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.