Kalalau Trail Articles

The Kalalau Trail along the Napali Coast was listed as part of USA Today’s 10 Best Hiking trails. The Na Pali Coast is a very special place.

Several hikers were stranded at Hanakapi’ai on Sunday, April 6, 2014 when stream waters swelled up making it unsafe to cross. The Kauai Fire Department was notified of the issue around 4:00 pm on Sunday and were able to rescue 23 of the stranded hikers on Sunday evening, along with the remaining 98 on Monday morning. They were able to rescue up to 4 hikers at a time with each flight of Air 1, their rescue helicopter, making a total of 25 trips. 2 of the fire rescuers stayed with the 98 hikers overnight.

Over Spring break, Ikaika and I decided to hike Hawaii’s best known trail: Kalalau. The trail is 11 miles long one way and ends at a famous camp spot. Originally planned as a 4 day and 3 night event, we ended up shortening it to 2 days and 1 night while still completing all of the 22 miles, camping at the beach, visiting one of the major waterfalls, and capturing the Milky Way along the way.

This waterfall is at the end of the 4-mile (one-way) day hike on Kaua’i where you go down 2 miles of the Na Pali Coast, and then you follow a valley away from the ocean up a stream, which you cross many times until you find this waterfall at the head of the valley, after 2 more miles. It’s pretty hard to get lost, but it’s easy to fall in the muddy rainy season. As you can see, it’s a popular hike… and well worth it.