Backpacking Waimea Canyon
I have so much to say about this trail.
This was, hands down, the most difficult backpacking trail I’ve ever done — and somehow, the views almost made up for the trauma we endured along the way.
13.99 miles
2,897 feet of elevation gain
9 hours 49 minutes and 51 seconds
At least four deep river crossings
Wading through grass taller than both of us… on the side of a cliff
We were two girls who thought we were heading out for a cute little hiking trip.
We were wrong.
Hahahah
Hi.
I don’t even know where my thought pattern begins when I think back to this experience. It was stunning, without a doubt. Super fun to be in the wild with my friend. But we had two VERY type B people planning a backpacking trip. What could go wrong?
1. We ordered the camping package instead of the backpacking package.
Simple mistake, right? But when you break it down: we packed carry-ons from Oahu to Kauai and didn’t bring a lick of backpacking supplies since we were renting them. AKA… no backpack? HAHAHAHA.
My friend was like, “Oh, I was just going to use my carry-on backpack. Everything will fit, right?” Her first time backpacking. My second.
I knew her lil backpack wasn’t going to cut it for everything we needed. Thankfully, the lovely company was able to switch out our gear, so mistake one = fixed. We just ended up with an extra hour in town to wander around, grab food, and enjoy our last lil bit of time in civilization.
(If you ever find yourself needing to rent gear on Kauai—go here!!!)
2. No checklist for what we needed
Our plan was to go to the store after picking up our supplies and grab whatever we needed for the one-night stay on the trail. I had a loose idea in my head, but we never wrote anything down or made an actual checklist.
Would that have helped? Yes, probably. But again—two type B people.
We grabbed some snacks: oatmeal packets, beef sticks, instant coffee, bars, and a few other things to hold us over. No dehydrated meals or anything intense, but that’s the perk of it being only one night.
3. Flew in the morning of → late start at the trailhead
By the time we got all of our gear, went to the store, shopped around, and made it to the trailhead… we were running out of daylight. We flew in that morning and didn’t start hiking until around 3 p.m.
Not ideal.
We had about 7 miles to go to our campsite, had to set up camp, and get settled before dark. Which meant we had to keep a solid pace with 30lb-ish bags on our backs just to make it there in time.
Recipe for disaster? Probably.
A few minor mistakes leading up to the trail, but now we were actually starting our journey to the trailhead and eventually down into the canyon.
And when I say down, I mean we probably hiked straight down for the first two miles.
Exertion-wise, not terrible. But we kept joking like, “This is gonna be horrible on the way out tomorrow.” It was an easy-ish cruise downhill. Once we hit the canyon floor, we were vibing—chatting, walking, enjoying ourselves—until the firstriver crossing.
Now. The river crossings.
I’ve hiked a lot of trails and crossed a lot of rivers, but this one? Gave us problems. We tried our hardest to rock-hop and stay dry. We hadn’t studied the trail much (type B again), so we had no idea what was coming.
We spent an hour trying different routes, hopping on rocks, making it halfway, and turning back.
We were:
1 Losing daylight
2 Irritated we couldn’t figure out how the hell to cross
Finally we said, F it. We’re getting wet.
So we did. The water was cold and mid-thigh deep. Not ideal circumstances. Also—it was getting darker and buggier. But hey, we got across. Just in time to round a bend and face… another river crossing (at least we were already wet).
This time, it was easier.
We had two poles between us, couldn’t see the rocky bottom, and had a few “oh shit” moments, but we were fine. Four river crossings in total, and we came out mostly unscathed—just one lost lens cap (thank God it wasn’t my whole camera) and a few scrapes.
By this point, it was late—like 6:30 or 7 p.m. And while I thought it stayed light out until a little after 7, we were in the canyon, so it was already dark.
We kept walking. Me in front with my AllTrails app glowing, Aileen behind me. We passed through long stretches of trail, some with grass taller than us, some alongside steep drop-offs—30lb bags tugging us in all directions.
Dramatic? Maybe. But I was ready to be done walking through the woods in the dark.
We finally made it to the campsite. It was pitch black. Time to set up camp.
Surprise!
1 Neither of us had ever set up a tent before.
2 We didn’t even check to see if we had all the parts.
lol
Camp got set up, somehow. We hung out, attempted to start a fire (fail), ate some snacks in our tent, laughed about the last four hours, and passed out.
Just to do it all again tomorrow.
Who said this was a fun idea???? Oh right—us! :)
Not too many pictures from the trail this day because we were hurrying a bit to set up camp :,)
Day 2:
We woke up, peed in the woods, brushed our chompers, made a lil breakfast, and headed off to find the swimming hole at the end of the trail.
We set off with AllTrails once again, praying my phone wouldn’t die today. As we got closer to the end of the trail, we found ourselves frequently wandering off of it. Unstudied terrain? Probably. Lack of planning? Also yes. But we hiked and turned, went off-trail, found the trail again, looped, twisted—and finally found it.
The swimming hole was beautiful. The cold, clean mountain water was refreshing and lovely. A great start to the day, considering we had another 8 miles ahead… and everything we hiked down yesterday? We had to hike up today.
Something we can’t say we were thrilled about, but it had to be done.
Walking out of the canyon was just as memorable as the way in—except this time we were tired and sore.
Same river crossings. Same 3,000 feet of elevation gain in the last two miles. Same trail. This time in the heat of the day (lack of planning hits us one more time :<0)
We survived. Barely.
Would I ever do that trail again? No, probably not. Do we still laugh about it to this day? 100%.
We had originally planned to camp again that night, but we changed plans fast—booked a nice hotel room with a bed and an ocean view. Mostly, we just wanted a shower and a fat meal.
We’re already planning our next trip. Can’t wait to see what chaos we get ourselves into this time :-)
Until next time!
