Kauai vacation
April 29th - Hiking to Na Pali Cliffs
Click on any photo to see a larger image
For our last day at Kauai, we decided to return to Kokee State Park and do the Awaawapuhi Trail - 3 miles down to the viewpoint, and 3 miles back, looking out over the Na Pali cliffs. The view was reputed to be awesome, so it sounded like a hike well worth doing.
The hike takes you out along one of the volcanic ridges. At the end of the trail you come to an overlook with an INCREDIBLE view looking down thousands of feet to the green valley below. These first two pictures show us standing right near the cliff edge, the drop off behind us is impossibly far down. The third and fourth pictures are views from the edge, these are some of my best photos from the trip, so click on them and see in large scale this terrific view. The words awesome and unbelievable are overused, but this site really impressed me as something special and spectacular. I was quite glad we hiked here. We ate lunch at the view point, and we could hear helicopter tours flying in from the ocean, and giving their passengers close views of the Na Pali cliffs. These helicopters were so close to the cliffs and so far below us that we could not see them. I wish our helicopter tour had given us a closeup view like that, instead of just zooming along Na Pali coast in one straight pass.
The previous photos were looking straight out toward sea from the Awaawapuhi viewpoint. This picture is looking south-west, toward the other trails and cliffs of the Na Pali coast. The helicopter noise came up from below this point.
There are wild roosters and chickens all over the island of Kauai. Apparently they were released by whaling ships in the 19th century, so that when the crews would land on the island, they would find an abundant source of food. The sailors also released goats. These animals had no predators, so they reproduced abundantly, and now you see roosters all over. This bird came by begging for lunch.
Our original plan was to hike back up to the car, but the book shows that there was a connecting trail. But if we headed in that direction, it would be a twelve mile hike, which sounded pretty far considering the heat, and the fact we would have to hike uphill to get back. But the view was so great, maybe we would just hike the Ledge Trail partway. Just a little bit, you know, not too far... The Ledge Trail is the name of the trail that connects the Awaawapuhi Trail to the Nualolo. The Ledge Trail is level, it goes right along the cliff face, and it is an easy hike. If you look closely in this next photo, you can make out the Trail scarring the cliff, it is easiest to see on the leftmost green rock, just above the shadows.
This is a second picture of the Ledge Trail, taken from a different spot. In this picture, it is just below the top of the cliff, it is the horizontal cut in the cliff. You can see how steep the cliff is below the Ledge Trail, that is the point where we took some spectacular photos.
These two photos are taken looking back at the Awaawapuhi View point as we hiked along the Ledge Trail.
This little stream marked the half way point of the Ledge Trail. Heck, if we made it this far, we may as well continue onto Nualolo Trail, rather than returning via the Awaawapuhi. Looks like we were committed to the entire 12 mile loop, but with such scenary, it was a great hike, not tiring at all.
Melanie on the hike.
About halfway along the Ledge Trail you can walk out to another dropoff point, a steep chasm with a dizzying depth below. Just an incredible view. It is something to see. I think this hike was my favorite part of the entire Kauai adventure. Here is a picture of Melanie standing at the precipe. I was going to switch places with her, so she could take my picture with the amazing canyon behind, but then another couple came by, and they offered to take both of our pictures standing before the canyon.
Some pictures unobstructed by people. This is the valley from the Ledge viewpoint. The pictures don't do it justice. Okay, I have gotten carried away with the superlatives. It was nice.
We came up to a herd of feral goats, living out near the edge of the canyon. They are surefooted, certainly not intimidated by the dizzying drop right next to them.
The next photo is another view looking all the way down the cliff to the valley below.
Looking ahead, we could see the second viewpoint, which is the end of the Nualolo Trail. It is impossible to distinguish in this photo, but we could see tiny people walking along the top of the ridge out to the point.
We made it to the end of the Ledge Trail. It was a spectacular hike. Now will take the half mile trail along the ridge line out to the viewpoint.
This is the view of the trail along the ridge to the Nualolo view point. We pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. It isn't an easy hike, but the scenary rewards the effort, so if you are ever in Kauai, I recommend you check this trail out.
I only have a couple of decent photos from the second view point, my camera shutter only partially opened on the remainder of the shots.
We left the viewpoint and hiked up the Nualolo Trail to the Kokee state park visitor center. It was an extra 2 miles back to where we had left the car at the Awaawapuhi trailhead, so it ended up being 12 miles round trip. Despite the heat and elevation gained and lost, I wasn't too tired from the hiking, perhaps the awesome landscape had an invigorating effect. Indeed, when we got back to the other side of the island, Melanie wanted to hike the northern approach to Sleeping Giant (Sleeping Giant has two different starting locations), so we went the first mile up and back along that trail.
Kauai was a great trip. Little did I know that I would be laid off the day I returned from vacation, so I enjoyed the entire time we spent on the island. There is lots to see there, plenty of reasons for us to go back some day.
