There was a three day weekend coming up, my last in Hawaii. My plan to hike the 22 miles over Thanksgiving fell through. My crew fell through. I grabbed 3 guys from work (with no backpacking experience), outfitted them with camping gear, bought the food, all the plane tickets, and convinced the boss that the 3 day weekend would have to be a 3 and a half (we would have to cut out of work at 10am Friday to catch out noon flight).
The day of the trip I had a 5k to run at 6:30 that morning before work, not how I would have choose the spend the morning before the 22 miles of hiking. A short stay at work and then we were off to the airport. We landed in Kauai, already behind schedule. After wasting more time in town getting fuel for the stove and water we headed to the trail head through Friday afternoon traffic. We unload and tell the cab driver we need to be picked up Monday at 3pm.
About 4pm we reached the trail, leaving a little over 2 hours of light to hike in. The first camp site was about 2 miles in, but we were aiming for the one about 7 miles in. We made it just as the darkness set in. My crews lack of experience really showed setting up camp and cooking in the dark.
Day 2 the plan was to head to the end beach 4 miles away and then take it easy all day. We woke up early and grabbed breakfast and headed out. We arrived at the beach at about a little before lunch time, despite a slight detour about 2 miles out. We took some time to explore, play on the beach, climb the waterfall and watch the hippies doing yoga on the beach. Over lunch we discussed turning back, and spending the night at the same camp site form the night before. As soon as lunch was finished we started heading back. We arrived back in time to set up camp with a few hours of light to spare.
Day 3 we decided to head to Hanakapia beach 2 miles from the trail head and decided if we would spend the night there or head out. We got there and killed some time jumping on the rocks and playing in some little pools in the river. During lunch we discussed our options. Stay here for the night, or hike out and hitch hike to town and see what happens. The availability of beer in town made that the winning choice. At the trail head we didn't see many hitch hiking options. Then in a stroke of luck we spotted a construction worker with a pickup truck working on the bathrooms at the beach. He was just wrapping up his days work and said it wouldn't be a problem to give us a ride to town.
In town we bough way too much beer (4 cases) and junk food for the night. We hitched our way to the first public beach we could find with cell phone reception on Hanalai Bay. This is where we spent the night drinking. The next morning as soon as we got our stuff together we called the cab company so we could head to the airport and weight our options there(rent a car or try to change our airline tickets). Being under 25 and having to pay the extra insurance, a rental for half a day didn't seem worth the cost. Their was a plane leaving in 30 min that we could change our seats to for free.
As a final adventure of the weekend we got to talk with the airport security and management, because some of the airport personnel got concerned when they smelled the stove fuel fumes from our bags.
Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.
Hanakapia beach this many swimmers have died here sign
Camp Dinner
Group shot without me
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