The beautiful Na Pali coast

This morning I dragged Gavin to our last, longest, most strenuous, and most challenging hike of our trip: two legs of the Kalalau Trail on the Na Pali coast.  Our plan was to do eight miles: two from the start at Ke’e Beach to Hanakapi’ai Beach, two miles in to Hanakapi’ai Falls, and back to the start again.  Since we didn’t big enough bottles of water to attempt a long hike, we had to wait until the Last Chance Wainiha General Store to open so we could buy a couple liters of water for the trail.  Our tree house was conveniently located about 10 minutes by car away from Ke’e Beach, but we discovered we weren’t the only people interested in this trail; we had to park almost a half mile away from the start of the trail!

The first mile of the trail hiked up the cliffs to awesome views of the coast from above and huge waves crashing onto the cliffs below.

The Na Pali coast.

Gavin is smiling now, only 1 mile into the hike...  :)

The second mile started to get a little muddy and slippery, and led down to the Hanakapi’ai Beach.  The water there was so tempestuous that we couldn’t even see any sand, just the worn-smooth lava rocks out of which visitors had made many balanced stacks.  No swimming is allowed here, before the final descent to the beach is a wooden sign with a death tally of more than 80 people killed there!  We stopped for a snack and some water, then continued inland to Hanakapi’ai Falls.

Hanakapi'ai Beach. 

Definitely no swimming here! The photo doesn't do justice to the waves
crashing in all directions on the beach!

Lots of little man-made rock piles on the beach.

The trail to the falls immediately got quite a bit more challenging.  It wasn’t any more challenging in steepness, but the terrain got more difficult – the trail was mostly mud and various sizes of rocks covered in a layer of slippery mud; each footfall had to be absolutely precise!  My five fingers shoes were GREAT for this since they allow so much more feeling of the ground underfoot and use of grippy toes!  :)  The interior of the jungle was still really beautiful, though we couldn’t spend too much time looking around; we’d trip/slip and fall if we weren’t careful with every step!  We also had to traipse back and forth across Hanakapi’ai stream tiptoeing across rocks and trying not to fall in.  :)  Our hike was also delayed by people coming back the other way; many parts of the trail only had room for one person at a time so slip and slide over the rocks, and there were quite a few people on the trail.

After two miles of slugging through mud and dodging peoples’ hiking poles (we were one of the few people without them  :)  ), we arrived at Hanakapi’ai Falls.  Several other people were leaving as we arrived, so we ended up having it to ourselves with one Australian guy who was kind enough to take a photo of us.  We swam for a bit in the frigid water of the 300 foot (!!) pool at the base of the falls.  

Our first view of Hanakapi'ai Falls.

We made it!

Falls and the pool underneath.

Gavin and I at Hanakapi'ai Falls.

Time for a swim!!

The hike back down from the falls seemed to go much quicker, as there were fewer people on the trail, and it was all downhill.  It started to rain, but we didn’t mind since we were already wet and muddy.  :)  The hike back from Hanakapi’ai Beach to Ke’e beach was rather tiring, since that was much steeper and it was the last two of our eight miles.

Rainstorm on the Na Pali coast on our way back. It was only sprinkling
a bit where we were standing. 

The hike back up from Hamakapi'ai Beach.
The strip of red is part of the trail.

Gavin trudging up the last two miles of our hike.

All in all, the whole hike, including the extra mile to the car, a couple water/snack breaks, and swimming in the waterfall pool, took us about 6 hours.

We went to dinner in Hanalei again, this time trying the Kalypso restaurant.  We got to sit on the outdoor deck and had a decent meal.  I also tried a lilikoi margarita (lilikoi is passion fruit), which was delicious!

After dinner we went to Tahiti Nui, a “tiki dive bar” in Hanalei.  This bar was the only time on the trip that “felt” like how I expected Hawaii to be.  We sat in the fresh air, listening to an older man sing slow, sensual hula music. Two of the waitresses (the singer’s nieces) took a break from serving food and danced hula to a couple of his songs; one of them was like 9 and a half months pregnant and could STILL dance hula!  We ended our night there, sipping mai tais and passion fruit margaritas in the warm night.