Descendants to retrace trek

By PETER SUR

Tribune-Herald staff writer

When Joseph Baker stood atop the summit of Mauna Loa in February 1794, he made history as one of the first westerners to climb the world’s largest mountain.

History records that it took about two weeks, a double-hulled canoe, and the help of more than a hundred Hawaiian porters for Baker, a third lieutenant in the Vancouver expedition, to reach the summit from Kealakekua Bay and return.

On Monday, with the help of a four-wheel drive vehicle, his descendants hope to make the trip in a single day.

Three brothers, Andrew, Peter and Timothy Twiddy, the great-great-great-great-grandsons of Baker, are preparing to hike to the summit along with Andrew’s son, James Twiddy.

They say they came to honor both their own notable ancestor and those unnamed Hawaiians who helped Baker reach the highest point on the rim of Mauna Loa’s Mokuaweoweo caldera.

Archibald Menzies, the Scottish naturalist, is credited with making the first recorded ascent of Mauna Loa, but he was also accompanied by Baker and Midshipman George McKenzie, and an unnamed servant who carried a barometer. Baker, a surveyor, is credited with producing the first accurate maps of what were then called the Sandwich Islands.

The following account comes from Walther Bernard, a professor at SUNY-Fredonia, who published a book on the early eruptions and explorations of Mauna Loa.

Menzies consulted with Kamehameha I on Feb. 5, 1794, on the means and best route to reach the summit. Told that the most likely way was on the south side of the island, the party traveled by canoe to the fishing village of Pakini near the southern tip of the island. From here they walked to Kapapala and began their ascent on Feb. 13.

Here they climbed the ancient Ainapo Trail, which began at the 2,000-foot elevation and was used by priests of the Pele clan during times of eruption.

By the evening of Feb. 14, the party reached the upper edge of the forest above Kapapala, at about the 6,500-foot elevation. The temperature was 28 degrees the following morning, and the grass was whitened by hoar frost.

Most of the natives were dismissed at this point, and a smaller group continued upward, sleeping again at the edge of the snow line, about 11,575 feet.

The temperature the next morning fell to 26 degrees, and the air was “excessively keen and piercing.” More members of the party were sent downhill to the base camp at the edge of the forest, while the rest continued upward on the summit area. They reached the summit caldera of Mokuaweoweo around 11 a.m.

The party split again, and Menzies, Baker, and McKenzie, and the servant hiked to the highest point on the western rim of the caldera.

The return journey was completed in a day.

Menzies recorded that they “set out on our return to the encampment where we were so fortunate as to arrive safe at ten at night, after the most persevering and hazardous struggle that can possibly be conceived.”

Their journey was such an ordeal that no westerner is known to have climbed the mountain for the next 40 years.

Perhaps fortunately for the Tweedy family, the lower reaches of the 34-mile Ainapo Trail are overgrown and inaccessible. It had fallen into disuse in 1915, and despite a rehabilitation in 1993, National Park Service staff discouraged them from retracing the steps.

Andrew Twiddy, 52, is a Anglican priest living on Vancouver Island, Canada, and is originally from Scotland. James Twiddy, who turns 25 on March 19, is a landscaper in Victoria, British Columbia.

Peter Twiddy, 50, is a doctor, and Timothy Twiddy, 47, is a financial planner; both live in Scotland. They arrived in Hilo Friday night.

“It was 30 years ago that I discovered my ancestral lineage,” said Andrew Twiddy, on the Big Island for his third trip. “It’s my brother’s 50th birthday and James’ 25th.” So they decided to mark the milestone with a hike to one of the most difficult, most remote, coldest landscapes in all of Hawaii.

“He (Baker) took about 15 days to do it,” Andrew Tweedy said. “We’re going to do it in 15 hours.”

That doesn’t mean the trek will be easy. The plan calls for the four men to stay overnight in a cabin at Mauna Kea State Park, about the 6,500-foot elevation.

Then, sometime around dawn Monday, dressed in three layers of clothing, they’ll step out of their car at the 11,150-foot Mauna Loa Observatory for the final hike to the summit. The National Weather Service says the temperature will be 36 degrees.

From there they’ll reach the true summit by early afternoon. They will be using day packs, but they’re packing extra food in the unlikely event they have to stay in one of the cabins on the far side of the caldera overnight.

“We’ve been warned that about 50 percent of the people that attempt the summit suffer altitude sickness” and have to turn back,” Andrew Tweedy said.

The Tweedys want to be clear that they’re coming in a spirit of mutual respect.

“We won’t take chances,” Andrew Tweedy said. If someone gets altitude sickness, they’ll return to lower elevations. “We don’t have to prove anything.”

However the trip goes, the descendants of Joseph Baker are thinking about climbing one more mountain. In 1792 Baker was surveying the Pacific Northwest coast when he spotted what was described as “a very high conspicuous craggy mountain.” Capt. George Vancouver gave the 10,781-foot snowcapped volcano, a part of the North Cascade range, a name that has persisted through today — Mount Baker.

Email Peter Sur at psur@hawaiitribune-herald.com.