Visiting the Garden Isle: Day 2, Part 1 – Hiking Na Pali!

Want to start at the beginning?  Here’s Day1. 

Here we go!

Normally, when I write vacation blog posts, each day has its own entry.  Given the ridiculously excessive number of photos we took on a few days of the Kaua’i trip (this is one photogenic island), those days will be divided into different parts, to reduce the length of each post.  Trust me on this, it’s better for everyone this way (also, I won’t have to write a new blog until mid-May!  Hooray!).

Hawaii is three hours behind Arizona time (which is consistent year round, as we’re the only two states that don’t practice Daylight Savings Time - booyah), so the time change plus my habit of not sleeping well our first night in a new place conspired to have me tossing and turning for much of the evening, finally getting out of bed around 4am to huddle in the bathroom and read tourist pamphlets until Chris awoke a few hours later.  At least the bathroom was spacious and had lots of cushy towels for cuddling.

As it turns out, our early start was a good thing, as our planned adventure for the morning was best for early birds.  As I mentioned in the last blog, the main highway in Kaua’i runs ¾ of the way around the island; the other ¼ of the island has zero roads and is completely inaccessible by car.  This part is known as the Na Pali Coast, and it’s everything you want a Hawaiian coastline to be: towering cliffs, massive waterfalls, and scenes that look right out of Jurassic Park – actually, this where much of the crazy scenery for the movie was filmed.  You can boat along the coast (look for that blog in a few days), ride a helicopter over it (which is supposed to be insanely beautiful - next time!), and you can also hike this area along a few different paths, the main one being the 11-mile Kalalau Trail.

Me, with a sign

Our plan for the morning was to head two miles up the trail from the origin at Ke’e Beach to Hanakapai’ai Beach, and depending on the weather and our condition at that time, we might go up another two miles through the Hanakapai’ai Valley to see the waterfall at the end of that side trip.  You actually need a camping permit to go any farther than that, and we knew we didn’t want to spend multiple days just hiking and camping, as that was beyond our plans for this particular adventure. 

First, we made a few stops for proper nourishment, including the local grocery store, Foodland, where we stocked up on a few gallons of cold water for our hydration packs and some sundries for lunch (a fruit salad, ahi poke – the cooler from the packing blog came in handy here – chips and cookies).  Foodland was also where we met our first cadre of chickens/roosters and started taking the beginning of the roughly millions of pictures of them we brought home.  So, the chickens.  Someone originally brought chickens to Kaua’i lots of years ago (specific, I know) to raise as food on private ranches and yards.  During a hurricane back in the early ‘90s (Iniki, I believe), the coops were blown over and all the chickens and roosters escaped, mingling with each other and essentially taking over the island.  They are really everywhere, and you hear them at all times of the day and night.  We never found them to be annoying, but your mileage on this may vary.

Here’s one outside the Lei Petite Cafe coffee stand around the corner from the Foodland:

And others, outside the Foodland parking lot:

Approximately ¼ of the pictures we took are of chickens
Yes, really.

After grabbing our sustenance for later, it was time for breakfast.  On the way to the trailhead, we stopped in Hanalei town at Banandi, a food truck serving crepes.  We split a ham/cheese/mushroom crepe and a Nutella/strawberry crepe, and both were good, although perhaps not worth the $27 we paid for the two of them (most things in Kaua’i – and Hawaii in general – are more expensive than on the mainland, but this was ridiculous even by these standards).  We ate and, of course, took pictures of more chickens:

Time for noms!

So.many.chickens.

Finally, it was time to hike!  We got lucky with our weather and although it drizzled the night before, the day was clear and sunny; we encountered a few muddy spots on the trail, but overall, conditions were great.  We got there around 8:30am, and the trailhead was already filling up; we ended up parking in the overflow lot and walked the additional .25 mile from there, passing this cool cave on the left side of the road. 

Cool, and also, dangerous

Also also, a chicken in a tree

Time to hike!

The trail started up pretty steep right away, rising from 75 feet to 600 or so during the first mile of hiking.  A scenic overlook provided some great shots (and a great rest spot) about .25 mile into the hike.

Manta ray mountain

Although the first mile was steep, we countered that with stopping every 15 feet or so to take yet another exceedingly beautiful picture of the jaw-dropping scenery we saw.

So.much.NATURE!

Seriously.  I mean, really.

Wait?  How many pictures did I take of chickens?!?

After mile 1, the trail started descending sharply, eventually ending up back at 75 feet or so at mile 2, Hanakapai’ai Beach.  As we were hiking along to the Beach, we made sure to keep one eye on the trail at all times, as we kept encountering what looked like fresh dog poo; over the time it took us to hike these 2 miles, we saw so much poo, we figured either a few dogs were really excited to be outdoors or one dog was super sick, and we were starting to be somewhat concerned for the mystery pooch.  After rounding one specific corner, we found the answer to our questions:

Someone was hiking with a pack of about 10 dogs.

We’re not sure this was totally legal,

but hey, it’s Hawaii – whatever works.

We stopped for some more picture taking…

…and then we made it to the Beach.

Given the rain the night before and the knowledge of the elevation gains we still had to encounter (the valley with the waterfall was around 600 feet high as well and another 2 miles to go), we decided not to cross the stream at the Beach and continue on to the waterfall.  Instead, we rested for a bit, then headed back to the trailhead and the car.

Signs near Hanakapai’ai.

They are not messing about.

Of course, we stopped to take a few dozen more ridiculously gorgeous shots:

Eventually, we made it back to the car, so thankful that we were able to hike the trail and see the magnificent scenery along the coast.  We changed out of hiking clothes and into swimsuits, ready to head to the beach and enjoy the rest of the day!

The overall elevation profile -

we ended up hiking around 4 miles in just over 2 hours.

Being stalked by chickens in the parking lot.
One almost hopped in the car with us!

Just a little muddy

On the next blog, the remainder of Day 1, including beach time, pool time, and a sunset tour of the nearby golf course – including more bird pictures!

Later!

Amy