The Road to Jaws

I had such a good idea for this blog post. It was going to be the perfect triumph narrative where the main character (me) achieves his lifelong dream and comes back a hero. Unfortunately, mother nature, or maybe a guardian angel, had different plans. Instead of getting to tell the story I hoped for, I get to tell a funnier one that highlights the reality of traveling rather than an idealization of it. 

To give a bit of context, I started surfing in the 5th grade with a goal of one day riding the giant waves at Peahi. Peahi, aka “Jaws” is located on the North Shore of Maui and is arguably the best big wave in the world. Jaws only breaks on the largest winter swells of the year, so it is rare for a trip to Maui to coincide with one of these swells. In all of my trips, I have never been when Jaws was breaking.

I was hoping my most recent trip would be different. I conjured up the perfect scenario: young kid has aspirations to one day surf massive waves, kid grows up into capable surfer, and on his only year off, he finally gets the opportunity to live out his dreams.

In an almost cruel fashion, the surf forecasts were initially calling for a giant swell. A week out from departure, I was mentally preparing because the stars looked to be aligning for a miracle. As luck would have it, the waves never arrived.

The great thing about Hawaii is it has so much more to offer than just gigantic surf. Frances, her father Tim, and I all enjoyed many days of great kitesurfing, multiple normal-sized surf sessions, and paddle boarding with humpback whales. Between all of our outdoor activities we made time to watch Netflix documentaries and celebrate Tim’s birthday at his favorite restaurant. 

The only thing the trip lacked was a bit of struggle to turn it from a vacation into a travel adventure. At one point, I said this out loud to Frances, and I think the Hawaiian gods must have heard me loud and clear.

On our final afternoon, I asked Frances to come with me to see Jaws, even though I knew it wouldn’t be breaking. After watching countless videos of the area, I wanted to at least set eyes on those fabled cliffs.

The road to Jaws is a 2-mile long muddy path through overgrown forest. Being a typical Californian, who has no experience driving in rain, I did not realize it was a bad idea to take a 2WD pickup truck on a slippery road riddled with giant potholes and puddles.

Our first clue that this may not be the best decision was there were over 10 crashed cars on the short stretch of road. In the moment, I assumed the cars had been dumped there on purpose because it was a cheap method of disposal. I now realize it is more likely the drivers slid out and crashed, and there was no way of getting the mangled vehicles back up the hill.

Regardless, we made it to Jaws quite easily. After half an hour of eating wild guavas and admiring the stunning scenery, we figured we should head back before the distant rain clouds decided to unleash on us. 

My biggest mistake in all of this was not recognizing why it was so easy to get to Jaws. The road was downhill going towards the coast, so the truck slid relatively effortlessly from pothole to pothole as it was gently guided by the hand of gravity. Now, I had to drive back uphill and somehow find traction in the mud.

The first part wasn’t too steep, so we made it through with only some minor skidding. Eventually though, I found myself partway up a hill, using full gas, but still sliding backwards in the mud flow. This was the point where Frances appropriately recognized she was better off exiting the vehicle and watching me flail from a distance.

Since I clearly wasn’t gaining any traction, I decided to reverse back down to the flats to get a running start. About 100 feet from the base of the hill, I began revving the engine. I threw it in to gear and took off full speed, but the same muddy, 4-foot-deep ruts eventually got to me, and I had to do the reverse of shame back down the hill. I tried the same thing a few more times and basically reached the same spot before sliding back down. It was pathetic. I needed a new plan of attack. 

Luckily, while I had been ramming the car aimlessly up an impossible slope, Frances had thought of some ideas. Somewhere in the bushes, she had discovered the rusted remains of a shovel. It looked like someone used it to bury a body and then snapped a piece of the wooden handle off to remove any fingerprints. Given the circumstances, I was very willing to risk having my DNA mixed up in a potential murder case to hopefully get our rental car back to safety, so I did some digging to help level out the road.

The second, and more important, part of her plan was to disable our anti-skid system in the car and put the engine in overdrive mode. I didn’t really understand what this was going to do, but overdrive sounded like more power, and more power seemed like a good idea. With a supercharged car and a few inches dug off the tops of the lumps in the road, I felt like this could be my chance.

When I hit the gas, the truck behaved like a bull that accidentally sat on a cattle prod. It took off fishtailing down the road, with mud flying in every direction. I legitimately thought I was going to crash our rental car in the bushes. My mind went blank as I bounced and skidded my way up this hill. When I got to the top, so much smoke was coming from the tires that I could see it coming in the car through the air conditioning vents. Frances and I both thought it was a good idea to give the car some time to cool down.

Once the smoke cleared, and the engine cooled, we continued up the rest of the muddy trail to where it finally met paved road. I have never been so happy to see asphalt. Our timing couldn’t have been any better because literally within a minute of making it back to the real road, those rain clouds unleashed their fury. Even after the downpour, I still spent over an hour the next day removing handfuls of mud from the underside of the truck in hopes of getting our rental deposit back.

So what’s the moral of this story? For one, don’t take 2WD pickups offroading. They don’t do well in mud. The bigger, and probably more important, takeaway was a reminder that life does not usually work out like it does in books and movies. There is no inherent reason our chapters must conclude with a happy, scripted ending, no matter how much we may want them to. True adventure is filled with random challenges that blindside us at every corner. To some, that may sound discouraging, but I promise the unpredicted struggles are ultimately the most meaningful.

-Chris Buchanan