October 25, 2017

Kathy and I were celebrating our 28th anniversary with a stay in Princeville on Kauai, so I decided to add a hike I’d long wanted to do. This gave her a day at the spa and pool while I got to tackle a nice challenging hike. We’ve done snorkel excursions on the Napali coast, and have kayaked the length of the Napali coast, and each time I caught glimpses of the trail and knew I’d do it some day.

The Kalalau Trail on the Napali coast on the island of Kauai is on most hiking and backpacking bucket lists, and is even noted as “one of the world’s most dangerous trails”. Most folks just hike out and back the first two miles to Hanakapai’ai Beach for a highly scenic and fairly reasonable outing, and our family has done that a few times. To go further requires a permit, and most hikers will take 3 or more days to backpack to, and camp at, Kalalau Valley. Having held some fitness from my summer backpacking, I opted to make it a long day hike; 22 miles round trip with about 5,000 feet of elevation gain.

Kathy kindly got up before sunrise to drop me at the trailhead, and I was off shortly after sunrise to give myself ample time to make the trip before dark. The island had been hit by a large storm for a week before we arrived and for the first few days we were on island. Since the trail skirts cliffs above the ocean, and crosses several streams which are prone to flash flooding I was grateful that the weather broke just in time for me to hit the trail on the second of two days for which I had a permit.

Past Hanakapai’ai the trail is very rugged and almost all up and down. Some sections are very narrow treads precipitously cut from cliffside, and others take you through dense tropical forests. Though I was passed by a trail runner, it’s a hard trail to make good time on, but I was motivated to get back before dark, and to avoid getting caught out by high streams if a storm rolled through again, so I pushed to get to Kalalau Valley in 4 1/2 hours, and made the same time on my return to the trailhead at Ke’e.

Trail information from kalalautrail.com website

The Na Pali Coast is a very special place. The pali, or cliffs, provide a rugged grandeur of deep, narrow valleys ending abruptly at the sea. Waterfalls and swift flowing streams continue to cut these narrow valleys while the sea carves cliffs at their mouths. Extensive stone walled terraces can still be found on the valley bottoms where Hawaiians once lived and cultivated taro.

The Kalalau Trail provides the only land access to this part of the rugged coast. The trail traverses 5 valleys before ending at Kalalau Beach where it is blocked by sheer, fluted pali. The 11-mile trail is graded but almost never level as it crosses above towering sea cliffs and through lush valleys. The trail drops to sea level at the beaches of Hanakāpīʻai and Kalalau.

Originally built in the late 1800’s, portions of the trail were rebuilt in the 1930’s. A similar foot trail linked earlier Hawaiian settlements along the coastline.

 

Photo Album

https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipN8o2U69x44D3sbd6-9hzFykcJbS_swNElf6Une