Maunawili Falls Trail

Here we start the beginning of our adventures with Kathryn, my sister.  She came to stay with us for two weeks during her winter break from her last semester of graduate school and kept us very busy with lots and lots of excursions (lots of fun!).

When moving out to Hawaii, I knew there would be rain.  But what that didn't equate to in my head was the mud.  Not mud everywhere, but anywhere there are canopies.  Like hiking trails.  Now that I've come to terms with the copious amounts of mud on these trails, I've learned to always bring towels and a change of clothes and shoes.

We knew this hike would be a muddy one and we were mostly mentally prepared.  The hike begins in a neighborhood with no parking lot.  I'm not sure I would like to live there with all the trail traffic, but I guess it's something you know before buying there.  At the end of the road, a gated paved road starts with very, VERY muddy shoes hanging from a powerline overhead.  Down that road a little bit, a trail begins off the road and at the trailhead are a pile of wooden walking sticks.  Joe was the only one smart enough to grab one.  We begin down the path and it only gets muddier.  We came across a muddy family on their way back and the little boy insisted I take his walking stick as it would save me repeatedly.  I accepted, and boy was I glad I had it.  Lots and lots of mud.  The trail follows a stream which we had to cross at one point to stay on the trail.  Following that was a fairly steep climb up some stairs (metal plates put in to prevent erosion) to a beautiful lookout.  After the lookout was a steep climb down similar steps that dump you back into the stream.  At that point, you have to wade through the stream to get to the falls (pretty cool if you ask me).

Once reaching the falls, there were people jumping into the water hole from many different spots.  The lowest spot (and the one Kathryn and I jumped from) was probably 8-10 feet up.  For the next spot people were climbing the falls, crossing at the top, and scaling around to a point about 20-25 feet up.  Crazy enough, there was someone that jumped across the way at about 30 feet.  We tried a quick check of how deep the hole was before jumping and couldn't touch.  At that point, after seeing everyone else jumping and no bottom found, we figured the lowest spot would be safe.  Even from a low spot, it was a bit of a rush to jump.

The hike was an out-and-back, so we then followed the same path back.  We were in a bit of a hurry on the way back (we had a luau scheduled for that night), so we didn't stop at the lookouts on the way back.  It is not a long trail, only about 3 miles, but takes a very long time due to the mud.  Very cool hike if you're looking for a waterfall and don't mind getting muddy while slip-sliding around.