If you are a long-time follower of this blog, you may recall our previous experience with hiking. We decided to try it again on the Kalalau Trail. So, did either of us fall? Did it rain? Was it worth it?
We began our trek by parking in a satellite parking lot which would enable us to walk past the Blue Room. Neither of us had seen the Blue Room and it remains one of those talked about places in many of the Kauai books. We saw a trail leading up a small ridge and followed it to a cave opening. Neither of us felt much value in taking the trip down into the cave — was their even water down there? Is this really the Blue Room? So we passed.
Another 100 yards down the road was a turnout with cars and people milling about. Turns out, the Blue Room is right there on the side of the road. I guess that escaped our research. We did explore it briefly, but we feel like the Blue Room has seen better days. The water was low and it was covered with an unsightly film. Its no wonder they tell you now to not swim in it. We sure wouldn’t want to. So alas, we had our answer, the previous spot was not the Blue Room and we were somewhat embarrassed that we didn’t know that.
Having said that, there was no mistaking the Kalalau Trail once we walked upon it. There’s a small structure sitting there with details of the hike. As you’ll see later, we probably should have read more of those details.
We began the hike walking up through rocks. It was mildly steep and we were thinking this hike was going to be pretty challenging if it was rocky all the way. Thankfully, the rocks only persisted for a hundred yards or so. It was just that those were some challenging yards. No problem for us, though.
We eventually made our way to the dirt part of the trail and the hike became more like how we envision a hike to be. Unlike our previous experience, there were actual visible trails here and passage was quite easy.
Having said that, you always have to be looking down at the ground to ensure you aren’t about to catch a root or a rock wrong and topple yourself. There was a stretch of roots that reminded me of the tire drill in football. They also reminded me of something that I would see in a Harry Potter film — unmoving as you step into them, but subtlely changing position to topple you. Of course, I saw that you could go around them and so we did.
Along the way, there were frequent payoff views back to Ke’e Beach. The water was an amazing color and there was an occasional turtle in view as well. Our last hike seemed short on incremental payoffs — I think our first one came over an hour into the hike! Not so with this one.
Eventually, we came to the one mile marker and could see a great view in either direction. The view here is toward Na Pali and is quite spectacular. If you look the other way, you can see back toward Ke’e. It was truly worth the effort.
Along the way, we passed some hikers and then saw others returning. One young woman mentioned that she was unable to make it to the beach — a little disheartening as we thought it was only 2 miles out from the start. We pressed on for quite a while and it felt like 2 miles to us. Of course, when you are looking down and trying to stay upright, I guess 2 miles can feel like much longer.
Finally we ran into a couple who mentioned that the beach was actually 4 miles from the start. This led us to question our research and so we decided to turn around. We felt like we had already enjoyed the hike enough and didn’t really think that a 2 mile extension would be enjoyable.
We made our way down with no issue and enjoyed the experience quite thoroughly. However, we did subsequently find that we were right about the distance to the beach. We were probably not that far off. So our tip to you is to do your research because you may find that others will not. In the end, you need to trust yourself.
Unlike our last hike, it did not rain on us. This made things MUCH easier. If it had rained, I’m sure we would have had a similarly challenging experience. Since there was no rain, there were also no falls by either of us.
Bottom line: we like hiking again and the first part of Kalalau Trail is highly recommended. Since my sad little write-up on the last hike ranks second on Google with “Honopu Ridge Hike”, I’m happy to balance that out with a better review. I think we were just completely mismatched with weather and terrain on that hike. This one was fabulous.
