gone alpine

play time! Hawaii 05!

... these are the past adventures in Kauai 2005, stories by Karin Munson.

Napali coast

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Starting our trip on the Napali coast 2005

Hanakapiai - story

        The day after we arrive in Kauai we head out for the Napali coast line. It takes about 45 plus minutes to drive to the end of the road from where we were staying in Kapa'a. What a beautiful drive. Every curve you round takes you deeper into the lush areas of Kauai. You understand why they call this the "Garden Island", the whole thing is lush, tropic and beautiful. The drive itself takes you along the coast line, through small towns and over several one way bridges. Crossing several rivers and streams a couple which go right across on top of the road. Non-locals call the road hwy 56, everyone else knows there is only one road that travels around the whole island, and this is it.

        Finally after suffering through such a gorgeous ride we have to stop literally at the end of the road, Ke'e beach. What a beautiful place just to hang out, this is where you look forward to to clean off after your hiking in the mud all day. Several people that come to Ke'e beach notice the trail head toward Hanakapiai beach and the Napali coast trail. Those that aren't prepared a head of time for this trail shouldn't take it. If you have no idea what you are in for... you have NO IDEA what you are in for. Shortly after we started up the trail we passed 4 older people with pretty much all white clothing on. This is a dead give a way that they were going to be toast very soon. I also have yet to see a child on this hike, not a good place to take the kiddies out for the day.

        It doesn't take long after your start before you hit a slick rocky/boulder hill, this is just the beginning of you uphill start. If you get a chance to look up between finding your footing and trying not to slip off trail, you will get a first hand glance of all the lush foliage here in Hawaii, its truly breath taking. The trail itself to Hanakapiai beach is 2 miles. Two of the slickest toughest miles you possibly could find on a "day hike". Yes there are more difficult ones but this one is some slick stuff. Keep in mind that you are traveling a top slick red clay with foliage and tree covered cliffs on one side of you, dense dark forest above you, and nothing but clay path, rock and mud in front and behind you. Also note that this is when its been dry for a day. The Napali coast is lush for a reason, this being rain. Mt Wialaiali is the wettest place on earth. The mountain itself receives 365 inches of rain in a year. You being on the wet side of the island should tell you a little about the trail without even thinking to much about it. 

        After about the first half to two-thirds of the trail the up up becomes an up traverse down up thing, over some of the most beautiful terrain you could ever imagine. You will head over thick stream beds, under beautiful trees bearing fruit when in season and stop for some breath taking views. Then about your last third to a quarter mile heads down down toward the beach. Be careful here, this is slick snot, totally watch your footing but good stuff. To actually reach the beach you will have to take off your shoes. This mainly due to the Hanakapiai river that separates you from the beach. During high water you will really need to be careful, the swift water could easily take you under. The day we were there someone had left a lead rope across the river in a great spot for footing, the water was only about thigh deep and not surging, totally doable. Once you reach the other side, dry your feet and slip your shoes back on you will head through a couple trees to the beach. Depending on the time of year you could see sand or piles of large rocks and boulders. During summer and calm times of the year the beach settles with sand and is a beautiful place to camp and spend the day. Winter when the waves are much higher and more impressive sand be gone out to sea and all you have is rock. Either way the water is not a place to swim, the water is too rough and angry. On your way down into the beach you will have passed several warning signs one being the tallies of how many people have died at the beach due to the surf. So don't think you know any better and jump in anyway, you may be the next tally on the sign post. Otherwise this is a most impressive beach to ponder the meaning of life.

Hanakapiai falls

        If you want a little more adventure head yourself back up next to the river and toward the Hanakapiai falls for another couple miles. There you will receive a hardy lesson in mud, bugs, stream and river crossings, slick trails, bamboo nooks and anything green including huge toads and other creepy crawlies. I think that we had 12 water crossings in one direction on this trail, some shoes came off at times, on others they were just slick rock traverses (this being on a dry day). We saw several head out into this area half of which turned back at some point, some stopped short and enjoyed the views and the few that actually made it, had to be some tough cookies. There were some pretty nasty areas that if you thought too much about there is no way you'd do it too often. But those that are the adventurous, insanity set in early in life, or those of us that are just crazy enough to do anything this will be right up your alley! GOOD GOOD TIMES! You do need to make sure that you are TOTALLY aware of what you are doing or you can run into a bit of danger, there is a helicopter landing pad out there for a reason. Make sure that you clock you time in so you know when you need to head out. Our average hiking pace is 2.5 plus miles an hour, it took us a good 1 hour 10 minutes to go 2 miles.

        This trail can wipe you clean if you don't mind the mud. Funny how when you start the trail you avoid certain muddy water holes and such, the return... "DUDE THAT'S CLEAN WATER TO WASH OFF IN!" and I'm not kidding. Yah this was a good trip. Beautiful scenery, great company and challenging hillsides, who could ask for anything better. However next time I want to go the whole way, all the way down the entire Napali coast, the whole 11 miles of it. This is something you have to do a year advance preparation for though, with permits and scheduling only time will tell when we can get back. I'd recommend it to anyone who is up for a real challenge. Story on this is in 2006 - WE DID IT!

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Muddin

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the before shot

Baptism by mud - story

        It all started when I mentioned that one of us hadn't been muddin before. The response was and I quote "What is this!!" The tall one has never been properly baptized! Oh we’ll fix that all right. Yes Yes I have in mind just the hole in witch to do it too." Enough said. The plan was a foot! Friday the family stole us for the day. Entrapped us in two lifted aired down 4x4 trucks with food, a plan and plenty of gas. Ahahhhh what a day for this will be! and it was. Let me start by saying, I thought I'd been muddin, NOT SO MUCH! This is truly a treasure to be prized. Slick as snot clay as deep as you can shove a stick in. I've never been in stuff this thick and deep in my life. Ohh GOODNESS! There were times when all you could do was hold on and close your eyes. Well I had to close mine quite often that was pretty much due to the mud caking my face and eye sockets as it sprayed thorough the window.

Power-line road

        What a way to see some sights. We headed up the Power-line trail and then the road to the Blue hole. You can only get so far on the Power-line trail till your invincible trucks can go no further. "But only if I had my lockers", was Pa Dows line of the day. Didn't matter the mud was so deep that you could literally bury a vehicle in it and it still be 3 feet deep. I have yet to decide if it is a good thing that after spending about 45 minutes or so unburying and towing your son out of a mud hole one decides to try it himself. Either way it was sure fun to watch. The hole was so deep that it was almost impossible for anyone to get in and out of the door, oh good times. Note: before heading face first into a 3 foot mud hole remember to install rear bumper. This was something that was still on order along with the lockers. Living on the Islands, it takes a while to get equipment sent, some times you just have to make due. In this case we tied the tow line to the two gas can attachments on the rear of the jeep to pull it out.  After about 15 minutes of planning, assessing and figuring out what to do the rest of us piled in the back of Brian's truck to add extra weight. In no time flat we popped that thing out of the mud hole for which it was stuck. And not an extra dent or bend to anything, all survived perfectly, except for the frog that somehow disappeared under a foot or two of mud - but we think there was only one casualty that day.

        After realizing we weren't going to make it much further we surrendered. As passengers we had to hoof it down the next section due to the extra weight factor in the vehicles. Most of the time weight is a good thing, not at this particular moment - clearance was definitely the factor. Needless to say the trucks made it down the frame twisting turn with a few body bruises and scrapes, just to add to the character of the event and vehicles. Coming back out the Power-line road after getting back in the jeep was just as much fun as it was getting in there, this time we knew what to expect, thick, deep mud and lots of it.

The Blue hole

        The Blue hole was a beautiful area, much to explore and play with. You will reach it after a most beautiful and very interesting road trip you will ever take the family out on. The road gets covered by 3 rivers, ones you need a vehicle to traverse, water goes to fast and deep to really walk it. Never mind the boulders that your lifted motorized 4x4 vehicle needs go power over somehow, this was good stuff. Then you continue your bumpy ride into the hillsides beyond, beyond what? exactly... beyond whatever your 4x4 can get over and around. Let me tell you now that I have never owned anything that could clear some of the stuff we were in, and when 4 low and first gear was the gear of choice for most of our days travels...well... lets just stop there. Let's just say listening to Cool and the Gang and Rick James never sounded so good while praying that you weren't going to rip something essential off the bottom side of the vehicles.

        After you can go no further (once again) we started to hoof it. Most of the family (other than of us of course) has been here before. Now treading along I for which thought that I could slither along with slippers (thongs) on my feet quickly found out otherwise. OUCH! I don't think I've ever experienced that much pain between my toes, finally just had to take the dumb things off and go barefoot. I do think I need to add at this point that throughout our days adventure it seemed to find time to sprinkle and rain here and there, this made walking another road hazard. There are times when one found oneself on the ground before you ever knew you were sliding, and that was not so nice. Wither you were picking yourself up off the ground or sliding past a family member it was a beautiful jaunt none the less. After recovering from the walk down you find yourself sitting on a small landing in front of a pool of two converging river systems, "the Blue hole". However this particular day the Blue hole had a nice brownish green tinge to it. The rains had been doing their work cleaning the hillsides. Normally I guess you can swim in the hole and catch fresh water prawns that hide in the rocks. This wasn't our day for that, this day was our day to play in the mud and get dirty, which we were doing quite well.

        Upon our heading out... Pa Dow asked Ken if he wanted to drive. WHAT!!! OH NO! was all I could muster to say. Had to calm myself just a bit... but I was ok... I knew I'd get a turn and this was a good chance for my now dirtied husband to try out what I'd been trying to explain to him for the last several months. 4 low... that's what he got to start out in. 4 LOW! I didn't even get 4 low! But that's ok, its ok, ... ITS OK! All he could say as he was enjoying the experience was that it was "like butter". Oh yah my response was, "now you might be better understanding when I'm talking about 4 wheelin and the ability and need to get covered with mud", he readily agreed.

        After a few nasty turns, mud burrowing and river crossings it was my turn. By this time 4 low was over and 4 high with a stick shift was a happenin thing. Good times had by all. Pa Dow decided he'd try sitting in back with Ma Dow. Leaving Ken and I in control. A decision I think he later regretted. When he said "at the next river crossing step on it, so we can clean off the underside of the jeep a bit", I did. Little did I know that the water level rose up a bit while we were out and about and had I known that the rush of water that went airborne would clear the entire vehicle, I probably would have not "stepped on it" quite so much. After we paused off the side for a bit and the lump know as the heart was clearly out of dad's throat he let me do it a couple more times, just not quite as fast. Then we got out, assessed the cleaning and Pa Dow jumped in and gave it a try himself and was quite successful. 

        To add to life's little adventure upon our ride out we came upon a movie tour van which was stopped in front of us blocking the road. We all jumped out of the vehicles to see what was up. Well while we were all out gallivanting around, a strong wind blew and knocked down a tree straight across the road. The van had a wench tied around it trying to move it some how, with no success. As we started to assess the situation, the van driver asked "you don't by any chance have a chain-saw on you do you?" Pa Dow's response "why yes we do". Fancy that! We had the need for one earlier because of another prior known tree blocking issue. Good pre-planning eh? So Brian fired up the chain-saw cut the massively dense tree at two points, we winched and rolled the thing away, hero's for the day! After that we turned around and went back in the other direction. Decided to head back into where they just came from. Just down the road a bit, the area where they filmed Jurassic park was located, so we just had to see. We didn't get to far before we had to hoof it once again past the locked gate. As the rain started to pour our clothes became cleaner. The views of the area were just beautiful, lots of water flowing over falls and vegetation as lush as could be. Totally exhausted we return to the trucks and head back toward the house.

        Upon reaching home, driving on the lawn to peal mud, grit and grime off vehicles was no issue. I thoroughly enjoy the fact that driving or riding motorcycles on the lawn is at times taught and encouraged, rather than discouraged as a sin against mankind. After about an hour of hosing, scrubbing, washing the outside we had to do the same thing to the inside. Doesn't matter about getting much of it wet, that's what the rhino lining was sprayed on for.  After a such a difficult hideous day... pizza and a beer were in order and at 25 bucks a pizza (which was our cost for the day) getting dirty had never been so fun.

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Wiaimea canyon

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Heading down the Wiaimea canyon trail. Start of the day was pretty windy at the top.

Wiaimea Canyon - story

        Twas a night before Wiaimea... and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a gecko. But the *%$!# COCKROACHES WERE! I would like to take a moment to add this little tid bit. Had we known that we were sharing our bed with two lovely cockroaches I would have changed the sheets daily! Oh my goodness they were HUGE! I only saw one of the ones that Ken caught but it was plenty big enough! The other one I guess was at least twice as big, but it got away somewhere. You should see how they try to scurry when being flushed down the toilet. You know I'm pretty good with bugs and all the gross stuff that comes with life and being a mother, but CRAP THEY WERE IN BED WITH US!!! EWEE!

        Ok Wiaimea. Saturday morning we rise to our last full day here in Kauai. Hiking the Wiaimea canyon was on the agenda. Hearing the rain pour all night and what the weather was like the days before we knew that we were most likely in for another interesting ride. However one never knows what the canyon is doing because there is no web-cam or weather report where we are going. You have to just go and find out for yourself. We had already found out that the "dry side" of the island wasn't so on previous days. The island had been suffering from a drought over the last several years, however during our visit it seemed to reverse itself. The trips through the monsoon like rains seemed relentless at times. This hike well... was nothing different.

        We get to the trailhead and not one drop of rain had fallen. The area was socked in by fog but it was moving. The air was a bit chilly around 2000 feet above sea-level but was doable. Our thinking at the time was hesitant to try. Seeing the last few days experiences kinda set us on alert for this hike. Our adrenaline was anxious to go and add another story to our list aside our being hesitant... so we carefully assessed the situation upon the approach. We decided that we would go, but if it started to sprinkle or rain we'd get the heck out of there no matter where we were at.

        At that we headed down what trail there was, it was as mess. There had been so much rain that there really wasn't much of a trail present. Deep pockets, exposed roots and slick clay upon tricky hillsides was what was left. We headed down carefully viewing what sights we could see. There were several that peeked through the clouds and wonderful waterfalls that flowed all over the place. About a mile into the canyon you come to several areas of lovely exposure on nice solid hardy slick clay. Upon picking myself up off the ground I said "this would suck if it were wet". Continuing down trail we crossed no one. I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever try this this time of year, and with good reason.

        One half mile from the bottom you come to a tree-line. Pausing for a moment to see if we were really still on the trail as we head into the thicket. Stepping into the trees was like stepping into the jungle. Sudden lush tropical trees, shrubs and a mountain goat waited our arrival. Following the trail/streambed you head deeper into the foliage. Only pausing momentarily to slather on more bug spray we headed down rather quickly. We wanted to get to the bottom and to the river before being carried off by the mosquitoes. At first they weren't bad, but by the time we touched down next to the river we did an about face and cruised out of there like nobody's business. Ken and I had just been discussing how it would be a dream job to be able to lead trips into sights like this and have quick adventures the like... only if you could be covered from head to toe with netting. Oh goodness, I hadn't seen bugs like that in a long time. Who cared about the mud and water sloshing through your boots, just make sure you are calling out to the fat frogs to get out of the way because we were running through.

        Upon coming back out of the tree-line, the bugs seemed to disappear. Thank goodness. I was huffin and puffin, so needed to catch my breath. Stopping for food at this point reflecting on the bottom half mile of mud and bugs we decided to take in a few views. So beautiful they were. There is nothing like gazing upon dark red soil and lush green vegetation in a tropical area.

        Noting the winds literally had changed we decided we should head out. The wind started heading back up the mountain side continually socking in the views, something was up. Just after half way mark we passed our first and only daring couple to venture this far. They were from some Switzerland or Holland or something like that. We warned them of the wonderful bugs at the bottom and if they had bug spray they might want to cake it on. They thanked us and continued on hesitantly. Half mile later and we felt our first sprinkle then it vanished. "Ut oh" we thought, "maybe it will be like it was yesterday..." About 10 minutes later the clouds let loose and down it all came. Rain like I'd never seen. It took about 5 minutes of this stuff before the trail turned into a slick as snot rushing river. We hustled faster than we'd been with the bugs below. We were highly concerned with the couple we passed earlier, we knew that they must have been at the most exposed area of the hike - we prayed they got the heck out of there too.

        As we neared the top of the ridge the rain kept coming without any let up what so ever. I don't think there was one part of our packs let alone our bodies that were dry. It just so happened that I buried my camera deep into a towel I had in one of my packs, the towel was damp by the time we got back but the camera and photos were saved! Getting back to the car was definitely a chore but and accomplished task at that. Once reached we threw everything in the trunk stripped naked and put on the only thing we had dry, our bathing suits. Not even the towels we were sitting on were dry. As we stared at each other waiting for the defrost to kick all the steam off the window we laughed, counted our blessings and heavily thought about the other couple still in the canyon. Their car was parked us ahead of ours. Having gone through rescue training, some nursing school and teaching survival it was my gut instinct to go back in there after them. But I knew that I'd be putting my own life at risk because I did not have any equipment to do anything with. We just hope that they were able to wait out the rain and make it out ok. Someone had to know they were in there cuz their car was there - this is an honorable mention for the hopefully safe return of the couple.

        Heading down the road nearing the first town we come too Ken pipes up and asks "How bout some shave ice?" my answer "are you out of your mind, we are half naked, totally wet and cold and you want shave ice? I don't think so." So continuing on we head back toward Kapa'a. We decided to pull over at the pineapple lady's store to check in with the family. They had mentioned that if it was nice weather when we were done that we should meet them at the river to play in the water. So we stopped to call. As we shook out the water from our cel phones we caught the message Pa Dow left earlier saying that it wasn't looking so hot for weather so just go ahead and stay down at that end of the island and enjoy yourselves. Little did he know we were already back into town waiting for our clothes to dry so we didn't have to show up anywhere with little on. We just laughed, cursed a little more and drove back into town.

        By the time we got home the rain had beat us there. From that moment onward it rained until we left the next day. On and off all day and night. That's ok, we didn't need any dry clothes anyway. The one lovely thing about humidity is that you never have to dry your hair, clothing or after you shower. One gets to look like a greasy mess all day long. Other than that, we really had a great day. Looking back on it, we realized the danger we could have put ourselves in, but it was all worth it, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.  

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There were many more wonderful memories that were made this trip. Some shots that didn't make it into a photo gallery but definitely deserve an honorable mention are below:

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