I want to share my experience hiking the ‘Kalalau’ trail in Kauai to the ‘Hanakapiai Falls’ and how it relates to our life’s journey. If you don’t want to read the complete story of our hiking trip, skip to the last two paragraphs and don’t forget to see the ‘Hanakapiai Falls’ picture at the end of the page 🙂
The preparation for the hike started from the day we landed in Kauai, Hawaii. We had to quickly stop at Costco to get everything we needed for the hike. We returned to our hotel, made sandwiches, filled the hydration packs with water, and had our hiking shoes and other hiking gear ready. We left our hotel at 6:30 A.M to catch the 7:30 A.M shuttle. We caught the shuttle and reached ‘Haena State Park’ around 8:00 A.M.
1) Excitement – At this point of the hike, I was very excited because the weather was gorgeous for the hike. I felt like we had everything with us to proceed with the hike without knowing any of the dangers. We knew the ‘Kalalau trail’ was supposed to be one of the most challenging and dangerous hikes. I heard that a lot of people have died in the past; either they got swept away by the water while they crossed it or when they were hiking the trail itself. I’m glad I didn’t know about that before we went for the hike :). As we were hiking, we soon realized the trail was rocky, and there was a lot of uphill and downhill, but it was still not too bad. Before we reached our first destination, the ‘Hanakapiai’ beach, we had to face the first hurdle, our first stream crossing.
2) The first Hurdle and Act of Kindness – We watched others cross the stream and followed them. Halfway through the crossing, we were stuck because we didn’t know which way to go, and we were also learning how to cross a stream because this was our first stream. While we were crossing, there was another couple who were helping their children cross the stream, and when the wife saw us stuck in the middle, they gave a hand, and that’s all we needed to take the next step and reach the first destination, ‘Hanakapiai’ beach.
3) Rest and the First Reward – We were doing great with time and had reached the first destination at around 10:00 A.M. We decided to sit by the rock and enjoy the ‘Hanakapiai beach’ view and enjoyed some sandwiches that we had packed. We spent half an hour there celebrating our achievement of crossing one stream and hiking to the beach.
4) Courage – It was time to decide whether to continue to the “Hanakapiai” Falls or turn back. My husband is generally not into hiking, so I asked him what he wanted to do. Since we had reached the first destination, he was determined to continue the hike to the waterfalls, and I was thrilled and excited that he agreed to continue. As we started the hike, we noticed that only a few people continued with this hike, but others turned back to the parking lot. I thought we were brave to continue the hike. Soon, we noticed that this part of the hiking trail was very slippery and not as paved as the previous trail, and it was becoming more challenging to hike.
5) Discouragement – As we were hiking, we saw a couple of other hikers who were heading to the ‘Hanakapiai Falls’ and turned back. They said they tried crossing the second stream; it was way more complicated than the first one, and they needed better hiking shoes, so they decided to turn back.
6) Doubt – At that point, we started to think about whether or not to continue, but we quickly prayed about it, and we both had the peace to keep going. We then approached the second stream crossing. Since we had already crossed one of the streams before, we felt more confident with the second stream crossing, and we successfully crossed it without any help. We started to learn the technique and crossed three other smaller streams along the way.
7) More Hurdles – Since they said there were only four streams, we thought we had crossed all the streams and should be reaching the destination. Soon, we realized we were wrong as we learned from the people who were coming back that there were two other streams and a lot of uphill climb ahead. At this point, our legs started getting tired, but we were determined to keep going.
8) More Discouragement – We faced more challenges along the way because they didn’t have paved trails, and we were climbing slippery rocks. At this point, it started to feel like it was never-ending. When we asked the people returning from the hike, they said that we had another 30 minutes of a hike, but it was all going to be uphill and challenging.
9) Glimpse of Hope – We came to the third bigger stream crossing, which looked complicated, but we managed to get through it. That’s when we started to hear from people that we were almost there and that we just needed to cross another stream, and that’s when we began to have some hope.
10) Almost Gave Up – We finally reached the last stream, and I felt this stream to be the most complicated one for me. we both watched others cross the stream and decided to take one step at a time. We didn’t feel like giving up after we had come this far, so we found a way to cross the stream.
11) Reward – We finally reached the waterfall at around 1:00 P.M. in the afternoon. It was so beautiful, and we forgot all the pain we went through; it was so worth it, and this was our mountain-high moment.
This experience of hiking the ‘Kalalau trail’ reminded me of our life. In life we can go through all the stages we went through in our hike which included excitement, kindness, boldness, discouragement, doubt, confidence, hurdles and reward. There might be mountain high moments and low valley moments but God is with us through it all even when we sometimes feel like He is not there. Sometimes the road we are travelling might feel like it is too hard to keep going. In those times all we can do is to just take one step at a time. That might mean to just show up each day and ask God to give us strength for that day or sometime for that hour or minute to keep going. There might be people who might discourage us or help us along the way. Hold on to people who are there for you to pray and cheer you along. If our eyes is fixed on Jesus and the destination we are headed, we can keep going in confidence knowing that there is a reward waiting at the end of our journey.
In this ‘kalalau trail’ it was rewarding to see the gorgeous waterfalls at the end. I hope this encourages you to keep going even when faced with challenges, obstacles and discouragement in this life, knowing that we have a much bigger reward waiting for us in heaven even if we don’t see the reward here on earth. Philippians 3:14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” Romans 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (New American Standard Bible).
