Kauai vacation
April 24th - Kokee State Park
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I had too many photos from Day 3 to fit them all on one webpage. These pictures are from our afternoon in Kokee State Park, which is just up the road from Waimea State Park.
At the end of the road is a parking lot with picnic tables and an overlook out onto the Na Pali Coast. Apparently, the road used to go a mile further, but now it has been blocked off to stop at this overlook. We walked down the road; the Pihae Trail starts where the original road ends. The Pihae Trail is not too long, it goes along a ridge that give you spectacular views down into the Kalalau Valley.
Here are a couple of photos near the start. Even if you don't walk down the trail, you can still appreciate the beauty of the landscape, the steepness of the cliffs, the lush vegetation and of course the ocean blue. I think that is Kalalau Beach faintly visible in the second picture.(Click to enlarge)
There volcanic walls of the valley are deeply eroded by the heavy rainfall (this is the rainiest place on Earth!), resulting in these fantastic ridges and spires. You can see a thin waterfall in the first picture.
This next photo shows the Pihae Trail along the ridge. The walls fall away steeply down into the valley floor.
Here is my attempt to be a fancy photographer - shooting between a pair of trees that frame the pinnacles. The colors turned out well.
This picture of the cliff pinnacles might be my favorite view from this hike. It is just amazing scenery.
We spotted several small waterfalls flowing down the sides of the valley. Not a lot of water in them, but they fell a long way.
On the other side of the trail is the Alakai Swamp. There is a trail you can take into this area - but that was not an appealing idea to us. The book says mosquitos aren't present above 3000', but we had other sights to see. (The trail guidebooks says you WILL get muddy on that hike...)
The trail is much easier than it appears in this photo. I guess I just like to dramatize the steepness of the rocky trail by taking a closeup photograph of the hardest part.
Here is a view looking right down into the valley. There is a local legend about a man named Koolau who didn't want to be sent to a leper colony, so instead hid out from the authorities in this valley for 5 years, before eventually succumbing to the disease. It doesn't look too big, but I guess the rough terrain and abundant plant life would make it difficult to find anyone who could hide and wait patiently. He must have eaten a lot of fish.
Aren't these views terrific? The north shore of Kauai really is worth seeing. No wonder the Na Pali coast is so famous. The Pihae trail is only a mile long, so these views will reward anyone who takes the short hike.
