Thursday, March 11th - Waimea Canyon & Kalalau Valley
The Waimea Canyon goes and goes… it is approximately 10 miles wide and has a depth of 3,000 feet. These pictures hardly do it justice, but if there are helicopters in any of these pictures – they’d be such tiny specs that you could hardly see them anyway.
There are several lookouts along the way up to the top of Waimea Canyon / Kalalau Valley. Thanks to the hurricane several years ago, there are also several wild chicken around the canyon.
At the bottom of Waimea Canyon Drive, there are quite a few nice local spots. Shrimp Station and Jo-Jo’s Shave Ice were two of our favorites.
The Kalalau Valley is approximately 2 miles across and drops down over 3,500 feet to the beach. There are several trails that lead down to the bottom, and people even live in the valley – setting up several campsites to call home. On our snorkeling tour, we were able to get a different view of the valley – from the water – and you can see that one here.
When we drove up to the Kalalau Trail head, a rush of sirens were following us up the road. We watched as a helicopter, police and firemen arrived at the beach. We didn’t quite realize what was happening until the next day’s Garden Island arrived on our doorstep. Several people make lives for themselves in the Kalalau Valley, and this guy happened to be one of them. A hiker found his body and wrote S.O.S. on the beach along the trail, which allowed a helicopter tour guide to bring in rescuers to get the body. Crazy.
Tags: Hawaii, Kalalau Valley, Kauai, Waimea Canyon
