The Road To Kamakou Acrylic Print

The road to Kamakou cuts a swath through verdant pastureland that’s been refreshed by recent heavy rains. The partially cloud-obscured summit of Kamakou, Moloka‘i’s highest mountain peak looms mightily in the distance.

Kamakou is the highest peak on the island of Molokai, at 4,961 feet. It is estimated to contain more than 200 rare native Hawaiian plants, many of which exists only in this part of the world. The rain forest of Kamakou is like no other forest on the planet.

Established in 1983, Kamakou Preserve was The Nature Conservancy’s first conservation easement in Hawai‘i, totaling 2,774 acres. Kamakou is part of the East Moloka‘i Watershed, which encompasses more than 30,000 acres of rain-forested mountains, remote valleys, and towering sea cliffs. At the heart of Kamakou is the origin of Moloka‘i’s primary irrigation system; a five-mile tunnel continuously delivers fresh water from the source at Kamakou to the 1.4 billion-gallon Kualapu‘u Rese...

I've lived in Hawaii since 2002, 1200 feet above sea level, on the small rural island of Moloka'i. It is very quiet here, with only about 7,400 residents. I appreciate the quiet life after spending 35 years as a commercial illustrator, senior art director and design director for major advertising agencies and design studios in Chicago, San Francisco and Palo Alto California. I've always loved cooking. In 2002 that love led me to a degree in the Culinary Arts just before moving to Hawaii. Since then I designed and built a house, worked in local restaurants, self-published three cookbooks, and took up photography as a hobby. Now retired, I spend most of my time developing recipes and photographing them, plus researching and writing...