Talk Story with Dominique and Jeff Gere
HTMC Talk Story #21
This month’s installment occurred on a nice, sunny morning with a lovely couple. As I walked to the front door of their home, the sound of their beautiful water fountain and the cool breezes flowing through their bamboo set a nice scene for our talk. We sat on the lānai to enjoy the view and the smell of tiare nearby. During our time together, they even offered me one of their favorite trail treats (more on that below). It was a wonderful place to have a talk story.
The Essential Questions
Favorite trail food:
Dominique – Well, we are vegetarians and don’t eat sugar a lot. We make many of our own snacks and love organic peanut butter. I recently created a recipe for energy balls with macadamia and brazil nuts, cocoa powder, and dates. Before I just used whatever I felt like putting in, but then I really paid attention to the amounts and think it is perfect now. We also take them to our regattas, and they are very popular. Veggie burgers are another favorite.
Favorite hike:
Dominique – Poamoho. I like that it really feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere. The views are gorgeous, and it is a surprising hike in that it has surprises around each corner like native plants and snails. Kaʻala is a close second. There are also plants and snails there, but you have to wait until you are in the bog to see more of them. When you are up there, you think, “Wow. I am at the top of the world”.
Jeff – Any hike in which I follow my wife. Do you notice how her face starts to light up when she describes these hikes? And when she goes away hiking without me, she comes home happy.
What’s in your pack:
Dominique – We do not have a lot of gear like spikes and poles. I ignore the best advice of others and just wear whatever hat and a long sleeve shirt I got on sale at Costco- the same, beat up, stained one every week. I think it was on sale for $2 or $3. The only thing that is really important goes on our feet. I discovered when in Canada with a friend that cotton is death when it comes to hiking and camping. Wet socks won’t dry out in this climate. Your feet will be all pruned when you cross streams. So I like Darn Tough merino socks.
Shoes are also important. I buy them on sale in children’s sizes because I have small feet. I have also had two surgeries on one foot and so need good quality shoes (when they’re on sale) and keep them for years. I like to shop local at Uloha. Keens with hard soles are good for the lava, softer soles make me feel better when crossing rivers and slippery rocks.
Jeff – We are definitely not going for style points with what we wear. I have flat lūʻau feet, so my shoes have to be wide.
Favorite book/movie about hiking:
Dominique – We like Stuart Ball’s book, but we just like learning from and talking to other people. We really enjoy picking Larry’s brain because he is such a wonderful hiking knowledge resource.
Jeff – He does extreme hikes for seniors, and we really enjoy learning about the trails with him.
What is your favorite/most memorable hike elsewhere in the world?
Well, perhaps the most memorable one was near Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan. We were staying at a hotel across from a famous mountain and decided to hike it one day. It was Christmas Day, and we were on vacation, so we started late. It turned out to have many stairs, quite straight up, and it got progressively more rustic as you ascended. Then it started to rain, and we questioned what we had gotten ourselves into. It was like a Larry hike because we were there for hours, all the while thinking there’s gotta be a plateau somewhere. We ended up gaining 2,000m of elevation and got soaked with sweat and rainwater only to have no view. Then we worried that we wouldn’t make it down the mountain in time to catch the boat that we needed to be on to get back across the lake. It was horrible.
We came down pretty fast, but Jeff’s leg started aching, and Dominique says, “I’ll run and stop the boat”. The boat was about to leave when she got there, but it waited. So when we got back to the hotel room, we got comfortable and then ate some dragonfruit and drank wine while watching the sunset from our room. It was very memorable.
For a favorite, we do not have to go elsewhere because we love to hike Haleakalā every year. We do the entire crater in one day. It is so beautiful there. One year we made the mistake of doing it in February, though, and it would not stop raining. We got very cold. Every pore just got soaked, and by the time we got to the car we couldn’t move our fingers. So we stripped down to start changing. We are sure we looked very suspicious to other people in the parking lot with the car shaking and clothes being thrown around. But now we always go back in the summer, and it is just spectacular. Everything is so gorgeous there.
Why did you join HTMC and what does it mean to you?
Dominique is a member, and Jeff is a friend of the club. We love hiking and sometimes trail clearing (Kaʻala was beautiful this year), but we do not get to participate as much in the hikes these days. We have become very involved in paddling (it’s a cult), so we are always practicing, working on our technique, and competing on the weekends. For us, HTMC is more of a social group, and we love attending the events. We loved the lūʻau, attending the talk about Vietnam, lei making, and so on. One day we had a regatta and left early, went to Waimānalo, swam at the beach, took a shower at the clubhouse, and attended a gathering that night. It was a lovely day, and it is so nice to have a place to go to and see friends.
How did hiking bring you together?
Dominique – I was living in Cambodia just after the coup, and the whole country was in chaos. You got used to the sound of gunfire and bombs. Once, years later, I was with a friend driving somewhere and a firecracker went off nearby. In no time at all, I was underneath the dashboard thinking it was an explosion, and my friend was looking at me like I was crazy. Another time I was on Manana, and there was some kind of metal electrical device on the ground, and I stopped in my tracks. I thought it was a landmine. You had to cultivate a sense of survival to live in Cambodia during that time, and that sense of being aware and responding to danger stays with you.
I was also 89 pounds and had amoebas. There was an institute there that studied tropical diseases, and I participated in studies for them. Then I got into a motorcycle accident. After I got hurt, I would look up into the mountains and get so sad thinking that I would never hike again. My injury got so bad that I thought they might have to amputate, and I didn’t want to live without a limb even though I knew you could live a normal life without one. So I decided to come to Hawaiʻi because I had been here before during my travels and had a good group of friends. I knew that there would be time and space for me to heal here.
My friends would help me by getting me into the ocean near Kaimana Beach. I used my upper body and learned how to use my hips to move in the water. Slowly but surely, with small steps, I recovered. One of the biggest factors in my recovery was going to the Gold Coast Gym where a woman named Lynn, who had a doctorate in kinesiology, trained people with injuries. She was maybe 5’1” and 5 feet wide. She was tough, and the gym was in her living room. She used to ride around on her Harley Davidson in board shorts and sports bras. She was a character, but she was very good at helping people get back into their body.
Jeff – She would talk in a husky voice and really make you work for every step. But skip to the end of the story and this lady here, after 6 years, could pick up things at least equal to her weight. It’s a miracle and a story of someone who persisted in being strong, overcoming physical calamity, and getting up again. The mountain goat gene is alive and well in Dominique. Meanwhile, around her in the gym, was this handsome haole guy who made her laugh.
Dominique – Our first date was an HTMC summit hike (perhaps Schofield) that was very difficult for Jeff. At one point, he fell down and was quickly buried in uluhe. He had on converse shoes and was surfing on the mud at every turn. I would turn around and see a leg in the air and then the other leg and thought to myself, “What is wrong with this guy?” But he made it to the end and back, and he was better prepared for the next hike. So he passed the audition, and I ended up taking a liking to him.
Jeff – I knew I had to work for this one- typical guy pursuing a girl stuff. That was 23 years ago.
Do you have concerns about the future of hiking in Hawaiʻi?
Access to trails is getting more limited, which came across very clearly at the last general meeting. But the presence of the trail and mountain club is a good counterweight to that. With getting access to some trails that are not public, helping to clear, and having a constant public presence, it shows that hiking can be done responsibly. Maui, Kauaʻi, and the Big Island all have their own charms, but we are lucky on Oʻahu that we have many hikes to choose from, and HTMC is one reason for that.