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.

The Needles

Some friends had recommended that if i went anywhere around Moab, i should go to the Needles District. They were right. It looks like i have a new No. 2 favorite location Utah. The Needles District of Canyonlands blew my mind due to it's insane and very active geologic history.



To quickly sum things up (leaving out millions of years of interesting details and early histories), the whole area experienced two uplift periods that occurred, crazily, at 90 degree angles, cracking up all the bedrock into a unnatural geometric grid. But that was only the beginning. While that was happening, the Colorado River was sitting around eroding sediments to the west, until it accidentally exposed a hidden layer of salts underneath all the sandstone.




The north portion of the district offers exploration of a forest of stone towers.

Salt has the peculiar property of behaving like a liquid when it's under great pressure. Not quite like water, but it will flow like molasses or toothpaste over time. When the Colorado exposed the salts, it opened an escape route out from under all the overlying rock. The salt began quickly flowing out into the river and the great masses above began sliding along the salt, also into the river. Today the river is actually losing the battle and is actively being pinched off. It's no coincidence that this location, Cataract Canyon, also happens to be the most infamous rapids on the entire river and nearly ended the Powell expedition almost as soon as it started.





Meanwhile, back over to the east, the whole earth has broken apart as great blocks of rock have moved toward the river or sunk as the salt moved out from under it. A whole system of parallel valleys (called Grabens) has evolved in just 50,000 years, and is actively growing right now. For a more detailed explanation you can look at the national park website


Two hikers walk out to an overlook on the far northern edge of the district.




I don't know why but i felt like i was in some hidden kingdom of Africa while driving through the grassy grabens. I kept expecting to see herds of zebra and elephant.

I went to the Needles the first day not really knowing what to expect and got there too late, so i ended up running and climbing around like a maniac before the sun went down. I went back the next day. From Moab it seems to take close to two hours to get there, and once there you have to decide where to go in the area. I decided to go out into the Grabens via the infamous Elephant Hill road. Elephant Hill is one of the most difficult dirt roads in Utah, and it sure as hell was the most technically difficult road i've driven. I've been on a few dirt roads during my time, but by the end of that day on Elephant Hill i'd experienced a whole new level of "off road" driving. According to TrailDamage.com the trail is rated in a category that is: the highest challenge for a stock Jeep Wrangler without body damage, winching, or possible breakage.You will need 4-Wheel Drive and you should not go alone.

A very steep hill made much easier by concrete patches.


Inside the squeeze. Notice the folded side view mirror.


Another, even steeper hill. Believe it or not, there were a few places even steeper, but i didn't trust the emergency brake enough to get out in those areas.




The beginning of the Silver Stairs. This area was more fun than hard.

With no spotter (i was alone unfortunately) it was very slow going, having to get out of the jeep myself many many times to find out how the heck i was going to get up or down every obstacle along the route. It's the first time where i regularly was staring at nothing but sky on the uphill portions, where i was hanging in the air restrained only by the seat belt on some of the downhill portions, where i had to bend the side mirrors inward to pass through narrow portions, and definitely the first road i've been on with signs telling you the switchbacks are so narrow that after descending one, you have to put it in reverse and back down the next one, putting in back into drive at the next set. Describing the route more accurately requires a new lexicon of terminology. I understood why a regular truck was not recommended.




A pseudo cave on the Joint Trail. You can see a crack in the roof and the sky is visible through it.


Shelter from the sandstorm.


An intersection in the joint complex.


A very windy slot canyon that eventually offered a way on top.

My exploration by road was halted when i realized i might not have enough gas to get back if i continued onward. I stopped at a place called the Joint Trail, which goes through an area called Chester Park. Although i was saddened to have to stop, the trail was perfect for the weather conditions. The high pressure system that brought the snow was being forced away by high winds bringing warmer temperatures. Windblown sands limited visibility at times causing hikers and campers to flee, their faces covered with shirts. I've been in worse sandstorms, although i would have preferred NOT to have sand in my eyes and mouth, and it was strong enough to sting the legs. I had to keep my camera tucked away for much of the day.


Above the joints and grabens was a surreal cityscape of fanciful stone pillars, or "needles".





The joint trail provided perfect shelter from the sandstorm. It climbed into a maze of the pedestals and followed the natural joints between them. When it did emerge above ground i seemed to be above most of the sand, although it was still very windy. I vowed to return.


I made it off the Elephant Hill trail right at sunset.


Part of the Chester Park area.


Newspaper rock. I recognized newspaper rock from a history book way back in high school.


Island in the Sky is visible on the horizon.

Island in the Sky

One summer at Bullfrog, on the stark shoreline of Lake Powell, the temperature climbed to around 120 degrees for two weeks. During that time we discovered a way out of the heat by driving up into the highlands. The nearby Henry Mountains rise up 12,000 feet to sub alpine meadows. Gazing eastward across a wide martian landscape, our vision was unhindered all the way out to the La Sal Mountains in Colorado. We couldn't really make sense of the landscape in between. It literally looked like red martian satellite imagery.



This past spring I decided it was time to visit Canyonlands National Park. I've only heard good things about it, and although it was right next to Lake Powell, the logistics in getting there during that time were out of balance with the million other, closer places that were available for exploration. I left Alaska, and arrived in Utah just in time for a freak April snow storm. I got to drive through snow most of the way from Salt Lake to Moab. Knowing the storm was coming I didn't take long to settle into town before heading up into the park that afternoon. I needed exercise just to stay awake anyway.



Canyonlands is divided into three naturally defined geologic areas (although a fourth area exists at the almost inaccessible west side of the park). The afternoon when I visited the Island in the Sky District, the most accessible area, the temperature was a foggy 26 degrees with blown snow squalls. I wasn’t happy about it at all. I had left Alaska precisely to get away from the snow. The good news was that although I was walking through a blizzard, I was quite comfortable, since the storm was still quit a bit warmer than I’d been most of the time for the previous 6 months. It was actually a nice day to walk the dog, although my dog would immediately kill himself in such a place.




Another squall approaches. Quickly too, it only took a few minutes for it to overtake me.

Walking in snow in the desert was a new experience for me. Slickrock, covered in ice, is definitely some slick rock. That had to be kept in mind when walking near cliffs, which was usually where I was. The snow also covered up small groups of cacti. Retracing my steps to find my way back in the poor visibility that first day I saw numerous cacti sticking out from my footprints. Luckily I never got pricked on the sides of my shoes.




That morning it was just perfect in the sunlight, but like a refrigerator in the shade.


In the distance, the Henry Mountains in sight proved to me that many years earlier i was looking out across Canyonlands.

Yet another hazard created by the sticky snow were snow bridges that covered up wide joints between blocks of stone. The cracks were big enough to fall through, sometimes hundreds of feet, so upon seeing a rift come in from the cliff edge and disappear under the snow, I felt it was wise to make a wide berth around it.


I needed to go here for sure.


This just looks ridiculously impossible. I had to find a way.


Wanted to go here too.


The Green River

The next morning I returned. I had hoped to get up before dawn to catch a sunrise picture, but that didn’t happen. It’s such a long drive from Moab that by the time I got back to the hotel I would have had to gone straight to bed right after dinner in order to wake up in time. I did manage to get back to the park pretty early. Somehow the following morning was crystal clear. The sunlight was warm enough that I only needed a light jacket despite an air temperature of 26F. In sunlight the redrock covered in snow was very pretty, and I soon found myself leaving the viewpoints and wandering far off along the edge to see how far I could get. The views below were spectacular, and I could clearly see the Henry Mountains far to the West. For those of you who worked at Bullfrog and went up into the Henry Mountains, I can now say with certainty that you were looking out over Canyonlands without knowing what you were seeing. I vowed to come back for some sunset pictures, but I never did. There were simply too many other options to take advantage of.


I couldn't see the bottom of this canyon, so i couldn't tell how tall that column was.


There was so much detail to see you couldn't even make sense of it.


It looked dry and almost sunny in the bottom of the canyons.