We were in Kauai for a wedding and were excited to schedule in a hike during our trip. The groom for the wedding had suggested the Kalalau Trail. Having never hiked in Kauai before, we were not familiar with the trail and, of course, googled it. What did we find? The first result informed us that it was one of the most beautiful and most dangerous hikes in the US. What a way to entice us into this hike, am I right?

There were 3 real options for us to take:

  1. Hike to Hanakapi’ai Beach
  2. Hike to the Hanakapi’ai Falls
  3. Camp overnight to hike the rest of the way to Kalalau Beach

After reading endless amounts of posts that talk about how dangerous the rest of hike would be past Hanakapi’ai Falls, my boyfriend and I were thinking we’d probably only go up to the Falls.

Something that we were very weary of is that when there is heavy rainfall, water levels can rise rapidly. Often there’s flash flooding that occurs at sections of the hike where you are required to walk across rocks to continue the hike. It was actually drizzling a bit on the day of our hike, so we were keeping our eyes out. The only way to get help if you needed medical assistance is to get to a point where helicopters flying by might see you and wave them down. On top of that, the trail is notoriously muddy!! Which is probably how most of the accidents occur – slipping from the mud or twisting your ankle.

The funny thing is that what you saw above in the clip is how it looked in the morning when the trail was still kind of dry because it was cooler. On the way back, the temperature was rising and the heat was causing it to be even more muddy!

However, with that said, most of the wedding guests decided to join on the hike along with their young children. As a result, we were taking things very slowly and didn’t end up reaching the Falls! Even so, if you’re not up for the full hike, you’re going to be get great views all along the way even early on.

There are a lot of rocks to cross in the last little bit before you reach Hanakapi’ai Beach. Please be careful as it will be wet! But oh man.. that feeling you get when your feet touches the cool water when it’s been a hot day. Can’t be beat.

The whole group ended up just chilling on the beach before turning back as there were wedding-related appointments to get back to. But I’d say, this was definitely a beautiful hike to go on. A word of advice, you WILL get muddy so either bring shoes you don’t care about or bring gore-tex shoes that you can wash off! The mud does leave a bit of red tint on the shoes even after throwing it in the wash so be aware if you’re wearing light-coloured shoes!