What's Cooking With Rhonda: Adventures in Paradise......Day 2

Waimea Canyon

So if you like to go hiking Kaua'i has the best hiking in the most stunning places. Kaua'i has miles and miles of hiking for such a small island. One of the best things about hiking in the Hawaiian Islands is that there are no snakes so you can walk anywhere and not have to worry about what is hiding in the brush. Big plus for me. I hate snakes and creepy crawly creatures. Kaua'i has hiking trails for all levels of hiking ability. The Kaua'i Guidebook was so great as a guide for hikes. It gives maps, tells you the difficulty, where to go to catch the trails, any warnings and what to wear. I carried it in our backpack when we hiked.

Looking down on the Na Pali Coast, as I said the picture doesn't do it justice

We decided to hike the Pihea Trail to Alaka'i Swamp. Actually let me rephrase that, I decided where we were going and the Money Man started walking. Let me say that a walking pole is really an added plus for a lot of these hikes. I had brought our collapsible poles in our suitcase. The hike would have been a lot more difficult without them. You also need a really good pair of hiking shoes with good gripping soles. Long lightweight pants, a hat and a light raincoat is also good. This area rains approx. 450 inches of rain a year. Thank goodness for us it did not rain on the day we went. It sprinkled but didn't rain.

The trail doesn't look to bad here.

This got a bit more tricky. Very up hill, rocky and slippery wet.

To get to Pihea Trail you drive to the very end of Waimea Canyon Road. Driving Waimea Canyon Road is an adventure in and of itself. Waimea Canyon, the Little Grand Canyon, is spectacular. Be sure to stop at the lookouts for the Canyon on your way to the top. You need to start this adventure early in the morning, by 10:00 anyway. If you wait too much longer the clouds start rolling in and obscure the views. When we started I really had every intention of doing both trails-Pihea and Alaka'i. It would have been about eight miles. As we got going I realized that if we could get the approx. 4 mile Pihea Trail done it would be good. There were times had my husband not been with me to pull me up the the rocks and over the tree limbs, I would have been crawling up on my hands and knees. It would be so much easier if I didn't have such short jeans/genes.

Then there was the mud swamps to navigate.


This was looking down on what we climbed up. I don't think you can tell, but this was a steep incline climbing up rocks

Me trying to climb around the mud and over a three foot tree root.

I thought this was so cool. It's a tree stump in the middle of the trail that has been worn smooth by everyone using it to pull themselves over the mud.

The reason I wanted to do this trail is because it is one that gives you views down into the untouched Na Pali Valley and Coast. You hike through the rain forest and the swamp. There is truly no way to adequately describe the views and I don't know if the pictures even do it justice. It is really breathtaking and moving to look down on a land that nobody has touched because you can't get to it. Walking the Pihea Trail is like walking up with the clouds and sometime they roll in around you. It took us about 5 hours to do the 4 miles round trip. To do both trails you would need to start at first light. These trails are not trails you would want to try to navigate in the dark. Make sure you take a backpack with water, lunch and snacks. There is no place to sit and have a picnic, but standing and staring at the view....priceless!