Our first 4 days in Hawaii were spent hiking the Na'Pali coast on the Kalalau trail to the beach. It is only 11 miles in one way, but it is up and down on slippery clay trails that get extremely narrow in places. It is quite possibly the hardest hike we have done to date. Part of this was exacerbated by carrying heavy packs (Micah and Noah had 45 pound bags). There were places on the trail that I would never hike if it was raining. The trail go no wider than a foot in several places with drop offs directly into the ocean 150-600 ft. below. If you fell, it was all over for you. We had to treat our water the whole time, and again our fantastic Steripen came in handy. We hauled a lot of great food in, like 4 pounds of deer sausage and 2 pounds of deer meat sticks (courtesy of the Noah). We also hauled in bacon and eggs, and steak and potatoes. Needless to say, we ate extremely well, at the expense of hauling a lot of heavy food. Coming back out was a lot easier since Noah and I had each shedded about 10 pounds of food.
We had to cross a lot of streams along the way, and unlike the picture of Becky, it was done with our packs on. Fortunately, Juli was the only one to ever slip into a river and it was on the first day so her boots were relatively dry on the second day.
Our hike breakdown went like this:
Saturday- 2 miles to first campsite. Set up camp, then hike 4 miles roundtrip up to a waterfalls. 6 total miles
Sunday-9 miles into Kalalau beach, set up camp, chill watching sunset and playing in ocean, water was perfect temp.
Monday-6 miles roundtrip to supposed "awesome waterfalls with cool swimming pool." Turned out to be a dud-not enough recent rain, however we did hike through Mangroves with unripe mangoes (I climbed a tree and ate some anyways!) We also hike through a Guava forest and picked some somewhat ripe guavas. I felt like I was back in Africa. The highlight of this hike was not the waterfall, but the vegetation!
Tuesday-11 miles hiked all the way back out to the rental car. This was grueling and we were tired at the end of the day, but we enjoyed a great charbroiled dinner at CJ's Steak and Fish in Hanalei Bay and sipped on Mai Tai's and Pina Colada's! A perfect end to our day.
