Kauai Day 3: Monday

Okay this is our big day, a LONG hike. Originally we had planned to take a kayaking trip to see the Na Pali coast. 17 miles of ocean kayaking in one day; after some serious though we decided to hike the trail instead and not do the whole thing. In hindsight this was a good idea. We woke up early and had a big breakfast and made sure we had all of our supplies for the day, water, snacks, and band-aids (we both have blisters from our new water/hiking shoes). We drove even further north past Secret Beach to the very northernmost place you can drive to, Ke’e Beach. During the drive up you go through the best part of Kauai, the part where I would want to live. It is more remote, less touristy, and just so beautiful! After parking at Ke’e Beach we started the Kalalau trail, the first 2 miles of the trail lead to Hanakai’ai Beach. Those 2 miles of hiking are straight up for 1 mile to the top of the lookout, and then a steep winding down to the ocean level.


It is a tough hike, muddy, slippery, and steep, but well worth it, the scenery is great. John says that it really shouldn’t be called a trail, it’s not like it’s flat and easy it’s more like rock climbing. We arrived at a river just before the beach, a great place to swim and cool off.
Just past the river is the beach, and while it was pretty, it wasn’t fantastic. There was a sandbar that left a nice place for people to swim protected from the waves.
After some discussion and evaluation of our muscles, we decided to continue further up the river on a 2 mile side trip to the Hanakapi’ai Falls. We started the trail thinking, oh… this looks easy. Boy where we wrong! It was a VERY strenuous hike. You are lead through some beautiful forests with huge bamboo trees, and lots of great scenery. For the first mile it is an easy hike, but the last mile is a killer. There are several stream crossings. It is muddy and downright treacherous! You’ll notice there are no pictures, that’s because we were trying not to die! Maybe I am being a little over dramatic, but it was tough. One time we thought we had made it, we saw these smaller falls, we were not impressed for all of that work. Then a fellow hiker, told us to keep going, we were glad we did. We were at the wrong falls. When we finally made it, the falls were amazing, my pictures don’t do it justice. You get to a huge semi-circle of rock that is so tall, and a huge pool that the waterfall empties into. The water is probably the coldest thing I have EVER swam in, but after 4 miles of tough hiking, it feels great.

After resting and cooling off, we had to hike another 4 miles back to the car, not something our bodies were going to do willingly. We were definitely feeling the pain now, and return trip was not as pleasant. By this time it was getting late and we decided we needed to hustle to get back before the sun set. You don’t want to be walking on this trail in the dark. We made it back in plenty of time and fell into the car for our ride home. We were exhausted! Even though we were so tired, it was our favorite day of the trip so far, where else can you do hiking like this and see so many different things in one day? On the drive home we passed by Hanalei Valley and I had to stop to take a picture. This area is full of farmland and it is quite breathtaking