Kauai Hiking

Maui offers virtually no hiking at all, except in the National Park, and there are few trails even there, especially down by the sea. Kauai has lots of trails, and has some of the best scenery in the world to hike through. I had 4 or 5 hikes in mind, but only managed three. One hike was along the Na Pali Coast, one was just a short jaunt to a freshwater jungle swimming hole, and one was a long 11 mile loop hike from the top of the island to the high cliffs along the Na Pali Coast.

Na Pali means "the cliffs" and this part of the island stretches for 15 miles. There the coastline is completely undeveloped. The only trail at the bottom starts at the end of the road on the north side of the island and runs for 11 miles to a place called Kalalau Valley. We began the trail and followed it for two miles to the first beach. Beyond that requires a day use permit. The hike was strenuous, but not as bad as we had heard. Maree had brought big rubber boots and i had worn gaiters, because everyone we talked to said it was one of the muddiest trails they'd ever been on. When we were there it was so dry it was almost dusty, so our extra preparations just made us hot.

Some of the plant scenery along the trail to the first beach.

The big hike i did is called Nu'alolo/Awa-'awapuhi Grand Loop. It starts at the top of the island at the Nu'alolo Trailhead. That trail leads 4 miles to spectacular Lolo Vista, which offers view of the ocean and the adjoining valleys. From there you can take a connector trail, known as the cliff trail, for just over two miles to Awa-'awapuhi Trail, from which you can get back to the road in 3.7 miles. Unfortunately to complete the loop you must walk down the road for 2 more miles.

I had gotten up early to try and make it to Waimea Canyon so i could get some pictures of the sunrise before I started my hike. I forgot that people actually live on the island, and have normal lives, and I got stuck in some morning school traffic in a couple of small towns along the way. I missed sunrise, but a Japanese photographer who had already been there for two hours told me that the sun rise wasn't worth seeing anyway, because it had been so hazy.

 This is a beautiful sandy beach in summer. I've seen pictures of it. In winter strong deadly currents rip all the sand away and store it off shore.

I got some early morning shots and continued up the mountainside to the trailhead, which was difficult to find. There weren't any signs, and the trailhead was questionable. There were several other trails nearby that looked equally legitimate. I wasn't completely sure I had taken the right path for a couple of miles.

The Na Pali Coast. It's all the rain that carves those intricate features.

It's a strenuous hike, and you lose a lot of altitude that has to be made back up at the end.You lose 1,400 feet in the first 4 miles and coming back you gain 2,000 feet. Additionally, the trail is dangerous. The ground is made of wet clay in many places, and I fell down hard twice in the first twenty minutes. I was more careful after that.

When you get to Lolo Vista, you walk out of the forest onto a very high, sparsely vegetated volcanic ridge. The view from the end of the first canyon arm is one of the best valley views i've seen anywhere. You sit out in the open, perched on top of one of those crazy shaped canyon walls, peering down thousands of feet to the jungle canopy and the ocean. It seems incredibly remote, until you hear a rooster in the bottom of the valley where nobody lives. I had to wonder if there was any escape from those things.

The view from Lolo Vista is amazing. From here i took a trail that runs along the side of the cliffs on the right side of the picture (not visible) for two miles,
all the way around the back of the valley.

I hung out for about 45 minutes on the cliff, looking down at helicopters flying in the valley far below me. A huge cloud materialized out of thin air, and instantly filled up a large portion of the valley below. A helicopter down there had to make a high powered, emergency escape over a nearby wall to get out in time. It was an impressive maneuver, and an eye opener as to how fast the conditions could change.

This is what it looks like off the side of the Cliffs Trail. By the time i had to scramble across the landslide i was glad i couldn't see down any more.

I figured i'd better get going, and started on the two mile traverse of the cliffs. Ominous signs said the trail had been washed out and was very dangerous. My guidebook said the same thing. I've been on many trails that claim to be washed out, but most of the time it means the trail is a little eroded, or at most has become narrow in a place or two. In this instance the trail was really washed out. After about a hundred yards the trail disappears at a very bad area. At this point the trail is not on the top, but along the side of the valley wall about 100 feet from the top, and thousands of feet from the bottom. In place of the trail was a loose, muddy rockslide, made up of softball sized rocks. The slide is about 25 feet wide and the other end of the trail starts 10 feet higher than the near side. There is a tremendous amount of exposure.

A weird part of the trail through a dense patch of skinny trees.

It was enough to make me reconsider, especially since I had a new found fear of the wet sloping clay that the good part of the trail was made of. I had become angry about the fog that had rolled in, obscuring the views, but in this case I think it was comforting, keeping me from seeing how far down I would fall if i slipped.

This area was back in the nook of the valley, where a waterfall would normally fall off the cliffs. The fog felt nice and the birds seemed to love it.

The rockslide gave way a little with each step, but I made it across quickly, and that was the only area where the trail was damaged. It's scary, but aside from the vista that two mile stretch was  the most interesting part of the hike, even in the fog.

I took my time on that portion of the trail, saving my energy and hoping the fog would lift, but it didn't, until I was well on my way back to the road. I did the trip in 5 hours, and a group of old hikers from Seattle picked me up on the road and gave me a ride the last mile back to my car. They had done the same hike several times before the trail was damaged, and said that second viewpoint that I couldn't see from the fog wasn't nearly as nice as the first one. So that made me feel better.

 

 

Some views out the helicopter of the coastline. The big wall on the left side of the upper picture is the same wall on the right side of this lower picture (blurry because we were flying closely past it). It shows how incredibly thin some of this high cliffs can be.

Flying so low over this stuff was a real thrill.