.

Hell yeah dude.

If the if they can like fix some of that and make it a lot more safe I'd say, I’d pay a fee.

I’d pay 10 bucks.

Oh yeah.

Like to make things more safe, for sure.

Ernest Shih: I hope that the leaders can, take a proper poll, a scientific poll, give, give, manage access a chance.

You know, give us, give us five years to see if it works.

If it doesn't work, then tear it down.

At least you've tried.

Sean Pager: But I think there's also some political willpower opposing exactly where that is coming from?

I can't say.

We hear rumors, and to me it's kind of like, you know, dark matter or something.

You can't actually see it, but you can see its effects.

And what I know about the history of this issue, time and time and time again, we've seemed like we had a solution and a path forward.

And then some calls were made and strings were pulled and doors that were open get closed.

And we have to recognize that there are some powerful people that don't want this.

Exactly why they don't, I can't say, and if I could find that out and address those concerns, I would love to.

But otherwise, we need to, you know, not let a few people for what I think seem to me, I can only tell are manipulating an issue and raising phony objections and spreading misinformation, but they're trying to do something that the public doesn't want and stop, something the public does want.

And that's, it's a powerful opposition, but I don't think it can stand indefinitely.

If there's concerted effort to mobilize public opinion.

Bill Hicks: How is it that in Hawaiʻi you can't do something as simple as managed access?

It's not rocket science.

It's an obvious solution that has not been enacted in 20 years because of insufficient political will and squabbling between different government agencies.

It's a complete embarrassment and our credibility as one of the 50 states as opposed to a third-world nation, sometimes comes into question.

Why can't Hawaiʻi figure this out?

And there are so many related benefits that would go with it, if it wasn't just the stairs, but it was also a cultural and educational experience.

People learning about the Hawaiian values and respect for the ʻāina.

Mahealani Cypher: And, the public is eager to come back in to the valley to visit it for recreation or other purposes, for exercise.

In the 1990s, the Koʻolau Foundation had several community meetings.

This was before the Coast Guard closed and before it was decided to turn the land over to Hawaiian Homes.

We met with the community, and the community we asked them what they wanted to see here and they wanted to see a nature, cultural and nature park.

They wanted someplace where they could come back into the valley and enjoy the beauty of this valley and, you know, learn about it.

And so that's what we've been trying to do.

It's in our cultural preserve plan.

We want to restore a native forest.

We want to convert the transmitter building into a cultural and cultural center and museum.

We want to create a healing garden here at Kānehekili Heiau.

We want to put in an outdoor classroom so that teachers and organizations can come up and teach any subject.

You can teach geology and history and culture and all kinds of different things from under these outdoor classrooms.

Children seem to learn a lot when they're on a site.

It's actually the ‘āina teaches you.

So, when you're on a place, you learn more about it just from being there, rather than learning about it in a classroom or on a video.

So, we're hoping that those kinds of things.

There's also the idea that we want to set aside a section of land for hula hālau to plant their greens that they use for performances, so they don't have to go gather in the forest.

They can gather from their own areas within the valley so, it's a protected area.

And we also want to set aside a section for iwi kūpuna, for burials that are found in the course of construction or for indigenous Hawaiians who cannot afford, you know, a burial plot in a in a commercial cemetery.

So, there's all kinds of things we can do here, and it's all good for the community and for generations to come.

Sean Pager: It’s just so special on so many levels.

Both the history, the World War II story about the Navy project and how they came to do this thing, and the incredible acts of personal heroism that went into building this in those dark, desperate days after Pearl Harbor.

They were able to build this thing that had never been done before on this incredible, monumental scale, really a landmark technological achievement in terms of communications and engineering.

And with that, the natural setting that they chose is just so incredibly stunning when you're up in that summit and just all the way climbing up the ridge to get to the summit of Pu’u Keahiakahoe.

You are jutting out on this ridge that protrudes from the Ko‘olau, Pali, and you have all around you’re just enveloped with incredibly, heartbreakingly beautiful scenery.

You have to the north of the Pali the fluted cliffs of the Pali 2,000-feet high, near-vertical, draped in dark green wild vegetation all the way to the Pali Highway.

And on the north side you have the Haʻikū Valley itself, with that incredibly beautiful horseshoe shaped amphitheater that's sort of attracted the Navy in the first place.

And it's just so stunning, you know, with that as well, the whole rest of the island kind of spread out at your feet.

The views that just envelop all of Kāneʻohe Bay and Kailua all the way to Waimānalo.

And then on the other side, you can see glimpses of views on the town side, across Pearl Harbor to the Waiʻanae Mountains.

I mean the panorama is just, your eyes just struggle to absorb it.

And it is so dramatic.

And also, the moods can change.

Sometimes it's enveloped in clouds and mist and mysterious, and other times it's bright sunshine and just sparkles with beauty.

But it's such a special place and it's just tragic that it's on public land.

It's a public property that was built with public dollars, built by the Navy, originally maintained by the Coast Guard, later repaired by the city.

All this money was invested to it with taxpayer money on public land.

And yet it's been closed and inaccessible.

So, it was something that was enjoyed.

And generations of people, particularly on the windward side, it was in their backyard and was part of their traditions and kind of a landmark, iconic landmark that remains treasured.

The fact that we haven't been able to reopen that and make it accessible to me, it's just a monumental failure of government.

Mahealani Cypher: I don't have mixed feelings about Haʻikū Stairs.

I think they are a very important part of history.

They are over 50 years old, so they're eligible to be on the National Register of Historic Sites.

So, the Haʻikū Stairs really should have been preserved.

I'm disappointed that the city has decided to dismantle them.

I don't know if the city has satisfied the federal requirement, because there's a historic preservation covenant that requires the landowner that received the land from the feds after the station was closed requires them to preserve and protect the historic properties... historic buildings on the site.

And the Haʻikū Stairs is historic, so I don't understand that.

But whether or not it has any hope of being saved, I don't know.

It's up to the city to, to weigh that desire to tear down the stairs against the historic value.

I thought it was an opportunity to teach the world about Hawaiian history, about Hawaiian environments.

You know, I wanted to teach people from all over the world about Hawaiian values.

You know, the culture, our history of what happened to the Hawaiian nation.

So, I was disappointed to, to think that we may be losing that opportunity.

William Aila, Jr.

: With regards to the department’s interest, we own a tiny sliver of land on which people are trespassing to get to the stairs.

The majority of the land is owned by the city, and so it's really a county issue.

Currently, the city council has voted to remove the stairs appropriated money.

The mayor is supportive of this action.

So that's the current action on the table.

It would be.

It's not my place to tell the county what they should do.

Rick Tabor: So, I think that’s Mayor Blangiardi’s you know, plan, and Tommy Waters and the city council to tear it out was a good plan and is a good plan.

And I understand it would be $1 million to remove it.

But think about what the lawsuit would be if folks after went after us, you know, for something that happens there.

And I know it went up 30%.

And I'm thinking that might have been because of the pandemic, but I do think it's worthwhile to tear it out.

I like the idea of a cultural center.

There's so much history over there and all over the island, I think is important to maintain.

That doesn't carry the liability, though.

Mo Radke: To be able to learn something about the culture, to be able to learn something about military history, to learn something about Hawaiian history, to learn something about all of the other things that are connected to the stairs.

We lose out on those opportunities.

And the more we as a group, as a people, the more we tend to lose our past, the less likely our we are to understand what's good, what's a good future for us.

Hikers: I would keep them, I think, the history, because I think there's a bunch of history here.

I wouldn't say tear down the stairs, but I would say maybe like repair them, keep some of the history, but also make it safe for tourism.

It's a beautiful scenery.

I definitely say save them, don't tear them down, and also don't tear the stairs down.

It's part of Hawai’i.

Agreed.

Narrator: The fate of the Haʻikū Stairs remains precariously in the balance now more than ever.

Honolulu City and County officials must carefully weigh the popular opinion of thousands of worldwide advocates versus the well-being of residents in the valley below.

Many believe state or federal officials should intervene to preserve these historical sites and ease the strain on the affected neighborhood, although the outcome remains yet to be determined.

Whatever happens, these stories will forever be a part of Hawaiʻi's history.

(music) Credits