A Day in Paradise: The Kalalau Trail, A Trail Runner’s Dream

Written and shared by Katie Storrs, fellow Dirtbag Runner Ambassador

If you are a trail runner or even an avid hiker, Kauai is your dream vacation. Sure there are beaches and shave ice but the trails. Oh the trails. I still dream about them day and night. They are incredible. They are steep. They are muddy, slick, rocky, rooty, mossy, and overgrown. They are technical and nearly impossible to navigate without poles and sometimes gps, but man the vistas are worth it.

When we first got to Hawaii, my husband’s Aunt sent me a message on an Instagram post saying, “The Island of Kauai either accepts you or rejects you. It looks like you guys are being accepted.” We had to work for that acceptance. I remember the first hike we went on, we were stopping to take pictures of how overgrown and rooty it was. We were taking pictures of us walking and crawling through the root systems of downed trees. We were taking pictures of ourselves covered in mud. By the end of the trip, that was all business as usual.

My husband and I went to Kauai to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. It was our first vacation without kids, ages 4 and 18 months at the time, and we were a mixed bag of stoked, scared, and sad. In order to keep ourselves from missing them, we packed our vacation to the gills. In nine days, we covered just over 100 miles of terrain including two “beach days.” It was an epic trip. But for now I am going to focus on one epic day on one epic trail, The Kalalau.

In 2018 there was a huge storm that washed out the road to the Kalalau. The northern half of the island was cut off. It took over a year to get it back open. We anxiously checked on the progress all the time. Finally it opened and I pounced on getting a permit. Soon the trip was near and I was obsessively checking the weather. Rain, rain, rain. Rain every day. Yikes. That is what we get for chancing a trip during the rainy season. Oh well, maybe it will get better, the weather always changes right? We kept our attitudes positive and said, “We’ll run in the rain.”

Remember how I talked about the island rejecting or accepting you? When we arrived the locals told us it had been raining every day since before Christmas. “We’ve had a month straight of rain. But today it is clearing up.” So the day we arrived the rain stopped and started to clear. Good sign. The next day was full of very muddy hikes and sunshine. FYI, the mud in Kauai is muddy clay so it is very slick and sticky. It suctions to your feet. Day two was a botched beach day because it rained all night the night before, it was rainy, cold, and the ocean was turbulent. I started to get nervous, we were supposed to do the Kalalau the next day. So I started checking the State Park’s website and calling. The trail was closed due to flash flooding of the Hanakapai’ai Stream. This is no joke. The river will rush you out to the ocean where you will die. Everything I read said, “If you fall here, you will die,” “If this river flashes you will die.” No wonder the Kalalau has been rated one of the Top Ten Most Dangerous Trails in the World. I talked to someone at the Visitor Center and she said, “Go out there in the morning and wait for the ranger. If he opens it, you are good to go. If not, try back every day until it opens. We will honor your reservation or refund you. Just let us know.”

Okay, we had to quickly come up with a plan B. We couldn’t go Sunday, we had a helicopter tour that I was freaked out about because a helicopter crashed 10 days before killing everybody in the copter. (Same company we were going with.) On Sunday we were moving from our North Shore AirBnB to our South Shore AirBnB, so it would be an hour and a half drive each direction. We really didn’t want it to come to that, but if we had to, we would make it work. So we prepped everything, ate a massive dinner, went to bed early using all our positive energy to will the trail open.

Saturday morning we got up super early and drove to the trail. The manager of the State Park was there checking permits. No problem, we had one. However, I thought you only needed a parking permit if you were staying overnight. My bad. Luckily she was really nice and let us slide. We got to the trailhead and it was still blocked off with caution tape and a big sign saying, “TRAIL CLOSED.” There was nobody at the trailhead, but we knew the Park’s Manager was around and we were determined not to be “those people,” you all know who we are talking about. There was a group of three guys who blew past the sign saying, “We didn’t fly 3000 miles for the trail to be closed. We don’t give a f*&%, we’re going.” As they left I echoed a local we saw at a waterfall when we asked her where it was safe to jump, “I hope you don’t die.” I looked at my husband and said, “Wow. What Bros,” and if you know me, that is the rudest thing I can call you.

We wanted to be on the trail by 6 am, it was going to be a long day. But that didn’t happen. Just after 7:00, the ranger rolled up, stoned out of his mind. He gave us a high five and told us, “Man, you’re good, to, go. I am so stoked for you.” With that we were off like a shot. It was dark and although we had headlamps it was so rocky, steep, and rooted we started off power hiking to warm up and not twist an ankle. Two miles in, the sun was up and we caught the Bros at the Hanakapai’ai Stream. It was a father, son, and family friend. The two older men were kind and showed up the easiest way to cross. We took off our shoes, crossed, dried our feet with the small towel we stole from the AirBnB, sorry, put our shoes back on and took off. Where was the young buck? We found him quickly, he was blasting country music on his speakers. Come on. Country music? We hate country music. I apologize to all the country fans but I would rather him blast death metal than country. And he was hauling, with a huge pack. We weren’t at a full run because it was steep uphill and though we had poles, we wanted to save our legs, it was a long, grueling day and the next few miles were the steepest climb. Eventually we caught him. His name was Ryan. He hiked with us for a few miles. He was a really great guy. I took back what I said earlier. He was not a Bro. He was a really nice kid. So never judge people on the trail until you meet them. Unless they are throwing banana peels off the top of a mountain. Then you judge away.

(us at Space Rock)

Anyway, we hiked with Ryan until we crested at Space Rock and a little ways beyond Ho’olulu and Waiahuakua hanging valleys. By the time we entered the Hanakoa Valley, we were running and lost him. However, he had done the trail many times and told us all about Crawler’s Ledge and what to look out for. Thanks for keeping us safe Ryan.

We started to drop down the cliffs to the coast. We quickly learned to turn our hats sideways everytime we came out of the jungle to the coast, that stiff sea breeze, which felt so nice, wanted to carry our hats to sea. I can see why they call the mile approaching Crawlers Ledge, then Crawler’s Ledge and about half a mile after dangerous. There is no vegetation to give you a false sense of security about the trail. Luckily it is rock and it was dry so we had good traction. But you are making your way down a cliff and across a cliff. It would have given my dad the Paxton Pucker for sure. But what was so cool is there were all these “wild goats” aka farm goats that escaped and bred in the wild and it was super green, I felt like I was in Ireland for a minute.

(Approaching Crawler’s Ledge)

After that treacherous stretch, that really didn’t seem so bad, we hit the red clay hills where we could finally just run. The whole time we had been climbing or running in short spurts until the trail went back up or was too technical or narrow or muddy. It was fun. We could run from there almost to the end. When we started getting close, the trail got overgrown and I worried we got onto a side trail of some sort. Thanks to maps.me (the best trail app) we knew we were on the right course. We bypassed Kalalau Beach and went straight to the waterfall at the very end of the beach. There we filtered water (all fresh water in Kauai is contaminated with a nasty bacteria so bring a good filtration system) and then headed to the beach. There was nobody there. We were alone on Kalalau Beach. It was surreal. So majestically beautiful. We ate lunch and walked in the surf. We dried our feet, changed our socks, and headed back.

(Waterfall and images from Kalalau Beach)

Unfortunately, unlike most out and back trails, the Kalalau isn’t all or mostly downhill on the way back. The entire trail is like a reading of a heart beat. Up and down, up and down, up and down. We thought since we were in incredible shape and from the mountains, we’d be fine at sea level. We were fine. But it was a technical and very difficult trail. Every time we crossed a stream or river, I noted how many more crossings until we were done. The streams can flash in a manner of moments from storms in the center of the island, where it is the wettest place in the world. It logged over 500” of rain last year. I was a little worried about getting stuck and being SCREWED. But, we made good time on the way back and made it across all the rivers. Hooray!

(Views of the Na’pali Coast on the way back)

So we had time for the side trip to Hanakapi’ai Falls. It was incredible. But slow going. It is steep and rough terrain. Climbing over rocks and boulders. Crossing the river six or eight times each direction. But, since it was the end of the day, around 4 pm, when we got there, we had the waterfall to ourselves. All 300 feet of its power and glory. Just us. Unfortunately, due to our late start and our time with Ryan, we were pressed for time and couldn’t stay long. So we took off for the trailhead.

We got back to Ke’e Beach. We took off our shoes and walked in the surf. The best thing after a long, grueling run is to soak your legs in cold water. It felt so good. The ocean tried one last time to tell us to get off the island by grabbing my shoes and trying to take them out to sea, but my husband saved them. After this run, we were accepted and had nothing but good fortune the rest of the trip.