Wailua River Mouth

Speaking of scooping, I saw and odd sight at Wailua beach last week and went home to get my camera. I parked between the two bridges and walked across the road next to the one-lane bridge:

Is that another courageous surfer trying to stop a super Caterpillar from invading Kauai? And just what exactly is that excavator doing on the beach? Perhaps a little context will help:

After a day of rain, and with more in the forecast, the county (or maybe the state, I’m not sure) dredges out the mouth of the Wailua river to keep the water from rising inland.

Most rivers in Hawaii still have a natural outflow to the ocean, and the beach sand acts as a natural dam that creates a wide lagoon inland. And right now at the beginning of summer, ocean currents and wave action deposit more sand on the beach, which is why most of the beaches are wider in the summer. But that creates problems when there are out-of-season rain-storms as we’ve had.

But what about the surfers?

When the lagoon is breached, the strong flow of water creates standing waves coveted by the surfers—the mythical infinite wave. Because these waves are usually too small for surfing, body-boarders flock to the site to jump in and try to ride one until the sands shift and the wave forms elsewhere. From what I could see, the waves weren’t very convincing and none of them had long rides. I’ve heard of surfers digging the channel themselves to drain the lagoons at the smaller river-mouths, trying to create their own wave. I don’t recommend the practice, because storm runoff and standing lagoon water have high levels of bacteria and pollutants.

It looks like the body-boarders weren’t the only ones having fun. Who would not want to play with such an enormous sand toy—and get to dig real channels with it? When he was done with the channel, he spent some time flattening out the piles of sand, so the beach looked natural again.

After watching them for a while, I found another spot to view the river and noticed that there were two channels for the river to flow in. I had assumed that the sand had blocked the river almost completely, as happens on the smaller rivers, and the excavator had to create or enlarge it. But the natural channel is the one on the right, and they doubled the outflow of the river by creating a second channel through the sandbar.

It’s a good thing too, because we had over an inch of rain a few days later.

While I was down by the bridge, I saw this strange sign warning paddlers about dangers under the bridge. I think that the old reinforced concrete on the bridge was flaking a bit and pieces would fall off. That would explain the stucco coating you see here, to protect the remaining concrete from the salt spray. But why then did they leave the sign?

Not to fear, the bridge was recently tested and still found to be very solid. Originally a railway bridge for sugar cane hauling trains, it will be retrofitted with two lanes of traffic and the future bicycle path.

Moving around a little, I found another little strip of land that is seldom seen. This triangular area is hidden between the access to the one-lane bridge, the river, and the Aloha Beach Hotel. I had never noticed the nice little grove of palm trees here. Off to the left in the distance are the ruins of the Hikina a ka la heiau and Hauola, the place of refuge, at the edge of Lydgate park.

The only reason I took this picture is because this is undoubtedly where the future bike path will go, when they managed to connect downtown Kapaa to Lydgate park. So this is the “before” picture, and I’m anxiously awaiting the chance to take the “after” picture.

I Got Scooped

While I strive to be a source of information about the Kalalau trail, I wasn’t able to hike it this year and see the repairs that were reportedly done in the dangerous-looking sections. Another resident, Arius Hopman, hikes the trail more regularly and has finally taken photos, and Juan posted them on Island Breath. Arius is a landscape photographer with a beautiful gallery in Hanapepe (or a gallery made beautiful by his works I should say), his works are also on his website. I don’t know him, but I have seen him at his gallery on Friday Art Night.

While I’m not going to take back all my doubts about the solidity of the work, I do admit the trail looks better. For someone like me who has only been hiking on it for the past 5 years and got used to the roughness, the repaired parts look like a sidewalk now, for better or for worse. It should make it easier for people with a fear of heights to hike past without being paralyzed by the void.

One image shows a “trail puka” (hole, pronounced poo-ka), an “erosion hole in the trail from goats, runoff and hikers who get pushed off the trail by encroaching brush.” They are prevalent in the third mile leaving Hanakapi’ai and in the ninth mile, on some of the steep little valleys leading up to Red Hill. To me, these are the critical maintenance spots because they can easily cause ankle injuries or worse on a steep slope. Plus once the hole starts, erosion just keeps making it larger until it cuts the trail and a bypass is created, causing more erosion. These areas should be high priority for maintenance because the holes are difficult to repair, yet easily and cheaply prevented by cutting the brush.

Just a Pretty Picture

The I was driving back from the Hanapepe farmer’s market on Thursday, when I noticed the view into Hanapepe canyon was especially clear:

This is not the scenic viewpoint along the highway, but a spot a little further east. If you’re driving towards Hanapepe, pull off at a dirt road that starts right next to the sign that says “Scenic Viewpoint, 1000 feet,” and walk 200-300 feet west (towards the viewpoint and Hanapepe). At a break in the trees, you should see the canyon and the colorful bougainvilleas in the foreground.

Hanapepe canyon goes all the way up to the back side of the Wai’ale’ale plateau region, just below the Kawaikini summit. Hanapepe canyon drains the back side of the ridge south of Kawaikini, an area seldom seen from the east or west (Olokele canyon, a branch of the Waimea river watershed, drains the south-west side of Kawaikini). As a matter of fact, Kawaikini is visible from these highway viewpoints, although it is usually in the clouds, or behind the trees as in my photo above. But the whole canyon is private land, owned by the Gay and Robinson sugar plantation to provide the water for their fields—and therefore inaccessible.

To a hiker like me, views like this into a remote and inaccessible canyon are enticing. There are some great waterfalls up there that you can see on helicopter tours, including Manawaiopuna falls made famous by the movie Jurassic Park, but this is the closest you can get on land. Tantalizingly, the dirt road at the pulloff is the private road to access the canyon.

Wailua Headwaters

I wish we knew what the Hawaiians called this place at the foot of Mount Waialeale and Kawaikini, now called the Blue Hole. That name was invented recently by haoles, but I don’t like it because it’s inaccurate and not lyrical. Nor is it the Waialeale Crater, as another purist points out, because it was not the site of an eruption, though it may be the gorge that has eroded out from under the crater.

To further complicate matters, people are starting to call the terminal cliff a “weeping wall,” which is just too lyrical.

Whatever it’s called, it’s a very unique place where a river springs forth at the bottom of a cliff 3000 feet (roughly 1000 m) straight down from the highest point on the island and carves a deep but short canyon out into the eastern lowlands. It’s also a very difficult hike combining 2 miles of slippery boulder hopping and 1 mile of difficult route finding. But it’s always an incredible trek, and I finally took a camera on this hike to share the experience. But first …

WARNING: crossing rivers, boulder-hopping, and swimming in waterfalls are dangerous activities. Rivers can flood quickly and may sweep you away easily or to trap you on the other side. Waterfalls sometimes carry rocks and branches with fatal consequences and the nearby cliffs are unstable. Hiking where there is no trail is also dangerous due to steep slopes and drop-offs. Exercise caution and proceed at your own risk.

For this hike, you’ll need tabis, felt-soled shoes sold at fishing supply stores. The best kind are the black and gray kind that look like little boots–the green sock-like ones are too flimsy. Other water shoes may work but will all slip to some extent on the wet and slimy rocks.

The forest road from the Wailua arboratum ends at the weir at the entrance to the gorge. From there, you just follow the river, alternatively hopping over boulders and walking in the water. Sometimes, there are little side trails in the forest, mostly on the right side as you make your way upstream.

As you progress, you get the feeling you’re entering a very special place, isolated from all the rest of Kauai.

While the forest road passed through groves of replanted foreign trees, a lot of the vegetation here is native, starting with the colorful ‘ohia lehua. I don’t know if it’s true that picking its flowers brings rain, but I do know I didn’t pick them and I didn’t have rain. After what seems like a long time, you reach the first waterfall on the river. Up until now, you’ve seen a few waterfalls on the side walls, but now you have to start climbing over and around them. And you’re only one third of the way there, the easy third.

But what a waterfall it is, with two streams falling into the same pool, and a third flowing in from a narrow gorge, off to the left not visible in the picture below. I call this the three-way convergence, but I’d be open to a better name. The right-most waterfall is fed by the falls you can see above it.

After climbing over the first waterfall, you follow the middle stream of the convergence, which is actually a sidestream to the main stream that carved the gorge. It has some nice little pools and falls of its own, as it collects various runoff coming down the wall to the right side. As you climb over these falls, you get a view of the main waterfall feeding this stream from the top. At around 300 feet, it is probably the most prominent waterfall in the whole gorge.

Now you leave the side-stream and begin the last third of the hike, climbing over several small ridges towards the back wall. From the first ridge, you get a great view of the inner gorge (above). Looking backwards (below) you can see a 4-tiered waterfall, the one that fed the rightmost falls at the 3-way convergence. This picture also shows one of the helicopters that came in to hover for a few seconds and fly back out.

Over another ridge and you can finally see the destination of this adventure, the springs at the back wall that are the headwaters of the Wailua river.

As we finally got close, we had a single ray of sunlight shine on the waterfall making it sparkle.

Of course, I had to go up and touch the back wall, as far as you can go upstream. It just boggles the mind to think that this is probably the oldest rock that you can touch in Hawaii (unless you have a permit to access the Northwestern Hawaiian islands). I like to stand there and imagine a timelapse movie of the rock’s existance: erupted and solidified when the island was half as old as the Big Island is now, covered over by thousands of layers, laying beneath a mountain until tremors and water carried away half the mountain to the lowlands. All that and the rock is only 4-6 million years old, the blink of an eye on the geological scale of the contients.

Also, you can now see the scale of these falls, which are about 40 feet high and 80 feet wide. Most of the water comes from springs above the nearest ledge, some from springs higher up, and a small trickle from all the way at the top of the mountains. Looking up, you can almost see the top, at least the top of the drainage coming from near the summit.

On the hike back, I was less distracted by the waterfalls and focused on the faint path that led over the ridges. It was easy to get lost in places, but the occasional trail blazer proved to be reliable.

Even so, the worn path is not easy, here going up a very steep incline with only a few hand and footholds. More dangerously, the path crossed above some small gorges on tiny ledges half hidden by vegetation.

Finally, if anyone knows of the Hawaiian name for the Wailua gorge and back wall, please share it because I would love that it be reinstated. “Headwaters” translates as Waipo’o, which is the name of the waterfall at the head of Waimea canyon, I doubt it’s just coincidence that both languages have the same imagery.

The fine print: The information and photos in this article are for illustrative purposes. For example, some photos are taken from side trails, so you can’t rely on them to find a route. If you do not have extensive off-trail and backcountry experience, please find a local guide or hike on a maintained trail.

The Tamba Island

I’m always intrigued by the variety of stickers you see plastered on signs around Kauai, a sort of local graffiti. They’re usually surf-related, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out what they mean. This one was self-explanatory, but very cleverly placed:

Tamba is a small surf shop on the main highway, north of downtown Kapaa in the same plaza as the Kojima store. I first noticed it when they celebrated surfer Andy Irons’s world championship victory with a window painting that said “Andy, you da man!” (I wish I’d gotten my picture with it). I didn’t know anything more about it until I read an article in this week’s Kauai People weekly. Apparently, Tamba is the owner’s middle name, originally the name of a tribal chief in Kenya.

By the way, the Kauai People weekly paper is a great source of local news. It is owned by the Honolulu Advertiser, but they have local journalists, for example Kauai Eclectic blog writer Joan Conrow is a frequent contributor and wrote the Tamba article. They always have stories about 2 or 3 local people, usually small-business owners, volunteers, and other people who make a difference on the island, as well as local events and festivals. Residents get the paper in their mailbox every week, but it’s also available online.