Saturday, January 19, 2013

Day 17 - LOST - Na Pali Coast Hike of a Lifetime

What an amazing day!

Today was a strenuous and challenging hiking day filled with amazing vistas and views of valleys, ocean, and the coasts.  We have been building to this day for a while and many students expressed that this hike today was the thing they were looking forward to the most. I don't think it disappointed anyone. Everyone hike the trail today and everyone finished. It was really incredible!


View Larger Map

In the map above is the valley we focused on today on our hike in the center of the map. If you loose your place you can refresh the page or copy in these coordinates into Google Maps, 22.152432,-159.691712.

To begin we went to two overlooks including one we went to yesterday. It was an amazing sunny day for the whole day. It really was a blessing!

Remember the wettest place on earth from yesterday??? Well today we didn't have a cloud on top of the mountain!

There is  Wai'ale'ale off in the distance - the wettest annual rainfall each year on Earth

Then off to the HIKE!
Surrounded by Awa trees. The hike featured some moderate to dense tree canopy.
The forest feature a large diversity of plant and tree types.

The trail offered wonderful views around many corners the closer we got to the ocean coast
A flowering pod plant I have yet to identify. Any help out there is greatly appreciated!
Beautiful views all day
Calvin students at the end of the trail on this side of the valley @ 22.153358,-159.680942. See the ridge on the other side? Yep that is what we will hike to next!
The valley floor below is about 2500 feet down!
Yikes! Oh wait, Micah is just messing around.
Next valley over to the north
Mountain goats were on the cliffs and on the trail too! Check out his horns!
The cliff trail was a great challenge!
The whole valley revealed on the cliff trail. We went from the right to the left (North to the south)
The distance rock formation reminds me of "The Window" and Big Bend National Park in west Texas
A shelter in need of repair along the cliff route
Some parts of the trial were more challenging than others as the Calvin students work
together to travel safely along the way
The main ridge in the center of the picture above is where we were headed
The views were just so unbelievable!
Do you see the little tiny students on the top of the ridge in the center ridge top area?
Looking north from where we came
A walk on the ridge
The state park beach a half a mile below
A hunting dog joined us. He was separated from his master during a hunt for wild Boar in the park. We found the master on our hike up and told him where to find the dog
The Na Pali Coast
The television show LOST was filmed here on Kauai as well and the Na Pali coast was used
often for the filming. It is a really remote place to travel to
Today Leah and Eric shared about the Molokai Leper Colony and Grant and Tyler T gave the devotional on top of the ridge. It was fantastic!
Time to hike out. It was grueling! We went up 1, 620 feet in elevation in 3.25 miles
Brianna and Kendra take a little break on the way up - we all needed breaks and water, but in the end we all made it!
Satisfied in our efforts today we stopped outside of the park area at the beach in Weimea. Here Ian enjoys the chance to watch the sunset over the water.
Good night sun until tomorrow
After a long day, many of us made our way to dinner and several choose Professor VanHorn's new favorite Chinese restaurant on Kauai.

The Kung Pao is super spicy, but OH so tasty!

It was a tremendous day. We still have a few days left in Kauai and tomorrow we hope to see some aquatic life after church.

Miles Hiked today and yesterday 12
Miles Hiked in Hawaii: 58.1 miles
Miles on the car: 1301 miles
Number of U-Turns: 22
Average number of slips today on the challenging hike: 6 per person


Daily Kauai Chicken/Rooster Picture
This handsome fella moved at the last second. Sorry for the blurry head on this guy

No comments:

Post a Comment