By Nathan Yuen - Jan 23, 2012

 
The first tribute I wrote about Mebel Kekina was intended for the general public.   But I have more to share about her, particularly for the members of the Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club (HTMC).

 Mabel’s interpersonal skills were so strong that I need to expound on them.  Mabel loved to talk and had a warm and friendly manner that made her instantly likeable.  Whenever a new face showed up for trail maintenance, she welcomed them with open arms and made an effort to get to know them.  Over the course of 29 years with HTMC, Mabel developed many friendships and was universally liked by people in and out of the club.

Her people skills were especially valuable on search and rescue missions.  Mabel spent a lot of time talking to the family members of lost hikers to learn personal details about them.  She also invested time with the search and rescue personnel at the Police and Fire

Departments.  Many of these men are gruff and unapproachable but they were not immune to her charms.  So disarming was her way that many ended up telling her things they otherwise would not have shared, which made her all the more effective in finding lost hikers.

 Mabel was a good story teller.  Her trail maintenance crew spent many Sunday afternoons listening to her stories.  Some of these conversations continued on the phone.  Whenever Mabel called I knew I had to set aside the next 1-1/2 to 2 hours – she loved to talk.  I know at least one married man in the club got in trouble from his wife for talking with Mabel on the phone.  Being a man of few words, his wife found it disconcerting that her husband would talk to Mabel at such length and suspected something might be going on.  But I digress.

 I must have spoken to Mabel on the phone at least 20 times, much of it for the 100th anniversary of the club when I was collecting information on hiking injuries and deaths in the club.   I also spoke to her at length after finding the body of the Norwegian professor near the Kealia Trail in May 2011 who was missing for 7 days.  Mabel fastidiously collected information about each case.  She scribbled notes in a notebook and clipped hundreds of newspaper articles.  She behaved like a detective who collected and poured over the details of each case.  The circumstances of three lost hikers were particularly unsettling to her – cases where the hikers were never seen again. This is what she speculated.

 In 2008, John Parsons, a visitor from Australia, went hiking on the Waimalu Ditch Trail and disappeared.  A pig hunter saw him on the trail and a search was conducted for weeks without success.  A few months later pig hunters found some bones and Parson’s ID which prompted Thomas Yoza to search again where upon he found a part of a human skull.  The police have never disclosed whether any of these remains belong to Parsons and the case remains unsolved to this day.  Mabel spoke to a number of people involved in the case and speculated that foul play is involved.

 In 2000, Robert Lefevre was reported missing by his wife who said he went hiking.  When Thomas Yoza found his car at the trailhead on California Avenue, a search was conducted on the Wahiawa Hills Trail and surrounding area.  Lefevre’s water bottle was found at a small waterfall close to the trailhead but after weeks of searching he was never found.  Mabel spoke to many people involved in the case and after re-examining the circumstances, Mabel speculated that his disappearance on the trail was staged and that he left the islands for an unknown destination.

 In 1995, Wade Johnson, a BYU student, and his friend went backpacking on the Koolau Summit Trail.  With thick clouds shrouding the northern Koolau Mountains they lost their way.  His friend stayed put (and was subsequently found and rescued) – but Johnson embarked on his own to find a way out.  Tracks were found leading to Upper Kaluanui Valley and a helicopter searched the narrow canyon which tragically crashed killing the pilot and searcher.  Johnson was never found.  Mabel speculated that Johnson descended the canyon and became trapped (could not return the way he came) and had no choice but to descend the even taller more treacherous waterfalls downstream.  She believed that he fell to his death and that his remains are at the bottom of some pool at the base of one of the big waterfalls.

 Mabel had a sharp inquisitive mind driven to unravel the mystery of what happened.  But although she relentlessly pursued the truth, her manner was always tempered by empathy for the family of the lost hiker and an innate understanding of  human nature.

 My friendship with Mabel was by no means unique – she developed close relationships with many people in the club.  In the last year of her life, I sensed that she told certain things to me so they could be documented and passed on to posterity, some of which I have written about in my blog and shared in slideshow presentations.

 But I have withheld a good number of things she told me as well.  Mabel was a communications hub at the center of club’s informal network and had a personality so disarming that a good number of you – you know who you are – shared some very personal stories with her.  Some of these anecdotes – the best one dripping in embarrassment and humiliation – have been passed on to me which I could very well divulge in my blog at any time.  Be afraid hikers.  Be very afraid.