Kaua'i 5: Hiking the Kalalau Trail

On Monday morning, August 30, 2021, Linette and I got up before 6 a.m. to prepare for our hike on the Kalalau Trail, which my coworker Von Landon called "the best hike in the world."

We went to the local grocery store shortly after it opened at 6 a.m. to get food for lunch and stuff, and then we all packed our backpacks and headed out. There was a landslide along the north shore a few months back, and due to the construction, the road would only be open to the public until 7:45 a.m., after which we would have to wait until 1 p.m., which would ruin everything. So we were anxious to get there in time. 

Fortunately, we made it just fine. As we continued our drive, we saw a school soccer field and wondered if the kids took their view for granted (like we do with our view of the Rocky Mountains).

It was a beautiful day for a hike.

We had to buy morning, mid-day and afternoon passes in order to have time for our long, steep hike, which started at Hā’ena State Park, where we walked through this tunnel of trees.

Our plan was to hike two miles to Hanakāpī‘ai Beach, then another couple miles up to Hanakāpī‘ai Falls and back, with a picnic lunch somewhere along the way. The total hike would be 9.1 miles with 2,600 feet of elevation gain (and loss) along the way.

So in we went.

The trail was pretty good, though we heard it can get really muddy when it rains, which is quite often. In fact, we heard it pouring rain the night before and were a bit worried, but it dried up for us.

Here we are when we're all still feeling good.

All along the trail, we caught glimpses of the beautiful green coastline by the blue-green water.

And it was pretty lush jungle most of the way, which was gorgeous.

Here are some more of those really tall exposed roots.

Adam hasn't gotten out much during the last few years, so he stopped to rest pretty often. I rested with him "just to lend moral support." :D (I actually didn't mind the excuse to take breaks).

We'd try to rest where it was shady and had a view like this.

Or this.

Here was one of the few overlooks along the trail where you could see beyond the nearby trees.

Then we were back at it.

During one muddy part, I wondered if covering the trail with leaves would help. Nope. One place was naturally covered with leaves, and it was pretty slippery still.

Up, up, up.

As we neared the beach, we found a helicopter landing spot. Adam spun around in a helicopter imitation. He may have been losing it by this point.

We started getting used to the pretty hike, but when I got home and looked at the pictures, it reminded me that it really was pretty.

Finally we got within view of the beach.

We had to cross the Hanakāpī‘ai Stream to get to the beach.

Most of us hopped across on slippery rocks.

Linette had water shoes, so she just walked right across. Adam slipped into the water a bit, but his phone made it through ok, so no harm done.

The beach was nice. However, I read that there were dangerous currents here. (One guy on TripAdvisor saw a kid get swept out to sea by the current. He said that the dad booked it over to grab this floaty thing and jumped in the ocean to swim after his son. Those on the beach wrote "SOS" in the sand and flagged down one of the tourist helicopters. An hour or so later, a rescue wave runner came by and was apparently successful in rescuing everyone. But that was pretty scary.)

In lighter news, I saw some frogs.

Having reached the halfway point, we continued our hike up towards the waterfall.

Adam decided that he would set up the hammock we brought and read a book while we hiked up to the waterfall. That actually worked out well, because then we could leave our lunch and stuff there and hike with a lighter load. I was pretty tired, too, and toyed with the idea of staying there with him, but I decided to head up, and was glad I did.

As we hiked, we came across a stand of huge bamboo stalks that creaked and cracked as they rubbed against each other in the wind.

This section of bamboo looked like it was painted until we looked closely and realized that it was natural.

The trail followed the creek, and was pretty muddy in spots, even though we had great weather that day.

Finally we got within view of the waterfall.

We had to cross the creek at least three times along the trail.

I loved the little cascades and pools as we neared the waterfall.

The section of Hanakāpī‘ai Falls that we could see was 400 feet tall, which was pretty impressive. The full series of falls is apparently 1200 feet high.

After hiking up the muddy trail, we all had muddy legs that we looked forward to washing off in the river.

So one by one, we stripped down to our swim suits and waded into the cold pool below the waterfall.

The falls looked so narrow from far away. Up close, they were pretty huge.

We all took turns swimming right under the falls.

Here's a video of Linette and then Sienna and Jared swimming under the falls. It gives you a sense for the magnitude of the falls.

I went back behind the falls, too.

After going behind the falls and swimming through them, I floated on my back looking up at the water pouring down, and it looked so cool. A gal on the shore commented that that looked "epic". It was.

After hours of hiking and sweating, it was wonderful to swim under the falls.

We took one last look and headed back down the valley.

The little pools looked inviting, so I waded into a couple of them.

This tree had fallen over and it was so mossy!

The river crossings went well on the way down.

As I was walking along one ledge, I lost my balance, and lunged forward past Sienna to avoid falling off. I grabbed some weeds and shrubs to catch myself from sliding off, and fortunately that all worked and I didn't get hurt. When I got up, I was mostly unscathed except for dozens of little sticker seeds that stuck to my shirt, hair and socks. I was picking those things off for the rest of the day.

But near-disasters aside, the going was easier down than up.

We finally arrived back at the beach to find that Adam had enjoyed reading and exploring during the 4 hours that we were gone. 

After hiking over 6 miles, Jared, Linette and I each took turns in the hammock (while others ate lunch) and it felt amazing!

Then we all explored the beach and the caves around it.

Here is Linette's foot during her turn in the hammock.

We thought we needed to get back before 5:30 (not true it turned out--we had until sunset), so we started back.

This tree looked like it had pineapples on it, but pineapples grow on a bush, so...

It turned out that whatever that is, it breaks up into these seeds that look like huge candy corns.

This is probably too many pictures of the view along the way, but I kept just thinking, "Seriously?"

And here's a little video of Jared and Sienna dancing to a song while they shared a pair of AirPods (music dubbed in after the fact).

Finally, we got back to the "tree tunnel" at Hā’ena State Park.

The park has a bunch of taro plants (a traditional staple there) and other crops that are heavily watered.

A guy at the park said that the landslide road opens at 5:30, but that it's always backed up at first, so to wait until 6pm to avoid the traffic. So we spent some time checking out this cave.

We had fun exploring the cave, which goes back some 300 yards, and was formed back when the ocean levels were higher. And there are legends of a fish-stealing evil spirit trapped here or something.

The acoustics were fun in the cave, so here's a little video of the kids singing "What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?" for no particular reason.

More pretty mountains on the way back home.

Linette thought these trees looked like that kind that would host a dog party (like in "Go, Dog, Go!")

It was a very long day, and we were completely wiped out, but there's something about going on a beautiful but difficult hike that makes you feel awesome.

Just one more! In the final episode, we recover from the hike at Anini Beach and make our way home.

Aloha!