Hiking the Kalalau Trail-Part One

Soon after Matt and I decided to visit Kauai, I began researching some things to do there.  One of the reasons we chose Kauai (okay, the main reason) was that Kauai offered relaxation and adventure.  We wanted both!  My parents and my sister and her husband have both visited Kauai and told me about the Kalalau Trail.  They had each visited the trail and trekked about 1-2 miles.

I began to research the trail and found that the most popular part of the trail is to Hanakapi 'ai Falls, 4 mile round-trip, amazing, gorgeous, hike.  It is a popular trail and fairly busy.  Matt and I were driving to his parents' house one evening and I was telling him about some of the fun things I had found for us to do in Kauai.  I mentioned the Kalalau Trail and that we could go on a beautiful 4 mile hike.  Matt asked why we could only go 4 miles and I explained that to travel farther on the trail required a permit and they were pretty hard to get.  He asked where the permitted portion of the trail went and I told him what I knew.  (11 miles each way, lots of elevation gain rugged trail.)

The Kalalau Trail

Well, when Matt heard that, of course, he wanted to do it.  Matt was able to find a permit for the days we would be in Kauai.  We began to research everything we could find on the trail.  It is supposed to be amazing, everyone who does it loves it.  It is recommended that you be in pretty good shape.  I would say I am in moderately good shape. Probably not good enough for the trail.  A lot of the research we found said that you need to stay a minimum of 2 nights on the trail, preferable more.  Matt asked if I wanted to spend another night, and I said definitely not.  (We were already losing money on a pre-paid hotel on our vacation to camp.  Two nights seemed unthinkable!)  Well, there were no more available permits anyway.

The hiking trip was to take place on day 5 in Kauai.  Early Monday morning, April 4, we woke up and left our hotel  We had an hour drive to the trail head.  We were ready to hike around 6:30 am.

At the Kalalau Trail Head (yes, Matt carried almost all of our gear.  This hike was something he really wanted to do and he knew that I was not as excited as he was, so he kindly tried to make it as easy on me as possible the whole way.  Matt has a lot of experience backpacking.  This was also only my second-ever backpacking trip.  The first was last summer with our kids and it was only 2 miles roundtrip.  :)  Talk about jumping right in!

Showing my true feelings (slightly terrified) as we begin the hike.

Trail information.  Most visitors hike to Hnakapi 'ai Falls.  Anything further requires a permit.

View of Ke'e Beach from first lookout.  We were knocked out by beautiful views immediately.  I will let most of the photos speak for themselves, with minimal commentary.

The Na Pali Coast

The Hanakapi'ai River

This river flows from the waterfall higher up the mountain and goes right to the ocean, near where we crossed.

The beach at Hanakapi'ai

Crossing the "pig gate" to access the permit only area.  Seriously.  It keeps out the wild pigs.

Unreal.  Jungle on the left, ocean on the right.  So beautiful.

Lunch break at Hanaloa (6 mile mark).  We also filtered and sterilized water here.

Mile 7 was much more sparse and rocky.

Crawler's ledge.

Hopping across a little stream.

Nearing the Kalalau Valley

The trail heading into the valley was lined with the beautiful flowers that smelled so good!

First glimpse of Kalalau Beach

There is not an official campground, but there are designated spots to camp in.

Very tired, dirty and sore.  Cleaning off in the little waterfall next to the beach.  (Probably one of my least favorite photos ever, but we only took two here and the other one was worse.  Like, a lot worse.)

After we had cleaned up a little and set up camp, we cooked our dinner and Matt had also brought along some supplies to make dessert (because he knows I love dessert!).  

Chocolate pudding for the win!

Our camp spot.  There was no one even close to us.  It was awesome.

Stove, crystal light, dinner clean up.

Sunset.

We slept great!  It was warm and comfy and a beautiful night.  We were nearly asleep when someone came up to our tent demanding to check our permit.
We wanted to hit the trail early the next morning, but there was a short rain storm that delayed us a bit.  As a result, our tent and bags were quite wet.

Beautiful morning!!

A mountain goat on our trail

A whole family of mountain goats.

A few miles in, we were passed by a local hiker who told us that a big storm was coming.  We knew it was supposed to rain that day, but it was supposed to be a short, storm like most in the area.  We stopped at Hanaloa again to make food.  Since were were hiking by 6:15 am, we were starving around 10am and we were making good time, so we made that our lunch break.  We were half-way done so we ate most of our food and left only two granola bars.

As we left Hanaloa, it started to rain.  And rain and rain and rain.  It poured buckets on us for about 3 1/2 hours.  It had stopped raining by the time we reached Hanakapi'ai stream, 2 miles from our car.

Because of all the rain, we witnessed a flash flood.  More to come on the Flash Flood story, also known as Two for the Price of One. 

I would absolutely hike Kalalau again (although I needed a few days to recover).  It was challenging but so rewarding.  I have never seen anything so beautiful.  I would definitely recommend taking it slower than we did and camping multiple nights.  It was an amazing experience.

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