Kalalau Trail - Glimpsing Paradise

Before we started for the whole Kalalau Trail we did a day trip to Hanakapi’ai Beach and Hanakapi’ai Falls. The path was slippery but ended at a massive waterfall with a big refreshing pool. For us it was a bit too cold to swim since it was still early morning.

Back at our camp we prepared everything for our 11 mile trail at the next morning. At 6 o’clock we got up to beat the crowd and the heat. Well, for the crowd there where not a lot on the trail after Mile 5 since most people enjoyed a quick day tour.

We met Andy, who lives on O'ahu and we enjoyed his company. Since we had the same travel speed he joined us for the rest of the day. The scenery was breath taking and we felt like touching paradise. There were some hairy passages, narrow trails with a steep cliff but we made it safely to Kalalau Beach.

After setting up our tent we decided to do another 6 miles to find the refreshing pool from the big pond. Later that day we explored the caves at Kalalau Beach and watched the beautiful sunset.

Since we didn’t bring our sleeping mats to save weight it was way to hard to sleep in the tent. So we decided to take our sleeping bag and slept at the beach. Watching million of stars we dosed off into a short night.

The next morning we started at 6 o’clock again and did a quick side tour to the Hanakoa Falls. Actually it wasn’t so quick since we got lost first and than Michael lost his hat and we went back to search for it.

Between Mile 5 and 4 it got a bit painful in our legs but the last miles we got back to speed. Since we couldn’t get any camping permit for this night we luckily found a fantastic big beach where we set camp. The locals didn’t mind and we enjoyed another awesome beach and night sky.

For the whole Kalalau Trail (one way) we took 5 hours and 15 minutes. In 3 days we did 38 miles and enjoyed every single step.