Day 4: Utterly Soaked

We got up at dawn, ate breakfast on the beach (where I saw either a bunch of dolphins or sharks--I'm not sure which!), packed it up, and then headed out to start the grueling trek for the second time in as many days! Luckily, my knees were doing much better after a good night's rest, and I was able to (mostly) doctor up my blisters with moleskin. We stopped to take some pictures of the valley in the morning, since we hadn't had time the night before. It really is an enchanting place. There's actually a little group of hippies who live there permanently--we met a couple of them briefly. They drink straight from the streams and some hike around barefoot. They were nice to us and mostly kept their distance. It's a little strange, but then I think I can understand how you could travel to Kalalau beach and just decide never to go back!

Things were going fine, and then just before we hit that treacherous stretch, it started to rain. Things were getting slippery, and I kept sliding back down the trail, which became rather scary in places. Kevin claims it was not that bad, but I was truly frightened for a short time. Luckily, we made it out of that difficult section just before it really started pouring. We were really blessed, because I'm sure we made it through that part just before it become just too dangerous and totally impassable in the rain.

As we hit Hanakoa falls again, we gratefully sat at the little sheltered picnic table at the Hanakoa campground. There was a Canadian guy there taking shelter too. He said he and his friends had started out too late the day before and ended up having to camp at Hanakoa instead of Kalalau that night. He was more out of shape than his buddies and felt like he was slowing them down (he also had a reeeally heavy pack), so he opted to wait at the campsite while his friends hiked to Kalalau and then back to Hanakoa that day. (By the way, most people do something like that, spending more than one night on the trail so they can take it a bit slower--there are 2 campgrounds besides the one at the end that people camp at.) His friends had set out really early so they could get back to Hanakoa before the rain, but the rain came a little too soon. A man and his mother soon came up from behind us and sheltered there too. They had gotten separated from the rest of their group, who had lagged behind and apparently turned back. As those guys prepared to wait out the storm at Hanakoa until the rest of their groups could cross over (which could have been at least a day later), we let them borrow our Steri-Pen to sterilize their water (do you guys know what a SteriPen is? You should--they are awesome!), wished them luck, and struck out again, knowing we had to hurry if we were going to make it. We never found out what happened to those guys--I still wonder about it. I assume they all made it out safe (or we would have heard about it on the news I expect.)

The rest of the day is sort of one very wet blur. It poured and poured non-stop, and we had to take a slower pace because of the extra slipperyness (and because our sore knees had to take the descents slower), so even though we started out a lot earlier than the day before, we were still racing the clock. At one point we gave up on trying to avoid the streams of water that were now coursing down the trail and found that things were actually much less slippery if you walked right in the middle of the flowing water. When we reached the various stream/rivers that we had crossed very carefully the day before (either by hopping from rock to rock or by putting on river shoes and wading), we just plowed right through--our feet could not possibly get any wetter at that point, after all. Finally, FINALLY, we made it to the end (or the beginning, rather). We were so utterly soaked, and starting to get cold. (Most of the day we weren't cold--just wet, but once the sun started to set it got chilly). It was just getting dark when we reached the trail head. Once again, we were so blessed--it would have been terrible to climb down those rocks with just our headlamps! The last thing we saw on the trail was a big sign that said the trail was closed due to extreme weather--ha! (Obviously, that sign wasn't there when we had set out the day before!) We were so blessed that our timing worked out just in the nick of time so that we could get out safely despite the weather.

I took out the quarters I had carefully packed to make a call with the payphone at the trailhead to call the taxi. I dialed the number, and got voicemail! I tried again (with another 2 quarters) in a few minutes, and the dispatcher told me that she would send a taxi, but she wasn't 100% sure that he could make it out because the bridge from Hanalei might have been washed out by all the rain. Call back in 10 minutes, she said, and she'd have found out by then. I rummaged around and thankfully found 50 more cents to call back again, and to our relief, she said the bridge was not washed out. (Just a side note--we actually could have walked the 2 miles back to our vacation rental, but it was cold, we were soooo wet and completely exhausted, that we could hardly bear the thought.) The taxi was on its way! The lady told me, "Now make sure to wait from him because he's making a special trip out to Hanalei for you." Yeah--where exactly did she think we would have gone, I wonder? "We will definitely wait for him," I said. The taxi was a bit late, because he was afraid to drive over some water running on the road, but it turned out to be not too deep so he braved it. He even brought us towels to sit on! We gave him a very, VERY nice tip!

So we were finally back in our beautiful rental, and within minutes were enjoying the hot water in the jetted tub--HEAVEN!!! We ate ravenously, tried to at least sort of lay out some of our sopping gear in the car port, and collapsed into our luxurious, wonderfully off-the-ground bed!