Pīpīwai Trail

Stop 1.0.0 mi0 ft climbedstart

The trailhead

Underfoot: Packed dirt and gravel

The trail starts across the road from the Kīpahulu Visitor Center lot, and the sign is easy to miss from the car. Use the restroom here. It is the last one, and there is nothing on the trail and no drinking water anywhere in the district.

Stop 2.0.1 mi30 ft climbed3 min in

The fork at Hale Hālāwai

Underfoot: Packed dirt

A few hundred feet in, the path splits beside a reconstructed Hawaiian meeting house. Go left for Pīpīwai. Right is the Kūloa Point Trail, which drops half a mile to the coast and the Pools of ʻOheʻo. People take the wrong fork here every day and figure it out when the trail starts heading downhill toward the ocean.

Stop 3.0.3 mi280 ft climbed12 min in

The first climb

Underfoot: Mud and cut stone steps

This is the steepest sustained stretch on the trail and it comes early, before anyone is warmed up. Stone steps are set into the hillside in uneven runs, some of them mossy and hand-cut long ago. If this section feels hard, the rest does not get worse. If it feels impossible, Makahiku is ten minutes further and a fair place to call it.

Stop 4.0.5 mi400 ft climbed20 min in

Makahiku Overlook

Underfoot: Railed dirt platform

A railed clearing looks across the gulch at Makahiku Falls, close to 200 feet and often partly screened by foliage. In a dry month the main course can be down to a trickle or gone entirely, which nobody warns you about. There is a fenced pool at the lip of the falls that shows up in photographs. Do not go over the fence. People are cited for it.

Turn around here
A one mile round trip, about an hour. A real destination if the group is struggling or the light is going.

Stop 5.0.7 mi490 ft climbed27 min in

The banyan

Underfoot: Rooty dirt, gate

Past a gate, a banyan stands with a footprint about the size of a house, its aerial roots dropped from the horizontal limbs and thickened into trunks of their own. The grade eases here and stays easy for a while. Children will want longer than you planned.

Stop 6.0.9 mi560 ft climbed34 min in

The bridge

Underfoot: Wooden planks, metal rail

The bridge crosses where Palikea and Pīpīwai streams meet, and the water below drops through a run of small tiered falls. After rain it is loud. Look ahead from the middle of the span and you can see the canopy close over the trail. People jump from this bridge. They should not.

Stop 7.0.9 mi650 ft climbed38 min in

The stairs above the bridge

Underfoot: Steep steps

Immediately across the bridge the trail pitches up a flight of steps. It is short and it is the second hard bit of the day. This is the pitch people remember and no trail listing mentions.

Stop 8.1.0 mi680 ft climbed42 min in

The bamboo forest

Underfoot: Boardwalk, wet and smooth

The bamboo starts abruptly and runs about half a mile. Stalks close overhead until the light goes green and the sky disappears. In any wind the whole grove knocks against itself, a hollow clacking that carries a long way, and it is the reason most people came. Boardwalk covers most of this stretch because the mud underneath used to take shoes off. The planks are smooth and stay wet.

Stop 9.1.8 mi760 ft climbed62 min in

Two stream crossings

Underfoot: Boulders in shallow water

After the bamboo thins, two shallow crossings sit between you and the falls. Rock hopping, normally ankle deep. Depth is not the problem, footing is. The bed is rounded boulders and they are slick. If either crossing is running fast or brown, that is the day to turn around.

Turn around here
Turn back at high water. Streams here rise fast from rain falling miles uphill in weather you cannot see.

Stop 10.2.0 mi800 ft climbed70 min in

Waimoku Falls

Underfoot: Boulder field

You hear it before the forest opens. Waimoku comes off a 400-foot cliff face into a shallow boulder-strewn pool, and even standing well back the mist and downdraft cool you off. There is a sign at a safe distance warning about falling rock, and the boulders you are standing on are the argument for it. A child was killed here by rockfall in 2011. Take the photograph from the sign.