Hiking the Na Pali Coast in Kauai

We thought we weren’t cool enough to be hikers.  We’ve had friend after friend regale us with stories of how they hiked this or hiked that but we had never hiked.

On a beautiful Hawaiian Kauai morning we were headed down the Kuhio Highway to do some snorkeling at the lava tubes and maybe check out the Nā Pali Coast that we had heard so much about.  After searching about 20 minutes for a parking spot we noticed a bunch of people headed up the Kalalau Trail.  Our curiosity got the best of us.  A few people at the trailhead who had just got back told us it was amazing and 100% worth it.  We were sold!  A quick run back to the car to return snorkel gear and grab backpacks any food we could find and water. We were off.

Right off the bat it felt like we were walking uphill forever, but the overlooking cliff height views of Ke’e Beach kept us going.  Finally it leveled out.   To our amazement there were all ages of people coming and going from 3 years to people who looked like they were in their 80’s.  It wasn’t crowded, but it was a few more people than we had expected.

After about a mile and a half of walking on a cliff ledge with the most breathtaking views you can imagine, ahead of us through the jungle we could see the beach that we had seen on the trailhead map, Hanakäpï`ai Beach.  As we started down the path to the beach the groups of people started to thin out.  Apparently, after the hard original climb, people didn’t want to walk the long walk down to the beach just to have to walk back up.  Most of the people had bailed at this point.

Strangely, almost all of the people who did walk down didn’t even bother going to the beach.  They stopped, took pictures and headed back up.

The ocean was calling us to hop in for a swim.  There was a ton of signage warning people of rip currents and rough waters but that wasn’t stopping us.  We are both experienced swimmers, the water was calm, we stayed away from where you could see the rip current, and most importantly we both had to pee.

I would definitely recommend not going in the water unless you have experience recognizing and negotiating rip currents.

The short swim completely re-energized us. We stopped for a minute and ate some of our rations, basically just Keebler chocolate chip cookies.  Prepared we were not. A small sign had an arrow pointing back into the jungle that said Hanakäpï`ai Falls 2 Miles.  It was here that only about 1% of the people who had originally started were continuing on.  Most were continuing along the coastline and a few headed to the waterfall.  We looked at each other and without uttering a word just started walking towards the falls.

The trail wasn’t very well-marked and was lot tougher to traverse than the first part of the walk.  Just going inland a little bit, the humidity in the air got so thick you could slice it.

On the way we came across a bamboo forest that was a bit eerie and the noises it made were downright weird.  You can listen to it in the video below.

The path we walked kept crossing the Hanakäpï`ai stream and several times it was tough finding where the path started again on the other side.   We had only seen two groups of people and that was at the very beginning part of the walk and were starting to worry we had taken the wrong turn somewhere.   Luckily at one point we looked up at a stream crossing and just knew we were going the right way.

A short while longer and finally we had made it to the Hanakäpï`ai Waterfall.  It was oddly vacant.

We decided to jump in and swim up to the falls.  It felt like it was 100 degrees out and we definitely didn’t walk all the way just to look at it.  The water was frigid and felt fantastic at the same time.  The current made it tough to make our way over to the falls.

We managed to get a picture directly under the falls, but couldn’t stay there for long, after a rough four mile walk our legs were like jelly.

After a while other groups started showing up and we knew our private time swimming under the “Jurassic Park” water had come to an end.  We worked our way out, sat on the rocks and devoured the rest of our chocolate chip cookie rations.  We had one 20 ounce bottle of water for two of us the rest of the four mile walk back, we would have to conserve.

Starting back down the trails we leaned on hope and followed bread crumb memories in hopes of making it back to the beach.  Turning back, we stole one final glimpse of the falls and kept moving.

Walking back up the steep hill from Hanakäpï`ai Beach our water finally ran out.   It was going to be tough sledding the rest of the way.

The waterless last mile and a half was rough, we hit the water fountain at the entrance so hard you’d swear we just got back from being stranded in a desert for 3 days.

Later that night while sitting at the bar we were talking to a couple who had just got back from “Hiking” the Nā Pali Coast the day before.  They told us they had hiked the Kalalau Trail 2 miles all the way down to Hanakäpï`ai Beach.  That’s when it hit us that walking is hiking or hiking is walking, whatever, and holy crap we had been hiking everywhere this whole time, we’re part of the cool group!

This is how WE did it:

1. Got a flight from mainland USA to Kauai
2. Rented a car & drove to Marriott Courtyard Kaua’i at Coconut Beach on points
3. Drove down Kuhio Highway to Rt. 560 (same road different name) just kept driving until there was no more road.
4. Hiked the coast

We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard Kaua’i at Coconut Beach because it was not in the tourist section of Kauai.  It was also way fewer Marriott points.  There weren’t many people there and it had a pool & hot tub and was right on the beach. We were actually quite surprised how nice it was.