Kalalau

Jed has hiked into Kalalau 3 times within the past year, and has brought 3 different groups of people. This time, his friend Jose gathered a group together and planned it for August 4-7th. Hiking into Kalalau has always been on my bucket list, so I told Jed I wanted to come! Jed wanted to kayak it in, and so did another friend (Aaron). Working out the logistics of borrowing the kayaks, having my dad's truck be used, and also the drop off and pick up at the complete opposite ends of the island were challenging (North Shore, Ke'e Beach, and then West Side, Polihale Beach). We were able to get kayaks, but the scary part - none of us did the kayak part before! Jed is an avid waterman, and both of them are Eagle Scouts... I was more worried about me! Jed said to be prepared to hike or kayak. If the conditions weren't perfect, he would rather me hike. We checked the weather forecast a few days before, and it looked good, so I decided to kayak into Kalalau with Jed and Aaron. The kayak took us 3.5 hours to get to the beach. We took our time exploring the sea caves and waterfalls. When we got to Kalalau beach, Jed shouted, "This is SO EASY! I'm never hiking it again!"

Jose and his crew (8 people) hiked it in, and met us that day. We arrived at 11:30 am and rested until they came (around 5:30 pm). We spent 3 nights in there, and I had such a great time that I already want to go back next summer! Getting away with no cell phones, no electricity, and just living on the simplest of things... where a piece of fresh fruit made someone's day... Life was simplified and brought us closer together. Instead of viewing what other people were doing on Instagram and Facebook, we were in the moment and making memories that would last forever.

Kalalau Beach from the kayak

We made it!

Setting up camp

Jed and Jose on our first evening watching the sunset

Waterfall pic with the brother

Waterfall @ Honpu Beach

Honopu Beach: A burial zone is back in the shrubbery area

Honopu Arch - We had to swim around the bend to reach this isolated beach.

The Honopu Arch

Boulders that have tumbled down from the Napali

Picking Ophihi!

Yum!

This cave had water dripping from the cavern and it created a fresh water pond in there.

 

Lunch time!

Hiking deep in the Kalalau Valley

We found Big Pools! After looking for a tree with an "X" on it and hopping across "4 streams" and turning where there is a large 4 ft boulder (there were many of those)... We were about to give up, but we found it, and it was amazing!

Jed being silly and holding up the water

The whole group on the second night

The Pyro at work!

Went back to Honopu and played in the cliffs

Ophihi! Now where's the kimchee sauce?

The place we camped was in the trees slightly to the left.
Above is the ridges called The Cathedral.

K - A - L - A - L - A - U

Yeah, I kneed Nick in the butt as I tried to scramble up to the top!

This was a set of about 10 sequence pictures and it included the army crawl and Daryl jumping on Boy-San's back.

Everyone's faces are so classic!

Final sunset in Kalalau, for now... hopefully we will be back next summer!

There was a new moon, and after we ate dinner, we all just laid on our backs and star gazed for a while. I hardly ever see shooting stars, but that night, I saw the longest shooting star in my life! Great way to end an amazing trip!

 

Our adventure still wasn't over though! We got to kayak around the bend and see one of these beauties - Jed calls it God's toilet bowl, others may call it the blue hole. Still pretty cool no matter what the name!

It took us 4 hours to kayak to Polihale. We then headed back home, dropped of Aaron at his dad's workplace, and then washed out all the kayaks. I was tired and ready for a good shower, and to sleep in my nice bed!