Waipoo Falls Hike

Waipoo Falls is a favorite hike of mine. For the 30^th high school reunion and with full knowledge of the things I wanted to do was to hike to this popular waterfall. One of the more appealing reasons was to re-trace a required Boy Scout hike. Another was to simply enjoy the great outdoors that Kauai offers. The 2010 "reunion time hike" was fun. I also went back in 2011 to repeat the hike. The goal was to make sure my gps was in full view of satellites the whole time so that I could upload the track points into google maps. This way, the trail would show through the jungle. Thanks to Google Maps and Garmin for making this fun and possible.

I drove down the dirt (hard packed muddy) road at the Halemanu turnoff from Hwy 550 (below). Most people park near the turn off on either side of 550.  The popular hiking books and guides advise people to park. I choose to drive down the dirt road (conditions permitted this) in order to save some time. I suppose the next time I visit, I should also park near the turn off. Sorry for the blurry picture.

Driving down does save time, how much I do not know, I’ll estimate about 45 minutes round trip. So, when driving down, note that it is quite a bumpy and slick road. Usually, it’s more like a fast idle, 5-10 mph, 10 at the most! At a certain point, there will be a clearly marked trailhead sign directing you to turn right. Following that road a bit is the trailhead. Here is where I parked and where the gps track starts. 

I’m not saying I was in a rush to get to the waterfall and get back, but what I am saying I just wanted to get a good time estimate in the case where a person wants to get from point A to point B and back to point A again. It was interesting to have the gps track associated with the length of time. In this case, would you believe from point A (trailhead) to point B (waterfall) was about 25 minutes. I found the time pretty surprising. Did I mention that I started the hike a 7am.

While at the upper and lower waterfall, I just paused to enjoy the bubbling sound of the flowing water, chirping birds and the sound of ginger and other fauna blowing in the morning wind. People would probably ask, “your vacationing on Kauai, why are you getting up so early?” Fact is, this particular day for me started at 04:30 and left my room at 05:00. Catching the sunrise on the way up to Kokee was also important to me.

Catching a hike in the morning just as the sun is coming up, this trail offers peacefulness, the 100% pure air mixed with pure scents from the trees (do not know the name – ohia, eucalyptus, pine), sticky raspberry/blackberry bushes, ginger and other grasses. The soil, mud, bark also blends in to the pure air. There is little dust and no threatening bugs.

Does that ginger look fragrant or what!

This is a good ice-breaker hike that will not leave a person tired and ready to go back to the hotel and rest. It is essentially a “dog walk” around the neighborhood and it really gets me ready for another hike.  The part two to this trail (and hike experience) would be to veer right for the black pipe trail and omit the waterfall.

Left is Black Pipe Trail, Right is Waipoo Falls. Took the photo on the way back. Next time maybe the Black Pike Trail?