A hike on the North Shore’s Kalalau Trail takes you to waterfalls, beaches, caves and other spectacular sights.
Stunning scenery of Kauai’s rugged, ocean-swept Napali coast can be enjoyed from the famed Kalalau Trail. I was hiking with my college-aged daughter on the Kalalau Trail on Kauai’s North Shore and knew I was in for an adventure, when I went slip sliding across some wet lava rocks into a small stream crossing one of the many gullies of this scenic hiking route on the Napali Coast.
We struck it lucky in early December, during the sweet spot between surges, with a visit that started with a direct flight from Oakland airport to the delightfully small-scale airport in Lihue.
Our base for the next three days was Princeville, the upscale resort area and gateway to Kauai’s far North Shore. The resort’s small shopping center has a gas station that doubles as a pizzeria, a couple of restaurants, Lappert’s Hawaiian ice cream shop and a Foodland market with everything you need for day trips in the region, including our favorite island-style provisions like fresh ahi poke bowls, banana and mango macadamia nut bread, and purple bread rolls made from taro root.
Until a few years ago, the Kalalau Trail and Ke’e Beach attracted, despite their remote location, thousands of visitors daily and it was, frankly, a zoo. Today, a successful effort to reduce far North Shore visitor numbers requires advance reservations for trailhead parking, Kalalau Trail access and hop-on and off bus shuttles to Ke’e Beach at the end of the road.
After about 20 minutes on the bus, we arrived at Ke’e Beach and the new boardwalk leading through taro fields to the start of the world-famous Kalalau Trail. Most of us were here for the day, but a few fully-loaded backpackers were heading on the challenging 11-mile backpacking route to the Kalalau Valley in the Napali Coast State Wilderness Park .
After about 90 minutes of trail walking and navigating a stream crossing, we paused for a lunch break under shady pandanus trees at tiny Hanakapi’ai Beach, which is pretty and pristine — and extremely unsafe for swimming due to strong rip currents and dangerous shore break.
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