Near the start of the year when I was trying to plan some adventure to give me something to look forward to I started looking into Kauai. If I did it right it could be easy, cheap ($3 per night camping), and have some great opportunities for adventures. As I started to piece together the ideas of a packraft/hiking Nā Pali trip and a Waimea packraft trip I started to realize the potential for great canyon trips. If the weather was very rainy we would packraft, if the weather was somewhat dry we would go canyoning! Whatever it threw at us we'd be ready to respond with the best adventure possible. The more I researched online the more helicopter tourist photos turned up great looking canyons but I was surprised at the relative lack of canyon descents I could find described. For the wettest and oldest of the main Hawaiian island there seemed to be little exploration and lots of untouched potential. Imagery in Google Earth was typically of poor quality and often obscured by clouds or shadows.
I then had the thought to see if there was any high resolution topographic data available. Lucky for me there was reasonable coverage of high resolution airborne lidar data over some of the canyon areas I was interested in. Lidar is a laser ranging technique that collects hundreds of thousands of accurate data points per second, and importantly, can image the ground in deep canyons and beneath vegetation. Instantly I had an inside view into some of the deepest and narrowest canyons in Kauai, and knew the exact number, location, and height of each waterfall to 10cm accuracy! Academic canyoning! It felt like cheating and certainly took some of the mystery out of the canyons, but it also allowed me to be prepared and confident to take some of them on. I had grand plans to tackle some of the moderate wet canyons in the Waimea area but this was not to be between the weather, being sick, and limited in the number of days we had. Several canyons needed on-the-ground scouting to be sure that appropriate escape routes could be found, the difference between one or two day canyon descents. So after completing our Nā Pali adventure the lowest risk canyon route I was interested in seemed to be Mākaha on the west side of the island. It would likely be a dry canyon (it was) but should have some excellent rappels and some of the best narrows on the island. The all important escape route seemed to have previously been done by a keen hiker accessing nearby Miloli'i and I was able to give this route a quick scout while on the Nā Pali a few days earlier.
Bottom: Lidar derived imagery revealing the exact height and location of every feature.
I awoke from a good night's sleep in the cool 3500ft air and rallied to get gear organized despite the nasty cold I had developed at the end of the Nā Pali trip and subsequently feeling under the weather. Sara dropped Jeff and I off along the Mākaha Ridge Road and we plowed on through the foliage. The terrain was steep and loose but the forest was forgiving initially. At a few points we had to veer around or carefully through some thorny plants, and at another we had to do a grass clinging bypass around a bramble-coated waterfall. All in all the approach was forgiving and it took less than 30 minutes to hit the bottom of Mākaha and another 15 minutes or so to reach our first series of downclimbs and our first view of the Pacific Ocean far below.
Below the downclimbs the canyon narrowed to where we could nearly touch both walls at the same time. Although the creek was dry, ferns coated the vibrant green walls. Shortly we reached the first rappel of about 13m. There were a few ok anchor options but after a few minutes of digging we revealed the perfect boulder choke pinch- bomber and with an easy pull.
The narrows maintained their width but grew deeper with each step down the canyon. Although a nice flowing creek would have greatly improved the canyon, the narrows were quite spectacular anyway. A short downclimb brought us to the monster two-stage rappel, right on cue. A 17m drop to a filled hanging pothole, then another 69m drop to an enormous cavernous chamber. Here good anchor options were less obvious so we spent nearly twenty minutes digging out an excellent pinch between two boulders. This was a fantastic drop, especially the second stage into the dry plunge room below. As I waited for Jeff to descend, graceful white-tailed tropicbirds circled above the chamber, their calls casting slight echoes.
Once down the large rappel the canyon changed: wider but now considerably deeper. The narrows continued unabated nearly a half mile to the final 18m rappel of the canyon. Each twist and turn revealed a new corridor of narrows, each one seemingly better than the last. We were deep in this canyon and I was comforted the lidar data constrained what unknowns we might encounter. Jeff went nuts with his GoPro and I with my camera. We saw two different owls hiding in the shadows of boulders in this canyon. We constructed a deadman anchor for the final rapppel.
More wonderful narrows! This would certainly be a major tourist attraction for the island if it was more accessible. We continued boulder hopping our way down, eventually picking up whiffs of the approaching sea air. Beneath the Pacific Missile Range Facility we uncovered someone's dirty little secret. We saw over fifty golf balls spread all around the wash immediately below. Clearly some bored employee thought it a great thing to drive balls into what he must have imagined was a bottomless and unvisited place.
In the last thousand feet of the canyon before the ocean the canyon changed style yet again. A series of bedrock downclimbs were the last obstacles to discourage upstream visitors. I suggested Jeff should climb a rock spire at the center of the canyon (with dry waterfalls either side) and then immediately regretted it as I stressfully watched him climb the exposed choss. It made for a great photo at least.
Once at the shore our adventure was far from over. We had a one mile boulder hopping walk along the beach to reach Miloli'i where we could hopefully make our planned escape. A wonderful surprise was five sea turtles sunning themselves and napping on a small section of sandy beach. They were so unexpected Jeff walked right past the first turtle within a couple feet before he recognized the rocks in front of him were alive! They looked like they were living the life and were completely unbothered by us walking past.
Once at the mouth of Miloli'i we followed the stream up a short quarter-mile to the base of our escape route. After scouting from the north side of the creek (the route looked very tricky but we wanted to believe there was a route through it!), we recovered at the stream. Without the lidar data and photos/descriptions from a keen hiker that had done the route I probably would not have considered it a comfortable possibility. We snacked, replenished water, and soaked our feet before starting up the steep scree slope that would lead to our chossy route.
My cold was starting to catch up to me and I struggled to keep up with Jeff who was having a great time picking a route through. It really was an excellent route overall- fantastic views and wonderful Grand Canyon style cliff band route finding. I did manage to let loose two large boulders, one near the bottom and the other right near the top of the climb. The middle section of the route was definitely the best, with some fun, slightly exposed, climbing. As I anticipated, the top tropically weathered 30m or so of the cliff were by far the lousiest, chossiest rock. I was also at my lousiest at this stage, but powered through and was thrilled to drop my pack, drink some water, take in the sights, and enjoy the sea breeze. Jeff and I both found the route very satisfying and it gave us ideas that there must be some other exciting scrambling routes in the Nā Pali/Waimea area.
All that was left was the simple matter of walking the 4WD road up until we ran into Sara, or at least it would have been simple if I wasn't totally trashed from sickness and heat. I even had to stop and sit down for a while as going on seemed like too much. Slowly, eventually, I walked the two miles and 800 vertical feet to our parked car. We returned to Camp Sloggett where I had a well-deserved shower beer and crashed. Although this would end up being the only canyon we would have the time to fit in and I wished I got more use out of the 600ft of rope I brought, it was still a pleasant and worthwhile first descent that wetted my appetite for a future Kauai canyon trip. Thanks to Sara for providing the drop off and pickup.
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