Come-on-I-wanna-lay-ya

I wanted to post this two days ago when we did this, but as it turns out, the internet is scarce on the rustic island of Kaua'i. This place is amazing, by the way.

We got here Thursday night, and on Friday we rented a Ford focus (which gets like 35 mpg. I'm seriously considering swapping the jeep for one) and drove up the East Coast of the island, around to the North coast and eventually, after crossing several one-lane bridges, we arrived at the edge of the Na Pali Coast. We stopped frequently along the way to take in sights such as this.

I really want to show you all the pictures, but there are too many, and they don't really do the place justice.

The drive up and around the coast took about 2 hours. The trail we were headed to was called the Kalaiau Trail, and the full length of it is eleven miles. We didn't have time to go the entire length because we had a dinner event to be at back on the southern tip of the island that evening. Plus, even though it's only 11 miles, you are required to bring camping gear and get a permit to hike it all. We read that there was a cool beach 2 miles in and decided a nice little 4 mile hike would be perfect considering how much time we had left.

The Sierra club rates prominent trails on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the absolute hardest. The Kalaiau Trail has a deserved rating of 9. The trail itself was mostly slick mud or slick rocks with steep cliffs falling off to your right and steep rocks to your left. See that little strip of dirt? That's the trail. But the view was worth it.

Turns out, they've been using Kaua'i's Na Pali Coast for establishing shots in movies for years. Remember Jurassic Park?

Here's one more of the view. Caitlin should be a professional photographer, by the way. Oh, and the person who designed the formatting for pictures on Blogger should be shot. I can't tell you how many times I've had to re-do pictures because of the way they mangle everything. Every time I add a new one, spaces are added all over the place.

Anyway, we hiked through mud, over rocks and protruding roots, through fast streams and always going steep uphill or steep downhill, and eventually came to a beach with this foreboding warning. Isn't that cool??

I can't describe the hike like the pictures can, so I'm going to stop typing and just post a few more of my favorites. Enjoy. I'll post about yesterday's hike through the Waimea Canyon later today. It's about 9:45am here and gorgeous outside. Sorry for the clumsy formatting from this point onward. Blame blogger.