Princeville – The PolyBlog

For Day 11, we started with a fairly ambitious plan. Ke’e Beach is the start of what is called the Kalalau Trail, and it goes up and over part of the mountain range at the coast, and down to a secluded beach. We had hiking poles, hiking boots, and a plan. But to be honest, I was nervous. The guidebooks basically said this was for more advanced hikers and adventurers. There’s no support anywhere on this trail, nothing nearby. You’re hiking straight into wilderness in rocky terrain; if you get into trouble, it is on you to get yourself out. It reminded me a bit of the people who went hiking on top of lava rock to peer into vents…a really stupid way to get into way more trouble than you can handle.

The condo we were in had a small kitchen, and I seem to recall doing basic toast and stuff for breakfast. Then heading out, about 30-45m to the Beach. Just before the end of the road, there’s a giant rock face with a cave underneath that has been eroded away over the years. We didn’t have much in the way of light to really illuminate it, but you can see in the photo that you can go a fair distance into the cave.

I was a bit surprised that I didn’t feel more claustrophobic, given the lack of lighting.

We continued down the road, parked, and started up the Trail. We hadn’t decided how far we would go. In a sense, there are four segments to get to this other beach:

Up the North side of the trail face to the top;
Down the South side of the trail face to the secluded beach;
Back up the South side to the top; and,
Back down the North side.

I was committed to go to the top of the North trail face, and then to decide if I was going to have the strength, endurance, and agility to do #2 and #3 before going back down to the car. The hike up to the top was more strenuous than I expected. Although there’s something funny about that too, that I’ll come back to…the hike up was a bit twisty and turning, not large switchbacks, etc. Some parts barely qualify as a trail. It was more like at some point there had been a waterway running down it and some landslides, so you could climb up the rock gully. Often using large tree roots as handholds and foot spots. But pretty much the whole way up, we were constantly thinking, okay, where do we step, what’s the next foot placement, etc. We weren’t rock climbing or anything, but it required constant concentration to think, okay, how do we get up to the next spot. Scrambling over rocks, grabbing roots, and hauling my ass to the top of a small mountain area. But it’s an adventure, right? And the views were certainly worth it. As long as you watched that first step, as it was a long way down.

Andrea was doing way better than me; the photo of me was a relatively GOOD area of the trail.

But any trail that you can go along, look out over the ocean, and see relatively unspoiled areas with dolphins swimming around is a good trail.

Heck, even the views back down to Ke’e Beach were awesome.

For reference, the following postcard shows the beach we were trying to get down to, coming from the bottom of the picture.

But it was not to be. We got to the top, and every fibre of my soul wanted to keep going to H Beach. But my brain, body and heart said, “Are you nuts?”. I was spent just getting to the top of the first part. We were about 40% of the way there, I think. So down, back, and then down again still? I was worried about the descent we were already committed to doing. Andrea could have done it, and I was disappointed for her that she wouldn’t be able to go down. I suggested she go by herself and I’d wait, but that wasn’t a good idea either. So, we went back down.

Now, I said it was difficult, right? And we saw some more experienced hikers struggling, some older people too trucking along. We were about medium, I think, for ability. But on the climb up, there was this one stretch that was the river wash/waterfall gully, big huge rocks, signs of a previous rockslide, all of that. It was the worst stretch of the trail, and it was a LOT of work to get up it.

But I said there was a funny bit on the way there. We were about 2/3 of the way up the stretch, and some young teens came the other way, heading back to Ke’e Beach, having already been down to H Beach. Did I mention we had full sun gear, poles, and hiking boots? They RAN down our trail, hopping from rock to rock. In bare feet. In swimsuits. No shirts. Carrying surfboards. Barely even slowed down, except to go around us. Laughing and talking as they went. Soooo maybe it wasn’t as bad as I found it.

Nevertheless, we were done. We went back to Ke’e Beach, did a bit more exploring around the extended beach area, had a nice dinner, and then went back to Ke’e Beach to watch the sunset.

I don’t really have the words to describe that sunset experience. It was magical. I can remember almost every detail of two sunsets in my life, both shared with Andrea, one on a boat cruise while dating and this one on our honeymoon. They are tied for first place. The first was emotional, as I realized that I was in love with this woman. The second was part of our honeymoon, a celebration of our love and commitment, so of course it was emotional, too. But the sheer beauty of the place was incredible.

Day 10 of our vacation, and as I mentioned yesterday, it was time to leave the Big Island (Hawaii) and head off to the second island of our honeymoon: Kauai. We flew through Honolulu, past the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor, and then on to Lihue.

The island’s settlements are laid out a bit like a backward C…the West side of the island is entirely wild (and we’ll discuss later!), while the South, East and North are settled. We had decided to go to the northern part of the island for a couple of days, but before we headed North, we decided to check out Opaekae Falls. It was listed in all the guidebooks as a great waterfall, and we love our waterfalls. Apparently, it shows up in a bunch of movies and TV shows too, although mostly older stuff. It was worth a visit, although I was disappointed we couldn’t get a better direct view of it and with more water volume.

We headed up the East Coast of the island afterwards, grabbed some food somewhere along the way, as I recall, maybe Subway (I don’t know why that is sticking in my head), and made it to Princeville. We were staying in an AirBNB-equivalent style rental which was my first time doing so. It was a condo next to a golf course, a nice, simple structure for the two of us for a couple of nights. Princeville is the local “town” although more of a village. The terrain was mixed, with hills starting to show in the background and some flat agriculture. Felt very different from Big Island, more lush.

I’m including a postcard of the beach we went to called Ke’e Beach which is basically the end of the road when you go to the North West corner of the island. We didn’t get great shots the first day, mostly we just drove around to get the lay of the land, although we saw this really cool tree root system at the beach.

Later, as the sun started to set, we went to Hanalei Pier, which is on a large bay that was made famous in the movie South Pacific. It was a nice place to watch some of the sunset.