Lost in Hawaii
A trip to Hawaii seems like a really good birthday wish! The idea popped in my head about a week before my birthday, and next thing I knew, me and my buddy Kyle were on a plane to Hawaii, hoping to backpack one of the most dangerous trails in the United States.
The 11-mile Kalalau Trail leads from Ke’e Beach to Kalalau Beach along the Na Pali Coast of Kauai island. Far from the longest, highest, or even most remote, it is nevertheless formidable. According to a quick Google search, the Kalalau Trail is “one of the most dangerous trails in the United States." Perhaps even the world. Maybe a bit exaggerated, but the Trail’s threats are many. Its streams can rise to very dangerous levels with little or no warning, washing unsuspecting hikers out to the ocean. It is exposed, narrow, and slippery. And if the Trail doesn’t kill you, the deadly riptides at Hanakapi’ai sure will.
We bummed out on our luck to obtain a backpacking permit, but we were still determined to day-hike as much as possible and return before sunset. The first two miles started out with a steep uphill hike and along the cliff’s edge. Two miles in, the trail took us to Hanakapi’ai beach. We hiked an additional two miles upstream to Hanakapi’ai Falls. Like many Hawaiian waterfalls, this one is located at the back of a beautiful valley, surrounded by ferns, cool mist, and an emerald pool.
Call it our sense of adventure or simply stupidity, but we’re good at getting ourselves lost. Not ever wanting to leave this heavenly location, we lost track of time and found ourselves chasing sunlight to get ourselves out of the overgrown forest. It got dark soon and we were far from the lightly hiked trail which would take us back to civilization. Hiking back up the steep cliffs on a moonless night would be like inviting our own death. We knew as long as we followed the stream, it would take us out to the ocean, and we could spend the night on the beach.
We brushed ourselves against trees and slowly kept crawling downstream. Halfway down the stream, we heard a little grunt a few feet away from us. I thought to myself “I don’t think bears like to live in Hawaii”. The next moment, a huge wild boar came running towards us. In all our fright, we yelled at it as loud as we could. To our surprise, the boar chickened out from killing us. Scared with the thought of being someone’s dinner tonight, we continued yelling the rest of the way. After a few hours of struggling down the stream in knee deep water and contemplating to why I never listen to my parents, we reached an isolated beach. I have never seen a more beautiful sight in my life. The sky was adorned with millions of stars and we could see the entire milky way above us.
As I lay on the beach trying to count all the stars in the sky, Kyle hiked ahead to find a good place for us to spend the night. He came back running excitedly and said he had found the perfect spot. I followed him curiously into a cave hidden in the cliffs. There was barely 20 feet of beach between the cliff and the ocean, and we wanted to be sure if a storm rolled in at night, we had an escape route before the cave went under water. We crawled into the cave using the faint light from my GoPro, and before the thought of claustrophobia exploded in my head, we found a little hole that opened into the jungle. We got back to the cave head, split the last six pieces of almonds between us for dinner, and buried ourselves in the soft sand for the night.
Next morning, we woke up to the waves crashing at our feet, as the sun made its way up the horizon. We grabbed our backpacks, said goodbye our crab-friends chilling in the cave, and made our way back through the steeps cliffs to our jeep. I charged my phone and called up my mom to assure her I’m still alive!
