Hiking in Kauai: Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge’s Okolehao Trail Recap

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” – John Muir

Aloha friends!

Two weeks ago, my husband and I jetted off to Hawaii for a getaway. Having only been to Oahu before, I had been wanting to explore a more remote island in Hawaii for awhile now. After doing some research, Kauai seemed like a perfect paradise to visit for an adventurous and relaxing trip.

Naturally, we planned on spending our days outdoors doing active things. Surfing was on the top of his list, and hiking was on the top of mine. I’m going to share my favorite parts of the trip overall in another post soon, but today I want to recap one of the hikes that we had a chance to do in Kauai.

We stayed on the eastern side of the island in Kapaa, and rented a car so that we could explore around the little island. I am so glad we had a car, because we used it a ton and got to see a lot the beautiful island of Kauai! It’s nicknamed the Garden Island, and there’s no question as to why. Everywhere you turn in Kauai, it’s unbelievably lush and gorgeous. We got rained on probably four times each day, and the weather was pretty wild: a random downpour, then the sun would peak through, then another downpour, then the sunshine was back all within 10 minutes, repeated several times throughout the day!

I had heard that the Nā Pali Coast on Kauai’s north side was absolutely worth seeing, so we headed up that way for our first hike of the trip. We drove about 45 minutes until we were met with road closure signs. This road was really the only way to get up to the Nā Pali Coast, so we stopped at a local juice shop to see what was going on.

Me: “So what’s the deal with the road being closed up ahead? Is it going to open soon you think?” (takes a sip of the tropical island smoothie that was just handed to me)

Local smoothie guy: “Oh yeah. It should be open by December I think.”

December?!

While I knew that parts of Kauai are among the wettest places on earth, it was unbeknownst to me until that moment that the northern coast of the island had been hit with crazy rain this past April – extreme even for an area that is used to daily downpours.

The historic rain inundated the area and caused mudslides that ruined houses, roads and trails. The smoothie guy told us that 200 tourists’ cars were swept away in the storm, when they received over 27 inches of rain in one day. I know I live in the desert here in San Diego, but my city usually gets 11 inches of rain in an entire year! 

Needless to say, we had to resort to Plan B for our hiking excursion. I had a brief moment of disappointment that we weren’t going to be able to hike around the Nā Pali Coast, but Mother Nature is a force that we can’t control right? My next thought was to whip out my AllTrails app to see what other trails were around and open.

We wound up choosing to hike the nearby Okolehao Trail. Located within the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge, there were ‘locals only’ traffic signs out on the road that leads to the trail that we ultimately decided to ignore… and I’m glad we drove through, because this hike was a lot of fun!

The Okolehao Trail in its entirety is a 4-mile, out & back, 1,300+ feet elevation gain hike. 

If this trail doesn’t sound all that difficult, keep one big thing in mind: MUD. Whew, the trail was slick and muddy as hell when we hiked it! We ruined our sneakers within 5 minutes as we began slipping around the trail.

While I found myself having to concentrate on not completely wiping out into the mud, when I looked up I noticed how green the forest was. Another thing I immediately noticed was the size of the trees on the trail. They were gigantic, and their large, winding roots proved to be useful to slow me down from sliding so much. The rain is wild in Kauai, but it results in such majesty and beauty across the island!

The first vista of the hike offers pretty island views, though you get a better, unimpeded view if you continue to hike and reach the second vista at the 1.5 mile mark. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking at at the time, but it was glorious!

Note: According to AllTrails, I was looking at, “sweeping views of Hanalei Bay, Hanalei Pier, the Kilauea Lighthouse, Princeville, the taro fields you left behind, and Bali Hai.”

The trail continues on just another 1/2 mile but I was told that it’s an arduous, rope-assisted climb, and given the conditions, I didn’t want to risk it, so we turned around. We found walking sticks on the side of the trail at one point, and for the first time in my life, I used one. After all, this was a bit different than hiking in Southern California’s dry desert land!

At one point we passed people who remarked, “You guys are making it look so easy!” which I found hilarious because I felt like I was sliding all over the place. We made our way back down the trail, and while at the start I had accepted my fate to probably reach the rental car with a dirty face and/or booty covered in mud, I made it out unscathed (well, except for my sneakers, which have since been washed clean from most of the mud).

The Okolehao Trail was a challenging, fun workout in Kauai, and it’s a hike I won’t forget. Afterwards, we drove around and found the most gorgeous beach to swim and relax at for the afternoon called Hanalei Bay. When it inevitably started pouring, we ran into the ocean together, floating around with ear-to-ear grins as we marveled at the stormy mountains in the near distance.

Afterwards, we stopped at Jojo’s Shave Ice for one of Hawaii’s famous shave ice with macadamia nut ice cream. And then, it was well-deserved nap time back at our hotel.

Okolehao Trail may have been our Plan B hike, but the trail was a memorable time in Hawaiian paradise – and all in all, it exactly the type of day I had in mind when I booked us an adventure to Kauai.

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Tell me… Have you ever been to Kauai or Hawaii in general? When was the last time you had to formulate a Plan B on a trip?