My beautiful wife and I celebrated our thirty years of marriage in a big way. Now it might be considered typical to travel to Hawaii for your 30th, and that is what we did. But we deviated from the norm of spending our entire vacation in some plush resort.
We left Orlando bright and early Friday, 26 August, utilizing the many frequent flyer miles that I have collected over the past years of traveling. We flew via US Airways, first-class to Charlotte in very first-class chairs. In Charlotte, we boarded another US Airways plane, first-class to Los Angeles, CA where we arrived a half-hour earlier than scheduled. We then had to collect our baggage and walk across the street to Terminal 7 to check-in to the United Airlines flight to Oahu, HI. This time we were not flying First Class, but we did manage to upgrade to Economy Plus which gave us enough legroom to be comfortable. We arrived in Honolulu about 1730hrs local time, picked up our rental car, Caliber, and drove to our hotel, Hale Koa.
The Hale Koa is one of four Armed Forces Recreational Facilities located around the world that is available to military personnel and their families. It provides genuinely nice accommodations at reasonable prices. We had a room on the fifth floor of the newest tower of the hotel, overlooking the garden that weddings are conducted seemingly on a daily basis there. We had dinner at the hotel and after dinner, we walked the beach, then called it a night, it had been a very long day.
The next morning, 27 August, we got into our rental car and drove up the eastern coast, headed to the north shore. Along the way we discovered an art fair that was being held in a park, so we stopped and walked around the various exhibits. We returned to the car and continued traveling north. We stopped at Schofield Barracks and checked out the PX. We drove back to the hotel.
The next day, 28 August, was our 30th anniversary. We had dinner at Roy’s – Waikiki Beach, it was within walking distance of our hotel. It was a restaurant we discovered when we visited Hawaii on our 10th anniversary. The food and atmosphere were excellent, just as we experienced twenty years before.
Monday, 29 August, we got up very early and traveled to the airport with all our gear and flew to Kauai. After obtaining the rental car we immediately headed for the local Wal-Mart (3-3300 Kuhio Hwy, Lihue, HI 96766) to obtain what supplies we could not bring with us on the airplane. We bought some water, some snacks and most importantly some Camping Gaz fuel cartridges for our camping stove. Once we had our supplies, we then drove to the hotel we had reservations for later in the week, hoping that we could store our luggage there while we hiked the trail. Unfortunately, they would not, stating it was against their policies. They did help find us a storage facility that would store the luggage for the couple of days we were going to be out on the trail. We then drove to the storage facility, paid $10 a day ($20 total) for the storage, we had to make another side trip to a local hardware store to purchase a padlock to secure the storage shed. Once we stored the equipment in the shed we drove to the Ha‘ena state park where the trailhead was located. We attempted to find a park ranger to report that we were leaving on the trail, but all we found was the lifeguards for the beach and they did not believe that we needed to report to anyone that we were on the trail as long as we had our camping permit. So, at 1300hrs we started up the trail. We made good time for the first mile and a half traveling at the same speed we did without packs the last time we traveled the trail, which was five years earlier. We reached the river that marks the end of the trail that can be hiked without a permit. Once past the river, you are required to have a camping permit. We had lunch there at the river, taking a small rest stop before continuing the hike on the trail.
Almost immediately the trail became more difficult, it was not much more than a rut in the hillside, climbing up the hill. As we climbed it began to rain, not real heavy just enough to make us a little wet. As we were climbing this trail, there was a guy that looked like someone from the ’60s sitting along the trail on a large boulder. As I passed, he asked if I wanted to buy some drugs. I told him no and continued to climb. He made me a little bit nervous and I kept an eye out for him as we continued the hike, but I never saw him again. The trail was surprisingly difficult to identify, you would have thought after all the years and all the hikers that have hiked it, it would be a pretty beaten path, it wasn’t. The trail would not have been too bad if it had stayed a constant elevation, but it doesn’t we were constantly climbing up and climbing down a slope along the coastline. I discovered to my chagrin that I was not in shape for this kind of hike. Lesson learned – to prepare for this trail you need to train using a stair master type exercise equipment. We took rest stops along the way, drinking a lot of water, which was in our Camelbaks. At 1900hrs, exactly 6 hours after we started hiking the trail and just as the sun was setting and the forest was getting dark we arrived at the Hanakoa Valley campsite that was located at the six-mile marker of the trail. We found the camping area empty, no other hikers there, we had it all to ourselves. At the camping area, there were two man-made structures. One was a small covered pavilion that two picnic tables were under and a self-contained outhouse. It was starting to slightly sprinkle, so while my wife prepared our dinner under the pavilion, I set up our tent in the camping area that was just off the trail, on the ocean side of the trail. We had a tarp in our packs I laid that out first then set up the tent, it was only the second time that I had set up this tent, doing it in the dark was a little bit of a challenge. Fortunately, I had packed two Energizer hard case professional LED headlights, a must for camping, provides plenty of light and keeps your hands free. Meanwhile, my wife was cooking our dinner using our little hiking stove to boil water to add to the freeze-dried dinners we had brought. By this time the rain was falling steadily but not very heavy. I took our water filter pump and walked over to the river that ran alongside the camping area and pumped a gallon of water into the empty gallon water jug that I had brought along. I then added the water purification tablets to the jug, because we would have to wait 4 hours before we could drink the water. Between drinking water along the trail and what we used for dinner, our camelbaks were nearly empty. After we had eaten our dinner, I was extremely tired, physically beat. I know that the last quarter mile that we hiked that day, I had been plodding along just focusing on keeping my wife in sight in front of me. It was fortunate that the trail was rather wide at this point and not along any sharp drop-offs because if it had, there was a real danger of me losing my balance and falling. I can’t really describe how tired I was, a military force march didn’t wear me out as much as this hike had. I was really doubting my ability to continue. We crawled into our tent and laid down to sleep, and that’s when it really started to rain, like monsoon rain. I was seriously concerned that the river that we were camped next to would overflow from all the rain and wash us down the slope. Needless to say, I didn’t fall asleep right away and even when I did it was not a restful sleep. Waking up several times during the night either from the rushing water sound of the river rising in pitch or the sound of some animal crashing through the forest. The next morning, I woke up very tired and didn’t think I had the energy to continue the hike. My wife fixed us some breakfast and I pumped/filtered another gallon of water from the river, after pouring the gallon that I had done the night before into our Camelbaks. My wife recognizing how tired I was, suggested that we stay at the campsite for the morning, to give us some extra time to recover from the previous day’s hike. I quickly agreed and crawled back into the tent to sleep. My wife stayed up and sat in the pavilion, as the morning progressed several hikers coming in the opposite direction that we were headed walked by and My wife talked with some of them as they passed. At 1100hrs we decided to keep going, so we ate lunch, packed up our gear and hit the trail again.
Tuesday, 30 August, after finishing our lunch we once again hit the trail close to 1200hrs. As we crossed the river we immediately lost the trail. There was a sign pointing to additional camping sites, and since the camping area that we stayed in the night before was off the main trail we assumed (incorrectly) that these campsites were also off the main trail, and we headed on what appeared to be the trail heading up the slope. In a short time, we were having doubts about this trail, for one thing, it kept crossing the same river back and forth, we were headed ever higher up the hill, and the trail was getting narrower and less defined. In fact, the only clue we had that it was a trail, was that someone had attached pink ribbon to trees and shrubs to mark the trail. After following this trail for about 15 minutes we came to the conclusion that this was the trail to the waterfall that supplied the river and not the trail that we wanted. So, we turned around and headed back the way we had come. When we got back to the sign for the camping area we decided to go that way, since it really was the only other way to go, and discovered that the main trail actually went through that camp area and continued on. So, our little detour up the hill delayed us about a half-hour, but now we were making progress.
Among the many items that I had purchased for this camping trip/hike was a pair of walking sticks, one pair for my wife and one pair for myself. I am convinced it was the best investment that I made in regard to safety. You see at the 6.5-mile mark the trail became a steep gravel/sand covered affair that we had to climb and descend and without the hiking sticks, I feared that I would have lost my footing and slid off the trail and into the ocean hundreds of feet below. Not my idea of a good time. It was also very warm by now and we were consuming water to compensate for the loss from sweating. At the 7-mile mark of the trail, we came to the location of the trail that I call “The Ledge”. The Ledge is where the trail narrows down to no more than 12 inches wide and curves around a shear wall on one side and a 500-foot drop to the Ocean on the other side. This was the ultimate test of My wife’s courage, she is very much afraid of heights, and this was a true challenge. I took the lead and literally faced the shear wall and placed both of my hands on the wall and walked side to side around the trail at the same time telling My wife to concentrate on the trail and the wall face and follow me. By the way, there are no handholds on this wall-face, no rope, no chain, nothing to provide some sense of security. You basically lean into the wall and shuffle around. As I got around the curve I was in for another surprise. The trail seemed to once again disappear. For as I got around the curve I discovered the trail had disappeared into another cliff face. My wife came around the corner and saw the same thing that I saw, asked, “Where did the trail go?” Upon I replied “Working on it, working on it”. On the left side was a smooth cliff face on the right side was a smooth cliff face, and in the center there appeared barely noticeable indents into the face of the cliff. “It would appear that we are to climb up here” I said with not too much confidence. Telling My wife to wait here, I climbed up the cliff, it was only about seven feet high and was not too difficult a climb, and sure enough it was where the trail resumed. Helping My wife up the climb, she asked or stated, “This is not the way we are coming back?!” At which I replied, “No, we won’t be coming back this way.” At this point I was actually trying to figure out how we were going to get back. I had three possible plans, (1) Flag down one of the helicopters that constantly fly the coast and pay the pilot whatever he wanted to fly us back to civilization. Or (2) Use the Emergency button on the SPOT ® Personal Tracker that I was carrying. Not sure what the ramifications of using the emergency button, when our only emergency being we are too tired to hike back, but I wasn’t ruling it out. Or (3) Flag down one of the many boats that travel the coast and pay the boat owner whatever he wanted to take us back to civilization. What was not an option was hiking back on this trail, and especially climbing down to “The Ledge”,
Once we regained the trail we continued to hike realizing that we only had four more miles to get to the end of the trail. The trail was still not very wide, but the vegetation growing along the trail obscured how narrow the trail really was. We could still have miss-stepped and slide down the slope, but because of the plant growth was certain that it stops us before we went too far. The trail followed the coastline and would go up and down the slope of the coast so it was still a major workout. We took several rest breaks, having a power bar and water to give us the energy to continue the hike. Along the way, we caught up to a young couple that was also hiking the trail. For a while we were leapfrogging each other, we would pass them, then we would be resting along the trail and they would pass us. Finally, we decided to hike together, it was nice having someone else with us. The fact that they were 30 years younger than us, and they were finding the trail challenging, helped my ego a lot too. For water they only had two 32oz water bottles, for water purification they had a water filter system similar to us, the difference is they used ultra-violet light to kill bugs, instead of the tablets we were using. They were able to get drinkable water a lot faster than we did using the ultra-violet light.
At about 1600hrs we reached the ten-mile marker. We stopped to take a picture and take a small rest, we got our second wind realizing that we were within a mile of our final destination. At this point, the trail was almost all downhill, which was just as stressful on our feet. My feet kept pushing into the toe section of my hiking boots and I ended up with black toenails on both of my feet, to join the major blisters on the bottom of my feet. We once again temporary lost the trail, due to the trail ending into a large meadow and it was not well marked where we were to go next. We finally figured it out and ended up in a Hawaiian forest heading for the beach. Just before reaching the beach we had one more hurdle to make, that being a large river. Along the trail, there had been several small streams that we had to cross, and these were typically easily crossed in two or three steps. This river was much larger and deeper than anything we had seen before along the trail. It was flowing pretty fast and was at least three feet deep in some parts of the stream. The stream had several large rocks and some smaller rocks that were peeking out of the water. Our younger couple easily jumped from large rock to large rock to cross the stream. Although I could make the jumps from the large rocks, my wife did not feel confident that she could, so she decided to try to travel across on the smaller rocks. Unfortunately, the smaller rocks were wet from splash and had moss growing on them making them slippery. I jumped onto the first large rock and waited for My wife to begin her crossing. On the second rock that my wife stepped on, she slipped and fell backward into the river. Then something magical occurred. Before my wife or I knew it, there was a man standing next to her helping her up from the water. Only thing was, the man was entirely naked, the only thing he was wearing was a headband made from palm leaves. Judging from his all body tan, and I do mean all body, this was his normal condition. Of course, as My wife turns her head to see who is there to help her, she is looking right at his private parts. What I found amazing, besides the speed at which he appeared, was his very calm demeanor. He appeared to be very concerned with my wife’s situation, but without a sign of excitement. As he is helping her up, he is telling her she is OK, just wet. He then has her give him her backpack and he walks it across the river, then comes back and helps her across. Also during this time, my wife had let go of one of her walking sticks, the one she fell on as she fell back into the river. He retrieves the stick, notices that it is bent, applies some pressure and bends it nearly perfectly straight again. I jump from large rock to large rock to cross the river and meet them on the other side. We thank him for his kindness, he acknowledges our thanks and re-crosses the river and takes a seat on a large boulder that is partially hidden in the trees next to the river. My guess is that is where he was when my wife fell down, and why he was able to get to her so quickly.
We then continue our hike down the trail and a very short time after that we reach the end of the trail. There is a young lady standing there, she asks if we are going to the valley or the beach? We reply, “The beach”, she has a brief look of disappointment, and points in the direction of the beach, and replies that maybe later we will come to the valley. I’m not sure what that was all about, from what I know a lot of folks have settled in the valley, and have something like a commune there. She did remind me of the flower girls of the late sixties, and maybe she was there to recruit more participants. Being that we just came off the trail, and we had large backpacks maybe she thought we had food to share, I really don’t know, as it is we never made it to the valley on this trip.
We arrived at the camping area around 1730hrs and found it pretty full. We found a spot and set up our tent. I immediately went looking for water, because we had nearly depleted our drinkable water supply. At the far end of the beach, there is a small waterfall that has created a small pool that then runs into the ocean. Here I set up my water filter and pumped water into my empty gal jug. While there several folks came up to the waterfall and used it as an open-air shower, discovering nudity was a common thing here at the beach. I then headed back to our camping area, it was soon to be dark, the sun was setting and I figured it would be below the horizon by 1900hrs. My wife had made dinner and while having dinner our “neighbors” arrived back to their tent, two Peruvian sisters that were hiking around the Hawaiian Islands. They spoke pretty good English, and they told us that a boat was expected to be off the beach the next morning around 0600hrs, we might be able to take it back to the trailhead. They also stated that this might be the only boat for a while because there was bad weather coming and they wouldn’t be able to come in the rough surf. That night I didn’t sleep well, I fretted about whether there would be a boat, and would we be able to gain passage. If we didn’t get on a boat that left only the two other options in my mind, and they were not very realistic. The helicopter option would be very expensive if we were able to flag down one, to begin with. The emergency button on my SPOT® had pitfalls as well since my “emergency” did not fit the true definition. The boat option had to work or I didn’t know what we were going to do. At midnight, I was still awake, so I decided that if we were going to have to hike back we would need all the water we could carry, and so I trekked back to the small waterfall and refilled my gal jug once again. Walking at night was definitely interesting, there are no lights other than the stars and any light coming from the campers, which at midnight weren’t many. I eventually made it to the waterfall, filled my jug, dropped in the sterilization tablets, and carried it back to our camp. I then settled back into my sleeping bag and attempted to sleep.
Wednesday, 31 August, we woke up at 0500 and we immediately broke camp, packing up all our stuff. As we were packing up, the young couple that we had hiked with the day before walked by, they were headed back to the trailhead and figured that if they left now they would get back by 1700hrs. We wished them luck and we headed for the beach with the two sisters, wanting to make sure we were there for 0600 so we did not miss the boat. When we got to the beach we found a native Hawaiian that was older than me waiting for the same boat. He explained that the owner of the boat was a friend of his and he was sure that we could get a ride on it back to the trailhead. In fact, his “job” was to find folks to take the boat, so we were in luck. So, we sat on the beach and waited talking to the Hawaiian. Learned that he was a true native that on top of the cliff that the small waterfall cascaded from was a burial ground for his ancestors. That every year, he and his cousins climb the cliff to visit the burial ground. I can tell you I was impressed the cliff was a couple hundred feet high and though it looked like there were places to put your hands and feet, the climb would still test your strength. He told me that he lived in the valley and basically lived off the land, fishing in the ocean. A pretty simple life. Around 0700hrs a good-sized (27-footer) powerboat appeared coming down the coast, but he reported that wasn’t his friend’s boat. The boat anchored off the coast, because there was no place closer without running aground. A 20-something girl showed up and yelled to the guy that she was waiting for her friends. She then ran back into the jungle and about a half-hour later showed up with three other girls. They then swam out to the boat and once they were on board the boat headed back up the coast. I was considering seeing if they were willing to take us, but the Hawaiian assured us that his friend would come, so I didn’t pursue it.
At nearly 0830 in the morning, a single boat appeared on the horizon headed to our beach. The Hawaiian reported that this was his friend coming. As the boat got closer, I could see it was a smaller boat than the one that was already off-shore. I could also see that there were two guys dressed in swimsuits and t-shirts and one girl in a black bikini already in the boat. Once the boat reached the beach it stayed off-shore and the girl disappeared for a moment, the guys threw a couple of large black garbage bags into the water, one jumped into the water with the bags and then I saw the girl jump in. They then each took a bag and swam to shore dragging their respective bag. The Hawaiian walked down to the shore and helped them pull their bags out of the surf. As the girl walked out of the water, I was surprised to see she had nothing on but a smile. She looked between 18 and 24 years of age, very pretty, with long black hair, very fit, and her pubic hair neatly trimmed “landing strip” style. She apparently was someone that came to the beach/valley on a regular basis. The garbage bags kept her stuff dry while being transported from the boat to the beach. Looking for some garage bags for our backpacks, I went to ask her if she had any extra that we could have. She was very comfortable standing in front of me totally nude, much like the Hawaiian guy that helped my wife the day before. As I had stated before nudity at the beach appeared to be no big thing. She was able to give me one bag and we were able to get another bag from the Hawaiian, so we were able to put our backpacks in bags to swim out to the boat. There was a total of six of us that swam out to the boat, two guys that walked up when the boat got here, the two Peruvian sisters, and my wife and I. Made a total of eight on the boat, and I don’t think we could have had one more person on the boat. They stacked our bags in the middle of the boat and we sat along the outside of the boat. What I found amazing was the guy running the boat didn’t ask us if we had any money to pay for the ride, he just took us on. Along the way, we did a short detour going through a tunnel that went into the cliff of the island. On the way back to the trailhead we saw “the Ledge” and saw the young couple that we had walked in with the day before they were on their way back to the trailhead and they had just climbed down to “the Ledge” as we were passing below on the boat. At that moment I was very thankful that our luck had come through and was taking this much easier way back. As we approached the trailhead, I explained to the boat captain that we did not have any cash on us and we needed to get to an ATM to get the money to pay him for the trip. He was very understanding and gave me his business card, told me when we got the cash to call him and we would arrange to meet to make the payment. They then dropped us offshore from a beach a little way down from the state park. My wife and I swam to shore with our bags, dragged them up onto the shore and carried them to a picnic table. I then headed back to the state park to retrieve the rental car that we had parked there. I found the car where we left it and not blocked in by other cars, drove back to the beach where I left my wife and retrieved our stuff. We then drove back to the nearest town, found an ATM machine and withdrew $200 to pay for the boat ride. Called the boat Captain and arranged for a meet point, paid him and thanked him for the ride. He told us if we wanted to go back, give him a call and we would drop us off and pick us up at the beach.
We then drove to the resort that we had reservations for and checked in. After a long hot shower, I felt a whole lot better. If I ignored the fact that I had significant blisters on both of my feet. That night we went to a local restaurant and had a steak dinner to celebrate that we survived our hiking adventure. The next time we do a hike of this magnitude I plan to be better prepared both mentally and physically. One thing is for sure, I will never forget our 30th Anniversary trip.