Hiking in Kauai, Hawaii on the Kalalau trail to Hanakapi’ai Beach then on to Hanakapi’ai Falls on the Napali Coast was...
Kalalau Trail Travel Logs
Kalalau Trail Documentary
Dario Garcia made this documentary about his visit to the Kalalau Trail in...
Hiking the Na Pali Coast’s Kalalau Trail
https://kalalautrail.com/hiking-the-na-pali-coasts-kalalau-trail/My straw hat is flapping around my head like an entangled seagull, the gusting wind yanking the string it’s tied with right into the lump in my throat. My knees are weak, partly because of the long uphill climb behind me, and partly due to the gaping precipice in front of me. Four inches from my right foot, the crumbly terra-cotta trail opens to the wind, sun and gravity. Hundreds of feet below, the waves shred themselves against the sharp rocks, their booms taking several seconds to reach my throbbing eardrums.
Kalalau Hike
It began as two words typed into a web search engine: hiking and Kauai. I was planning a trip to Hawaii and wanted to visit the island of Kauai in spite of it’s claim to being home to the Wettest Place on Earth (a close second is Barry’s pants moments before we sit down to a high stakes cribbage match).
Kalalau Trail on the Na Pali Coast
The Sierra Club rates the Kalalau Trail as one of the most difficult trails. I did not know that when I applied for a permit six months before flying to Kauai. I had heard that it was the most spectacular overnight hike, with amazing views of rocky cliffs on the edge of the ocean and deep jungles with countless flowers. I found both descriptions to be true.
The Na Pali Coast on a Time Budget
We were lucky. Three of us, John, Eric and I, went to Kauai in February 93 on a work trip. All expenses paid. It sounded great and it was great. Three weeks on the garden island, but only a few days without working to see and experience all that Kauai has to offer.
Getting To Kalalau
At six a.m. on a dazzling Kauai morning, my husband and I stood impatiently in Captain Zodiac’s storefront in the one-horse town of Hanalei, hoping that the drop-off boat to Kalalau would run.
We were on our way to one of the most remote, and most beautiful, beaches in the Pacific. There are no roads to Kalalau. It’s smack in the middle of a thirty-mile run of vertical sea cliffs, and devilishly hard to get to. The average person has two choices.