Going Wild on Kauai; From Beaches to Backpacking, the Garden; Isle is Hawaii’s Hot Spot for Active Tourists
Leaving winter behind for a vacation break to Hawaii doesn’t necessarily require going cold turkey on muscle-powered outdoor activities. Personally, I can relax on a beach with the best meat loafers on the planet – for about 30 minutes. Then, like a growing number of Hawaii visitors, I look forward to a hike, paddle, dive or other active pursuit beyond the manicured landscaping.
My restlessness was accelerated late last winter when my vacationing but watchful parental eyes noticed a young, muscular golden boy – I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and call him “Buddy” – had locked his radar on one of my teenage daughters within seconds of our arrival to one of the busiest beaches on Kauai.
I looked at my wife, who was slathering a third layer of sunscreen onto her winter-white skin, and said, “I think I’ll be more relaxed when we get on the trail.”
All of the major Hawaiian Islands are ripe with active outdoor recreation options, including great hunting for deer and wild turkeys and fairly good fishing if you want to go that route.
Even on the more heavily populated Oahu, our family has sampled a surprisingly extensive system of hiking trails, and you can get away from the chaos of Honolulu and Waikiki with ocean kayak rentals.
Just a short air-hop away, however, Kauai has several standout attractions for the tourist who wants to spice the tropical experience with outdoor adventure.
Only 3 percent of this versatile island has been consumed by commercial and residential development. A good chunk is agricultural, while a full half of the island is forested and the majority is reasonably natural, partly because it’s too wonderfully wet or rugged to mess with.
Kauai is smaller than the Big Island, Oahu or Maui, but it’s packed with opportunities, some of them unique.
For example, Kauai is the only Hawaiian island with navigable rivers for flatwater kayak paddling.
Kauai has some of the easiest access to areas where snorkelers can swim with sea turtles.
None of the other major islands has a feature to compare with the Na Pali Coast and its spectacular, precipitous and undeveloped bastion of tropical wilderness for hiking or paddling.
The north side of the Kauai has no shortage of good beaches and is the best base for adventures on the roadless Na Pali Coast along the island’s west side.
The east and south sides of the island have most of the river- paddling options.
For a spring break trip, we settled on the south side in the Po’ipu area, a good base for sea-turtle snorkeling forays and hiking around Waimea Canyon – Hawaii’s grand canyon. Po’ipu has the well- known additional benefit of being the sunniest and driest spot on an island where rain is going to fall somewhere almost every day.
Time flies when you’re having fun, and we found that spending a little extra on conveniently located accommodations helped us make the most of our week in paradise. Driving the crowded, windy island roads can gobble up big chunks of precious days.
The Sheraton-Kauai is expensive but central to tons of activity. Sharing the same beach is a campus of condos at the Castle Kiahuna Plantation, where active people who don’t mind walking a short way for their ocean view can save some money with off-beach units.
Both are situated near Po’ipu Beach, distinguished in 2001 as the best in America by Dr. Beach. (Check it out at www.drbeach.org.)
Hiking was high on our agenda, but we didn’t come to Hawaii to walk away from the waves. As a fisherman, I learned long ago that it pays to hire a guide for an introduction to new waters before exploring them on your own. That same strategy paid dividends for snorkeling.
By spending a morning with an Aloha Kauai Tours snorkel guide, we were quickly tuned in to shy and camouflaged marine species beyond the obvious colorful schools of fish. We learned to use the currents rather than fight them. We got tips on where to go and areas to avoid, and closed the session in a mesmerizing swim with a group of sea turtles.
Snorkeling is an active sport that appeals to tourists with a wide range of physical abilities. Our guide pointing out that overweight people find unique freedom to exercise in the buoyancy of saltwater.
The sport is simple, too, once you master the basic theory that a snorkel is a big air hose, unless you tilt your head too far forward; then it’s a giant straw.
With a beach experience behind us, we devoted the next day to seeing another niche of the island by foot. Being experienced hikers, we had brought a few key items that helped us walk away comfortably from the crowds.
Among them: Daypacks for food, ponchos and two-liter hydration systems, plus trekking poles and light hiking shoes to handle rugged and sometimes treacherously mud-slick trails.
Our teenagers initially resented being dragged away from the beach, but their jaws dropped in awe as we hiked down a ridge west of Waimea Canyon and looked across to waterfalls and down almost vertically to the Na Pali Coast.
I knew the scenery was going to be spectacular even before we broke out of the forest canopy.
“Hear the helicopters?” I said. “People pay a lot of money to fly over the best scenery on Kauai, and we’re hiking here for free.”
Looking beyond their yawns and rolling eyes, I think the girls were impressed in a teenage sort of way.
From one vantage on an open rocky slope where feral goats frolicked, we could see the ocean crashing on the beaches, the helicopters tiny as bugs in the vast canyons where ribbons of water streamed down imminently green slopes.
The 12-mile loop connecting the Nu’alolo and Awa-’awapuhi trails ranks among the best dayhikes on the island, although 3 miles are along Waimea Canyon Drive in order to get back to a vehicle parked at the Koke’e Lodge.
My wife, Meredith, made a stab at sticking out her thumb and was not only rejected by the first few passing rental cars – they actually sped up as they shot by.
She was fairly demoralized, noting that she had no trouble hitchhiking last time she tried, although that was around 25 years ago. But her daughters soothed her aching ego by pointing out that she surely would have been given a lift if it weren’t for the “Rambo look” from mud caked on her shoes and legs.
She even had splatters of red mud on her face from a couple of “whoopees” down trail sections that occasionally and naturally erode in this volcanic landscape into virtual tunnels of traction-defying amusement.
Three other top Kauai hiking attractions:
— The Kukui Trail, 5 miles round trip, drops 2,000 feet into Waimea Canyon for the shortest route to the canyon floor and a large swimming hole at the bottom.
— The Kuilau Ridge Trail, 4.2 miles round trip, starts beyond the University of Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station on Route 580 and leads to intimate views of native flora and small waterfalls.
— The Kalalau Trail, up to 22 miles round trip, is the original Hawaiian trail on the Na Pali Coast from Ke’e Beach into the isolated Kalalau Valley. It’s the most celebrated trail in Hawaii, for good reason. Dayhikers can easily hike into a stunning beach and to 300-foot Hanakapi’ai Falls.
By planning ahead and getting a permit, you can hike in and camp. Just be aware that the trail can get gnarly and dangerous in wet weather.
Humility is one lesson I’ve learned from adventuring in different parts of the world. Even experienced hikers should read and ask questions before venturing into new territory. Hawaii is no exception.
For example, showering under the spray of a waterfall after a sweaty hike is risky, particularly in this eroding volcanic landscape where rocks often are swept down over the falls.
Swimming in the pools of those photogenic waterfalls and freshwater streams runs the risk of leptospirosis, a flu-like bacterial disease that’s not uncommon in Hawaii. It can be contracted through cuts in the skin or by swallowing contaminated stream water.
“The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook,” by Andrew Doughty and Harriett Friedman does a decent job of summarizing outdoor attractions and hazards, but no guidebook is a substitute for common sense.
And no guidebook will tell you everything.
“The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook” tipped us off to a nifty coastline hike starting from popular Shipwreck Beach next to the opulent Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Serious hikers might overlook the hike, since it starts by skirting the Po’ipu Bay Golf Course, where admission apparently has everything to do with your tax bracket and nothing to do with your handicap.
The guidebook, however, doesn’t mention that you can extend this hike for miles, alternating from rock cliffs to sandy beaches.
We spent a marvelous four hours of discovery here, feasting on the sights, ranging from wildflowers on shore to whales blowing in the distance. Sea turtles often showed up spread-eagle in the waves near shore.
My wife struck up a conversation with a white-haired but otherwise very brown angler on a cliff over his honey hole in the surf. He was fishing for mackerel and snapper, and, like any serious fisherman I’ve ever known, he had serious opinions on how it’s done.
He said he was fishing with a jig. “That’s all you need, anywhere in the world,” he said. “Even for the salmon in your neighborhood back in Washington.”
We watched him cast and wished him well as we continued our hike.
“Watch where you walk,” he said, pausing and pointing to the crumbling rock ledges over the roaring surf. “So you don’t go home in a box.”
While hiking was a great way to exercise and see Kauai up close, the ocean was more inviting than ever after we’d been in the mountains.
Of course, the activity doesn’t end at the beach. You can’t ask for a better full-body workout than a few hours of learning how to surf.
My daughter, Hillary, and I took a surfing lesson on Po’ipu Beach and had a ball catching waves after the lesson was over. I was treading water where the waves were building so I could give Hillary a shove and get her started when I met another father performing the same service for his teenage daughter.
Pretty soon, the other dad and I realized we’d been deserted out there as we bobbed beyond the breakers, with a few 10-year-old fledgling surfers zeroing in on our lull and asking for shoves.
The other dad spotted his daughter sitting on the beach with some local surf bums.
“I think I’d better go and get my family out on a hike,” the other dad said, referring to our brief exchange of island activities.
“Oh, and there’s your daughter,” he said, pointing over to the calmer water where Hillary was lounging on her surfboard as if her father were asleep on the beach rather than snorting surf while waiting to launch her into another wave.
“Looks like she has a friend, too,” he said.
That’s no friend, I thought, that’s “Buddy,” who apparently had been slinking off from the action like a shark waiting for an opportunity.
I swam to shore and paged through the guidebook, saltwater still dripping off my nose, and started looking for another hike.
SIDEBAR: CONTACTS Visiting Kauai Here’s a sampling of resources and contacts to help plan outdoor activities during a visit to the Hawaiian island of Kauai. — The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook, by Andrew Doughty and Harriett Friedman, helps boil down the visitors options on and off the beaten path. — Hawaiian Airlines, for inter- island connections, (800) 367-5320 or www.hawaiianair.com. — Try Kauai, a Web site useful in sorting out available services across the island and booking guided trips, www.trykauai.com. — Kauai Visitors Bureau, (800) 262-1400 or www.kauai-hawaii.com — Outfitters Kauai, guided kayak tours and other active adventures, (808) 742-9667 or www.outfitterskauai.com. — Aloha Kauai Tours, guided snorkel tours and other active adventures, 800-452-1113 or www.alohakauaitours.com — Po’ipu Beach Web site, great for planning a base for Kauai exploration on the sunny south shore of the island, www.poipu-beach.org