Kauai, Hawaii
Day 4 - Kalalau Trail


Day 4 we attempted the Kalalau Trail. This is Kauai's most famous trail, starting at the end of the road on the north shore at Ke'e Beach. It's 11 miles one way, with the first camp being 2 miles in at Hanakapi'ai Beach. The trail winds along Na Pali coast and gives some great views along the way. We hiked to the 2 mile point, had a snack and headed back. Bring lots of water, you get dehydrated much quicker in Hawaii, it's warm and close to the equator. The hike in is mostly downhill, which makes the hike back particularly painful. There's about 1000' elevation gain for this portion of the hike.

	This is the beginning of the trail and you can get an idea of what most of the trail is like right here. Lots of tree roots and rocks on the trail, and wear shoes you don't mind getting red, there's a lot of red dirt and mud on this trail.
And this is a good indication of the incline of most of the trail. For the first 1/2 a mile or so, you're going up until you get to a good viewpoint of Ke'e Beach to the north and Na Pali coastline to the south. From then on it's switchbacks mostly down (until you turn around of course.)
	Ah, the first glimpse of Ke'e Beach through the trees. There are a number of peek-a-boo views of the ocean and beach until you get above most of the trees.
And here's the view above the treelines. You can see how clear the water is at Ke'e Beach and the huge reef that calms the waves down. This was one of our favorite snorkeling spots. Lots of different fish although during the winter it is a bit less calm than I was totally comfortable with.
Here's a panorama of Ke'e Beach from one of the viewpoints. This is also a lesson in why you manually set your camera and keep the same settings for every picture. One of the pictures was rather underexposed because the meter caught the white of the waves. Ooops. This viewpoint isn't very far up the trail, and is quite worth getting to!
Finally! We got the 1/2 mile mark where you can see Na Pali coast. It was a blessfully clear day (although this made the trip back extremely grueling) and we could see quite a ways down the coast. We had to wait for this vantage point, there's only room for a couple of people on this outcropping and if you stand anywhere else there's a large tree in the way.
	Here's a closer view of Na Pali coast. The only way to see the coast on land is to hike it. There are no roads along the west shore. The other popular ways to see Na Pali coast is by boat or by helicopter. Later on we took a helicopter ride which was amazing. I highly recommend it!
Further along the trail we kept getting different glimpses of Na Pali. Each time we came out along one of these ridges we'd see a new view. Good thing since the destination itself wasn't quite what we were expecting. One other cool thing about the trail and it's proximity to the ocean was pointed out to us by some random guy from Mercer Island (yes really!). We could see spouts out in the ocean, and as we watched we could see a couple of whales breaching! We stayed and watched that for a while before heading on.
	Almost there, here's another view of the trail. Still very rocky. Lava rock is easily eroded and it almost looks like you can see the erosion taking place. A lot of the trail is in the sun in the afternoon, keep that in mind when you make this hike. On the way back the near constant sun exposure definitely started to get to me.
The inlet that you can almost see is our destination, Hanakapi'ai Beach. There are apparently campgrounds there although we didn't see any. However, you would have a hard time beating the setting.
	When you see this river, you know you're there. Just cross it and go a few steps to get to the beach. There's also a 2 mile trail along the river that takes you to Hanakapi'ai Falls. We didn't feel like undertaking a 4 mile side trip, so I can't tell you how it is. We did sit and enjoy the shade for a while, though!
Ahhh, the lovely black sand beach. Okay, rocks, whatever. There were a number of rock towers around, you can see them in this picture. I have no idea what they're for. According to the books (I can't verify this yet), during the summer, this beach actually has sand. During the winter, all the sand is carried out to the ocean, and in the summer it's brought back. There was certainly no sand when we were there.
	This is a good picture to show you why swimming isn't recommended at this beach. We watched the wave show for quite a bit while we tried to cool off. We really wanted to jump in the water, but we weren't about to try it.
Here's your typical Hawaiian curling wave. I wouldn't recommend this beach for surfing either, though.
	Another view of the beach, just over this hillock is where the river feeds into the ocean. To the right, out of the picture, are a couple of trees that we sat under to eat our granola bars. It's one of the few shady spots on the beach.
This is the reason you need to tie up your food when hiking the Kalalau Trail. There are a number of feral kitties like this one who are more than willing to steal your food. This guy came and inspected us while we ate our granola bars. He wouldn't let us pet him, but he seemed semi-friendly. After finishing up and waving to the cat, we headed back. After a very rough climb we practically fell into the ocean at Ke'e Beach and cooled off by snorkeling for a couple hours. Can't beat that for a cool down!

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All photos copyright Anne Sullivan