Wednesday, we traveled to the north shore to hike along the famous Kalalau Trail. It was beautiful, but quite muddy and difficult.
The trail starts at Ke'e beach on the northwest shore, and this view is afforded after about 1/4 mile uphill climb.
Laura found the perfect walking stick from the cache left at the foot of the trail by previous hikers.
Here we see why the Kalalau trail is so famous -- the views you get of the Napali Coast.
After two miles of up-and-down hiking, we arrived at the Hanakapiai stream, whose sandy beach was covered by the high Spring tide.
The rock formations and plants were just amazing.
Some of the trees seemed to grow right out the side of the cliff.
From this overhang, a Hawaiian princess supposedly claimed her fate when her father refused to let her marry her true love.
Just barely visible from this vantage was a tunnel formation near a (submerged) beach.
A woman we met from San Francisco (Brandy) snapped this picture for us. Everyone we seemed to meet was either from San Francisco or Berkeley. We turned around at about the five mile mark, giving up on our hopes to make it to the seven mile mark. The trail was just too painful....
On the way back, my boots finally gave out after 15 years of service when the soles separated from the tops due to the wet, muddy conditions. I removed them and tried hiking barefoot for a short while. My second step in bare feet was followed by a spectacular pratfall on my rear, shown here decorated in red earth tones.
Learning my lesson, I put on some sandles I brought with me for fording streams. The trail was not much different from a stream, actually.
The last few steps down the perilous trail were welcome, and the first thing we did when we got back was jump in the water at He'e Beach to clean off before driving back to the hotel.
On our last full day, Laura kicked back at the hotel while I did a little kayaking up the Huleia River.