Kauai- 10 days

Hoopii falls trail was great. Make sure to go eat at The Beach House. There was a restaurant we stopped at on the way to Kalalau trail. It is the last place you'll see on the way there. They had great food. Beaches on North side are the ones you'll be going to. Ones on the south are pretty rough.

We were not used to hiking like that. We didn’t do the whole trail only about a mile or so in. The entire trail is one way 11 miles. I’d do the two mile portion to the side trail that goes to the waterfalls. That would be a full day

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How intense would Kalalau trail be to do in a day? light pack and sufficient food/ supplies? I see its over 6k in elevation. I am used to alpine country at high elevation.

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Do you mean to go and come back in the same day? All 22 miles of trail? I did see a trail runner doing that, but you have to really be into ultramarathons to want to try. I also saw some hunters (goats have gone wild on the island, but these are not native, and there is a bowhunting season) who went about seven miles in and were hoping to shoot a goat and carry it back out the same day.

I've done the full Kalalau Trail, and there was a recent post on this board (search) from someone else who did it with his fiance. I am in good health and enjoy hiking, and Kalalau was very hard. My left quad muscle starting cramping on me at about mile 8, and it made the last three miles very hard. I camped two nights at Kalalau Beach, and the day in-between was mainly a day I spent lying in the tent and recovering.

The trail is up a few hundred feet, and then back down to a beach, and then up a few hundred feet again, and then back down again, etc. It's never level for long.

But it is stunningly beautiful. I've hiked in some amazing places like Patagonia, like the Southern Alps in New Zealand ... and I wouldn't trade any of them for the Kalalau Trail.

But, yeah, pack light. The good news is that you don't need to pack water; just take one of those filtering straws (goat poop can sometimes have bacteria), since there are streams every few hundred feet or so.

The heritage trail at Shipwreck Beach is a nice, relatively easy hike that runs along the southeast coast. And a great place to swim when you are done with the hike. (You can't really swim along the Kalalau trail). As mentioned above drive as far up Waimea Canyon as you can and there are some cool trails.

If you're going to hike, bring some good hiking shoes and be careful. The island gets a lot of rain and footing can be treacherous in a lot of places. They don't do much trail maintenance or install any safety features because they don't like "disturbing nature". There were a few places where I said, "this isn't safe" and turned around.

If you and the wife like noodle bowls etc, try Hamura Saimin. It’s a local place around Lihue; amazing.

Princeville is beautiful; hell entire island is. You can try to see Queens bath too,
Depending on weather