Alas, I did not make it to the Kalalau Valley on my hike. The whole trail is 11 miles with a campground 6 miles in. My plan had been to go the first 6 miles, camp and then hit the rest the next day. The second half includes some pretty crazy cliffs off of a tiny trail. Or so I’m told. I didn’t make it past the 6 mile mark. Those first 6 miles took me 9.5 hours and when it poured rain all night and the next morning I decided I didn’t feel like doing those cliffs. So I turned around and did the first 4 miles back, camped another night and did the last 2 miles the third day. Hitched a ride down to Kaapa and hung out with my cousin for a couple days, (more on that in a future post). Perhaps I chose a rather ambitious trail for my very first backpacking trip. (It’s rated a 9 most places I read). By the time I got to the 2 mile marker I realized that I might be over my head when it was clear that my (I thought) conservative guess of 1 mile per hour needed to be changed to 1 mile per hour and a half.

Oh well, at least I got an idea of what backpacking is like, (even if I did spend only 3 days rather than 6 out there). I don’t think I’ll be doing the Appalachian Trail anytime soon, but I would still like to do some shorter trail (hopefully with more success than the Kalalau trail). In fact, I think I’m going to make it one of my new year’s resolutions to do either a backpacking or bicycling trip sometime this year.

Categories: Locations, Travel
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