Atop and Below Kauai's Na Pali Coast

Of the three ways to visit Kauai's Na Pali Coast, flying overhead in a helicopter was the least interesting to me.  It also cost the most, so it was easy to rule it out on my already-expensive vacation.  I decided on the two other visits, however: one by hiking, the other by boat.  Each was a completely different way to witness some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. 

Panoramic view of the Na Pali Coast from a tour boat.

Na Pali Coast from the Pihea Trail.

Superlatives abound on Kauai.  It is the oldest and remotest of the main Hawaiian Islands, lying furthest west than the others.  It was also the first island to be settled by the ancient Polynesians and the first to be visited by Captain James Cook, the first European to land on any Hawaiian island.  Finally, it's home to the wettest spot on Earth, where over 460 inches of rain a year falls.  As a result, the verdant island is referred to as the Garden Island. 

Thanks to Kauai's volcanic history, mountainous terrain covers most of the geography, making cross-island travel dependent on one main coastal road.   In the northwest corner of the island, the Na Pali Coast is especially rugged and inhospitable to traffic except by foot, air, or boat.  This area is protected in several parks, most notably by the namesake Na Pali Coast State Wilderness Park, the Hawaiian name coming from the words for high cliffs. 

You can hike the park either from above or below.  I first chose the former option, on a trail originating in adjacent Kokee State Park.  Starting at the Pu'u O Kila Lookout, I took the Pihea Trail that followed a ridge that overlooks the Kalalau Valley on one side and a high plateau rain forest on the other.  Clouds frequently roll in as the day progresses, blocking the stunning view, so I made a point to start my hike early in the day.  Unfortunately, if you're staying on the north shore or even in Kapaa or Lihue, Kauai's main towns, you've got to wake up especially early to drive the two hours it takes to reach the trail. 

View of western slope of Kalalau Valley along Kauai's Na Pali Coast.

View of Kalalau Valley along Kauai's Na Pali Coast.

Taking in the mile-and-a-half-wide panoramic view overlooking the Kalalau Valley is certainly worth any inconvenience.  Photographs of this corner of the Na Pali Coast have been reproduced in countless travel posters and advertisements.  The landscape looks like it's been carved out of a single volcanic crater but is more likely the remnants of multiple ancient volcanoes chiseled over time by wind, rain, and streams.  Until the last century, the verdant valley floor below the sheer cliffs had continuously sustained a large population of native Hawaiians over countless generations.

Thirty-six hundred feet above, along the mostly muddy Pihea Trail, a few native birds still thrive as if the outside world had never encroached on Hawaii.  Pairs of 'apapanes skirted the outer canopy of groves of blooming 'ohi'a lehua trees while small flocks of curious 'elepaios roamed closer to the trail.  A flash of yellow might have been an 'amakihi, or just as likely a Japanese white-eye, an introduced and now quite common bird throughout the Hawaiian islands.

'Apapanes on the Pihea Trail.

'Elepaio on Pihea Trail.

About a mile into the hike, shortly before reaching the Alakai Swamp Trail, misty clouds brought steady drizzle and my decision to return to the trailhead.  Not just wet, I was also tired of slipping and slopping through the mud at a snail's pace.  As a result,  I had plenty of time left in the morning to drive to another sight overlooking Kalalau Valley as it slowly clouded over, and then to visit nearby Waimea Canyon.  The ten-mile long, three-thousand feet deep canyon is known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific and is one more spectacularly scenic site on Kauai, worthy of its own story at some other time.

Especially muddy portion of the Pihea Trail on Kauai.

Beginning of the Pihea Trail above the Kalalau Valley on Kauai.

After witnessing the Na Pali Coast - or at least a portion of it - from above, three days later it was time to take in all of it from a boat.  Exploring out of Hanalei on the islands north shore is the easiest and fastest way because the town is the closest large community to the rugged coastline.  A number of local tour companies sell four-hour-long sightseeing trips, one of which is Na Pali Catamaran.  I chose it mostly because of my family's one non-negotiable requirement: an on-board toilet.  

The diesel-powered double-hulled boast was small, just big enough for two skippers and twenty-five or so passengers.  It was also nimble enough to navigate close approaches to the coastline, even entering sea caves and pulling up to waterfalls.  We were usually near enough to the shore to identify feral goats grazing on the steep slopes and black noddies and brown boobies nesting on cliffs just yards above the crashing sea.   

One of Na Pali Catamaran's two tour boats, anchored off of Tunnels Beach after our Na Pali Coast tour.

Black noddies on the Na Pali Coast.

Waterfall emptying into a sea cave on the Na Pali Coast.

We observed adventurous hikers walking along the Kalalau Trail, a renowned eleven-mile-long trail that leads to the Kalalau Valley, which I had observed from above three days earlier.  Our captain also paused at Hanakapi'ai Beach, a popular short hike destination about a mile into the trail.  Over thirty years ago, I had actually hiked this small segment of the trail.  And I had rested on that very beach after walking upstream, into the rainiest rain forest I had ever witnessed in order to splash below a three-hundred-feet high waterfall.  As a twenty-something me dried off on a boulder, looking out to sea, I never imaged that an older version of myself would return three decades later and return the gaze.

Hanakapi'ai Beach as seen from the Na Pali Catmaran tour boat.

Past the beach begins the most breathtaking scenery on the Na Pali Coast.  I had picked an afternoon tour, marketed as "Our Photo Favorite Tour" by the tour company because the afternoon light was behind our backs.  I wasn't disappointed whenever the boat pulled away from the gray volcanic coastline and the mountainous beauty came into view.  Sharp peaks and crenulated ridgelines towered in the distance, all draped in lush greens and rusty reds.  Thin, long waterfalls cascaded from clouds, following time-worn crevices and canyons before emptying into the sea.  Dense forests filled valley floors and unpeopled, sandy beaches stretched out in front of us. 

Start of some of the Na Pali Coast's most breathtaking scenery.

The end of the Kalalau Trail is on one such beach, called Kalalau Beach as a matter of fact.  Furthermore, it sits at the lowest end of the before-mentioned Kalalau Valley.  Further along the coast was another valley with its own beach and a famous arch, Honopu.  

Looking toward the Kalalau Valley from tour boat.

Both valleys and beaches, along with many more arches, coves, and caves have served as exotic locales in such Hollywood films as "King Kong" and "Jurassic Park," to name just two.  The Na Pali Coast conjures an image of the unspoiled South Pacific, exotic and captivating in a beauty born out of volcanic fury and tamed by the tropical elements. 

For a moment, when the hikers and campers were out of view, the helicopters overhead out of noise range, and the smell of my boat's diesel fuel wafting downwind from me, I could actually imagine I was a Polynesian explorer, or Captain Cook, the first of my tribe feasting his eyes on a paradise newly discovered.  

Kauai's Na Pali Coast from sea.