The Kalalau Trail

The following is a very lengthy and detailed account of our 3-day journey into and out of the glorious Kalalau Beach on the island of Kauai. Did I mention lengthy? And detailed? You have been warned.

Hiking the Kalalau Trail along the glorious Napali Coast has been on our list for years. This hike winds along rugged coastline, in and out of lush valleys along the glorious Napali Coast. We visited Kauai on our Honeymoon in 2011 and we talked about someday hiking the 22 miles (round trip) in to the beautiful, isolated, and pristine Kalalau Beach.  After 6 years of thinking and talking about it, we finally got to experience it last month, August 2017.

Kalalau Beach. This picture was taken on our Sunset Cruise of the Napali Coast in 2013.

Kent bought us our camping permits back in April, because they sell out so far in advance. Although we had anticipated it for so long, it really snuck up on us. We always meant to get into good hiking shape. I have never had the best endurance so I wanted to at least get a few good hikes in before this 22-mile journey.

Unfortunately, and fortunately (depending on how you look at it), surfing took precedence and before we knew it, we ran out of weekend days to do ANY hiking. I was going into the hike very physically unprepared. Kent has naturally better endurance and surfing keeps him fit, so he was not in my same boat.

But, although I was not in the best endurance shape of my life, I was comforted by the fact that it was just Kent and I and we could take as long as we needed to to finish the hike.

As we like to do, we had also procrastinated getting many of our supplies that we needed for a 3-day backpacking trip. So, on Wednesday night (The day before departure), we headed into Lihue to check off our list. One of the biggest things that we needed were sleeping pads, as this was our first backpacking trip ever. We headed to Walmart, because we knew right where those soft, little, blue things were. The aisle was completely empty. They were fresh out.

I started panicking because I knew it was easy to say, "We can just sleep on the ground." But actually sleeping on the ground is a whole different story. Kent came up with the idea that we could use the Loungr that my parents had given us for Christmas. It was much smaller and lighter than an air mattress to pack and he said he didn't mind sleeping on the ground. I was appeased and decided we could trade off with it. We crossed sleeping pads off the list and moved on. We collected the rest of our supplies, mostly snack food, and headed back home.

On Thursday, Kent had to go to work but the plan was to drive up to Haena to camp that night so we could be just a couple minutes from the trail head on Friday morning to get a super early start. I packed our backpacks while I waited for Kent to get home. Kent had a legit backpacking pack and I had a backpack that we usually use to travel and fly with. We wanted to try to haul in all our water so, ultimately, my pack ended up being 24 pounds and Kent's was 45 pounds.

Trying on Kent's backpack. Literally, tipped me over when I first put it on.

Kent got home from work and we finished off the packing and headed on our way. We stopped for some delicious Subway and laughed and sang and chatted our way up to the North Shore. "Happier times", as Kent likes to say.

We got to our campsite right at dark and quickly set up our tent. Kent ran around a little like a crazy person to filled up our Loungr. (You know exactly what I mean if you have this kind of delightful air furniture) It did not pan out. It ended up being too big and an awkward shape for trying to sleep on in a tent. We soon let the air out and both decided to just sleep on the ground. Kent had a very thin, yellow beach towel. I had a very lightweight sleeping bag, basically a thin fleece blanket when unzipped. I think Kent fared a little better than I did that night, but we both slept very fitfully. I bunched up the blanket under my hips, ribs, and shoulders. Every contact point with the ground hurt. I woke up about every half hour because of a sore or numb body part. It was not a difficult slumber to wake up from.

We woke up at 4:30 am. We packed up camp and headed to the trail head. At the trail head we ate some breakfast and donned our headlamps (except for Kent who had a flashlight because heaven-forbid he look like a dork!), and by 6:00 am we were on our way.

And so it begins.

The first mile-ish of the trail is uphill. It was not pretty. I always tend to get sick in the mornings, just a normal part of my life. The early morning mixed with uphill hiking was not nice to me. I started to get really sick pretty quickly and we had to move very slowly. Kent was worried. He asked me a few times if we should just head back and if I thought I wasn't going to make it. I know the morning sickness is usually temporary and I was determined, so we trekked on. As the trail started to even out and then eventually start going downhill, my sickness started to ease up.

Our little goat, Snickers

Our spirits were lifted, and we enjoyed a long stretch of downhill all the way to Hanakapi'ai Beach (Mile 2). The next few miles were a lot of up and down, up and down. Very tiring and repetitive. I had bouts of nausea along the way, but it didn't really stick with me and we were having a fun, adventurous time overall.

Happy times

We got to mile 7, also known as "Crawler's Ledge" and Kent stopped and grabbed my shoulders and told me to focus and be careful and I grabbed his and told him, "You too" and we were off.

This part of the hike is what he had been nervous for me to do. The trail goes right around a cliff side. Small pebbles on top of dirt on top of boulders. A sheer drop-off into the ocean. Pretty nerve-wracking, but it definitely looks a lot worse than it is. It was definitely not child's play, but as long as you stay focused and are careful with your footing, it was not too bad.

You can see some of "Crawlers Ledge" in the bottom right corner of this picture.

A closer look.

I came around a bend at one point and Kent was sitting on the trail. At first I thought he was taking a break-waiting for me, but then I realized he was just sitting in the dirt when he could have been perched on a rock. He had slid out and fallen :(. Luckily he wasn't hurt and he had just slid down onto the trail. It was scary though.

We made it through the rest of the sketchy parts and passed mile marker 8. At this point, we were both starting to feel the intensity of the trail. It is no joke. So much up and down the entire time. We took so many breaks because I get so tired on the uphill. After mile 8, we were starting to slow down even more and get a little quieter.

We soon ended up down by a little creek that was filled with my favorite tiny creatures, Ants!

Tangent: If you know me and ants at all, this little factoid will give you an idea of just how exhausted I was: I sat on countless ant-covered boulders (and I mean CRAWLING with ants), because I was so tired. They crawled all over me! And I couldn't even think about it because I needed a break so badly! Yes. Pick up your jaws.

Anyway, here we are at the worst ant covered creek yet and there was a bit of a fork. We looked both ways and decided left looked most promising. We walked about 20 steps before stopping. It was not the right way. So, we turned around and went right. 20 steps into that and it was basically a sheer cliff. Way worse than "Crawler's Ledge". As we were looking around for other options another couple came down.

They were equally as confused and, at that point, we decided to cut our losses and take off our packs. We were both so exhausted and walking a single step more than we absolutely had to was the least appealing thing in the world to us. My sweet Kent wandered up and down the creek trying to figure out what to do. Meanwhile, the other couple had gone back up the trail to try to see if we had missed something. Another couple came down. 6 people all ended up at the same place. It was hard to believe we had all missed the trail.

Kent soon came back with no good news. Both couples had gone back up the trail at this point, and poor Kent had climbed up and slid down a very steep hillside during his wandering and popped all his blisters that had been building up all day. He was in so much pain. We started to put our packs back on and heard some yelling. We couldn't tell what words were said, but knew it must be that the other couples had found the trail because we told them to try to yell to us if they did.

We Charlie-Browned it back up the very steep hill we had just come down. We eventually came upon our mistake. We had gone straight and down when we should have gone left and up. It was obvious once we figured it out, but the first time, we didn't even see any sort of left option. Delirious states, I guess.

We got back on the trail and pushed on, our spirits very low. Our little detour cost us about half a mile of hiking energy (a mile for Kent with all his wandering) and about 45 minutes of our time. It was really disheartening.

After that, we just really wanted to be finished. Knowing that we wasted so much time and energy on our little detour really tanked our spirits. Kent's feet were now killing him every step of the way and we were both pretty exhausted.

We finally got to mile marker 9 and could feel the end nearing. Although, by this point, at least for me, the feeling overtaking me was more one of desperation to be able to just sit still and less about the adventure and being able to see and step foot onto this beautiful and elusive beach.

We trudged on in search of mile marker 10. We passed some hikers coming out of the beach and they told us it would soon "get better". I didn't know how much to trust them,but went the hopeful route anyway. The trail finally started leveling out and before we knew it, our view opened up and we could see a ton of red dirt and a long downhill trail! We knew the beach was going to be at the bottom of this part. Finally! It was still very far away, but after that many miles, seeing our destination is basically like being there! Especially because it meant no more uphill.

We started hiking down the open red dirt. I was so thankful for the respite from uphill, but my mind was not into being tricked. Downhill now meant uphill later. (I tend to overthink things...a lot.)

We hiked down and down and down until we came to a river. I knew there was a river just before the beach and a waterfall at the far end, but we hadn't passed mile marker 10 yet so we weren't sure where we were. We hopped from rock to rock across the river and just on the other side was a sign...0.5 miles to Kalalau Beach! We made it!

We walked a few more steps around the trees and BAM! There was Kalalau Beach. So magical.There were some very interesting emotions going on for me at that point. I knew I should be happy and excited that we made it. We worked really hard to get there and we finally were and it was incredibly beautiful. The best word I can use to describe my emotional state at that moment, though, is apathetic. And maybe that's the wrong word. I DID have emotions. Strong emotions. But they were so all over the place and balancing each other out so perfectly in all their intensity, that I was just neutralized.

I was overjoyed to be there. It was so beautiful, and we could go rest, and I was so proud of both of us for getting ourselves there. But I was also miserable. I was physically in pain, my whole body, my nausea was starting to worsen, and I knew we had to do this all over again on Sunday.

But, I tried to live in the moment and just be excited to be there. And I was. We both were. We found our little campsite, tucked into the trees, as isolated as we could be (just how we like it). We dropped off our horrendously heavy backpacks and headed out in search of the waterfall we knew was at the end of the beach.

We both drenched our heads, Kent drenched most of himself, and we filled up my Hydroflask with waterfall water and feeling refreshed, we headed back to our campsite to set up our tent before dark. Our hike had taken us 12 hours from beginning to end, so we were nearing sunset by that time.

I decided to stop at the bathroom on our walk back so that I could just go to bed when we got our tent set up. Gross. Gross. I am so thankful that they even had bathrooms and I didn't have to go in the woods, but boy, I will not lie, they were a trial to be inside for any amount of time.

On our walk between the bathroom and our chosen campsite, I started to get really queasy. We got back, set up our tent (which included gathering and piling a massive amount of leaves under our tent in hopes of some padding help), and hunkered down for the night.

At this point, I was downright sick. I felt like I was going to throw up and I could sense the feeling was not going to leave me anytime soon. The pit of my stomach started to become home to a fluttery, panicky feeling. I tried to eat some crackers and drink some water. At this moment in time, my relationship with water started it's downhill stampede.

(Disclaimer: Kent often refers to me as an ice diva. I can't drink water unless it is ice cold. It's mostly a joke. And truly, I just PREFER ice in my water, but I can drink it at room temperature if I need/want to. At least that's what I thought before this hike.)

I choked down one soda cracker and tried to drink some more water. The room temperature water would not quench my thirst but I kept drinking it because I knew it was helping me even if it wasn't pleasant to drink. As a "just in case", I insisted we bring one blue Gatorade in addition to all our waters. I was now hoarding that precious blue liquid. It was so much easier for me to drink than the water and I would reward myself with a sip after enduring a horrible drink of water.

I fished out an empty Ziploc bag from my backpack to use as my "bucket". I had also thrown in a box of mints at the last second, which ended up being another stupendous decision. I sucked on those until I was able to drift off to a very fitful and nauseated slumber. Another night of bunched up blanket under my hips, ribs, and shoulders. Poor Kent had about a third of the material I had, one thin beach towel.

Luckily, we both were able to fall asleep. I woke up a lot. Pretty much every half hour. Some body part would get too sore or fall asleep and I would have to change position. At 4:42 a.m., I woke up and was very distressed to realize that I really had to use the bathroom. In the spirit of disclosing too much information, I NEVER, EVER get up at night to go to the bathroom. Ever. Like, for real.

I sat up and looked out into the forest (Kent had taken our rainfly off for some much needed airflow). I stared out there for a long time. It was really dark. I looked up at the stars. There were a lot of sounds, mostly berries falling from all the trees. I knew there were centipedes and toads and all my staring freaked me out so much that I was too scared to walk to the bathroom by myself. I stared for a little longer into the darkness. I willed myself to be brave enough to just go out in the woods. I tried the decision out in my head for a second and decided I couldn't. I hated the thought of waking Kent up and making him walk me to the bathroom so much (mostly because of his poor blister-mangled feet), but I couldn't think of any other solution. By this time about 10 minutes had passed and the situation was getting serious so I finally woke Kent up.

Bless his sweet, sweet heart and soul. His poor feet! He could barely stand, but he offered to walk me to the bathroom with no mention of them. We got the flashlight and headlamp and hobbled on to the bathroom. Along the way, we passed a bunch of toads and a giant centipede that would have freaked me out of my mind if I had been by myself. (Yay women who are being all brave and independent and not needing a man and stuff, but I want Kent by me always. #sorrynotsorryatall if that makes me a bad female.)

On the walk back from the bathroom, I got completely sick again. I started to panic in all my misery and when we got all settled in to the tent I started crying and told Kent I didn't know how I was going to make it out of there. I was really sad and miserable and I felt trapped and panicky because I couldn't see a solution. Kent tried to comfort me and told me not to worry and that I had all day Saturday to recover and feel better. I cried us both back to sleep.

By some miracle of miracles, I was able to sleep/re-situate until 9 a.m. Kent woke up a couple hours before me and was able to walk the beach and do some exploring. He came back when it started to rain and that was about the time that I was waking up. It rained off and on for most of the day. I didn't mind it at all. I was too sick to walk around, stand up, or even sit up for most of the day. I slept off and on until about 2 p.m. Kent did some more wandering when it wasn't raining. We played some cards when I felt well enough to sit up. I was even able to eat some beef jerky and a snickers (yes, the most helpful of foods for a sick stomach, but I was desperate for anything I could choke down and that's what sounded good!)

Our little game of Go Fish was probably the highlight of the whole trip for me. I was feeling okay and a little hopeful that the nightmare would end, at some distant point in the future. I was still feeling okay when the rain stopped a little bit later that afternoon, so we decided it was a good time to go get some water to purify for our hike out. We had already purified 4 water bottles worth but we wanted 4 more plus our Hydroflasks to get us through the remaining 11 miles.

We grabbed our pot and Hydroflasks and left our tent for water and a little beach stroll. I was faintly sick. Not too bad, but it was still lingering there in the background. The beach was so serene and mystical and empty. That was a highlight too. And there was an extra element of specialness to it because of how many difficult steps we had taken to get ourselves there.

After exploring just a little bit, we went to the waterfall, got our water and walked back to the tent. We put in our purification tablets and went back out to the beach just in time to watch the sunset. It was definitely a top 5 sunsets of LIFE. Not only was it beautiful and colorful and aesthetically pleasing, but sitting there with Kent, in my state of sickness and mental panic, it was glorious to be able to block it all out and enjoy the most simple, serene, and soothing sunset I have ever experienced.

As soon as the sun dipped below the water, we booked it back to the tent, set our alarms for 2:30 a.m. and tried to get as much rest as possible before our hike back out the next day. It was another insanely comfortable night, and surprisingly (*sarcasm*) I woke up before my alarm at 2:24 a.m. I started eating a soda cracker and sipping Gatorade to give myself the best start possible.

Unlike the other 2 nights, it had actually gotten a little chilly, so I draped my blanket over both Kent and I while he slept for another 20 minutes. I slowly munched on a second cracker. I was not feeling wonderful but not writhing in sickness either. I think a big factor was how badly I wanted to get out of there and back to the car. I knew there was only one way to do it. May as well start that dreaded march.

I forced myself to ignore the sick feeling and woke Kent up at 2:50 a.m. We packed up camp and at 4 a.m., with our dorky headlights on our heads (or for the cool kids, flashlights in hand), we were on the trail. We made it fairly quickly to the river crossing. I was nervous about rock hopping in the dark, but we were pretty speedy and nobody got wet.

After the river came the long uphill part. That part of the trail had been so nice to us on the way into the beach, but what a sneaky little minx. She was a devilish nightmare hiking in the opposite direction. My sickness had been steadily creeping up on me since our first step onto the trail, but the steep uphill was an immediate trigger. I quickly became very sick and very disheartened. I knew what was ahead of us. I knew what every single step of the 11 miles looked like. The only thing to do, though, was to keep walking. I wanted this trail to be over as quickly as possible.

We trudged up the hill as my sickness got worse and worse. As I mentioned earlier, I have dealt with nausea my entire life. It's extremely common to me, but I've always had the option of "babying" it, to a degree. If I feel sick, I'm usually able to lay in bed and nibble on some sort of soothing food, and sip on ice water. I've never been in a situation where I've been THAT sick and forced to not only stand up, not only take steps, but actually hike up a mountain. It started to become extremely mental for me. I felt like I was betraying my body. Every physical signal I was getting was telling me to lay down and moan and writhe in pain and misery.

In the beginning, I was a little confused about what to do and how to handle it all. That was most of what I said to Kent early on. Every time I needed to take a break (which was...ehhh...about every 10 steps. Not a joke.), I would say to Kent, "I don't know what to do." Everything inside me said I needed to lay down, feel better, recover. But that wasn't an option if we wanted to get home. Eventually, we were going to HAVE to do it this way.

I got very upset but I didn't let myself cry. I knew the second I started crying, I wouldn't be able to stop and the day would just get that much more terrible. I periodically told Kent to hike ahead while I stayed back to stick a finger down my throat to try to make myself throw up. I don't have this skill. I wish that I did. It is incredibly difficult for me to force myself to throw up. If it was easy for me to do, I think this whole day would have been significantly easier.

I told Kent I didn't know how hard to push myself. I didn't want to make it worse on my body, but I also wanted to get out of there more than I wanted anything else. Finally, I decided pushing myself would only lead to me throwing up and that was the best thing to hope for. It didn't take long for the nausea to get so bad that I told Kent to hike ahead again, but this time I finally found success. (Farewell soda crackers, it's been real.)

I didn't feel completely better, as you often do after throwing up, but it brightened my spirits and gave me a little relief for the moment.

The sun starting to stretch and blink it's tired little eyes.

The miles passed pretty quickly after we got past that first big stretch of uphill. There were still a lot of stops, but our pace was so much faster. We reached mile marker 8 before I knew it! Chyeah! Our spirits were pretty high.We were making significant progress on getting out and I was feeling well enough to smile and joke with Kent a little bit. We started the sketchy cliffside part, and it was definitely a huge blessing that this turned out to be the best I felt all day. I was able to be clear and focused through the whole treacherous part.

We stopped for a break at one point and Kent said he was ready to throw his backpack off the cliff. Our conversation morphed into talking about how this gave us some insight and understanding to the feeling of physically wanting to give up. About how you think you would fight so hard to survive and do anything in any circumstance, but there are actually limits to how much you can physically handle. Deep conversations on the Napali cliffside.

At the end of that particular break, we decided to get a drink and move along. That was an unfortunate turning point for me. All along, I had been struggling to drink an even-close-to-sufficient amount of water from our water bottles. (Kent even let me drink the super clean bottled water, while he drank our waterfall purified slightly dirty water) I loathe room temperature water. I knew I couldn't be picky about the temperature of my water on this trip, though, so I had been forcing myself to drink and not think about it. I had been able to get a little down this way on Friday's hike and a teeny bit so far on Sunday. But, up there at the top of that cliff, for the first time that day, I took a sip and gagged. Not. A. Good. Sign.

I think I got a couple of swallows down and we continued on.We made it through the sketchiest parts and my sickness came back. We had to climb up a few switchbacks to get off the cliff and that solidified the sickness that stayed with me for the rest of the day. We did get to see a little family of goats on that part of the trail which was so nice. I think there were three or four little babies that were so precious!

We slowly made it up through the switchbacks and back into more foresty trail. For several miles, it was a lot of the same.

Trudging up and down, up and down, frequent stops, sticking fingers down my throat, no success, repeat.

There was absolutely zero in my stomach but I couldn't help from trying because I was so nauseated. Kent would always say, "Ready?" after a break and I quickly started dreading that word. My mouth would say a very begrudging "yes" but my body refused to agree at all. It insisted that I should lie down for a loooooooooong time or else it was not going to allow me to feel better. But I couldn't do that. We had to keep moving. So the vicious cycle continued.

We started the strategy of Kent hiking a little ways ahead of me. He needed significantly fewer breaks than I did and, if I took breaks on my own, our pace was a lot faster overall. So he would hike ahead, staying close enough that we could spot each other every few minutes, periodically stopping and letting me full-on catch up to him for a special "together break". It worked well for us.

Just after we passed mile marker 6 and the Hanakoa campsite, we were taking a break after a mean hill. A hiker came up behind us breathing heavily and as she passed us said, "This is a freaking nightmare. Who though this was a good idea?" Word. We laughed and I told her we were totally on the same page. She had only hiked the 6 miles into Hanakoa, not the full 11, but I was willing to empathize with anyone who had to make their feet move at this point. We leapfrogged each other for a little while, but eventually she got ahead and stayed there.

After we passed mile marker 5, things got real bad. The situation was this: We have 5 more grueling miles to hike. I can not drink one, single, solitary swallow of water without gagging on it. If I am able to choke some liquid down, I can feel it churning in my stomach afterward. All I have eaten all day is 2 soda crackers. Unfortunately, those soda crackers had been left back on mile 1 (Gross, sorry). I literally had a few swallows of water and my precious Gatorade in my stomach. (I had been rationing my Gatorade out all day, because it was the only thing I could get down. I started the day with about a 4th of the bottle left.)  As you can imagine, my body was not pleased with me. I was using so much energy, and giving it nothing. My mouth and throat were incredibly dry. Every time I tried to swallow, there was really nothing to swallow, and it just persisted in it's dryness.

I didn't know what to do. I mentally gave up on water. I measured my Gatorade again and gave myself 2 sips per mile.

My water-drinking face was even worse.

Calculating my rations

I hate these pictures of me, but they really help describe my state.

We started hiking toward mile marker 4.

So far, the trail was pretty consistently up and down, up and down. There were some longer uphills and longer downhills, but it mostly felt pretty balanced. That quest for mile marker 4 was steep uphill almost the entire mile.

I'm not sure if it was the state I was in, or if it was actually that bad, but cue the meltdown.

After a particularly grueling session with no break in about 2 minutes (It was probably a lot less time, but it felt like 2 minutes which was an eternity for the state I was in), I had finally caught up with where Kent was waiting for me and just started crying.

I collapsed straight onto the ant covered dirt and cried to Kent, "I honestly don't know if I can do it."

I had been trying so hard not to cry and not to say those kinds of negative words, but I hit my limit and I couldn't hold it back anymore. I knew that "not doing it" wasn't an option, but I didn't know how it could possible happen. I was so sick and miserable and couldn't fathom over 4 more miles of this.  After the negativity floodgates opened, I had officially deemed this torture.

I cried to Kent in desperate helplessness and he patted my back and said, "You CAN do it. This is just a particularly long, steep uphill stretch. It WILL go downhill again." He told me to take deep breaths and relax. He poured some water on my head. (We had a lot of extra on account of all of the bottles I was NOT drinking.) He told me that I just have to go the pace I can go. We have hiked a long way and we WERE doing it.

I started to feel better. Better being extremely relative to the situation, as I had never felt so miserable in my life. But, it gave me the extra push I needed to stand up and start walking again.

Unfortunately, it was not downhill soon.

Up.

Up.

Up.

At every corner, there was more uphill. Sometimes I would literally take 5 steps between breaks. Kent stayed a bit closer to me during that bad uphill due to my fragile emotional state. I was getting so down because I couldn't believe the island could possibly be this tall! How could we still be going uphill?! And where the heck is mile marker 4?!

At a particularly weak moment, I convinced Kent and myself that we had definitely missed the rock with the pink number 4 on it. We had passed it and should now be focused on mile marker 3. Bad move. We hiked a few more horribly uphill switchbacks. I turned a corner and saw Kent at the top of another long uphill stretch and he said, "Here's 4."

I whimpered my best whimper and fell onto the dirt like a pouty toddler. That was not what I wanted to hear. I sat in my puddle of tears for a minute and then I got up and slowly made my way up the hill and past that stupid pink 4.

More uphill.

More breaks.

More tears.

More uphill.

I did NOT understand how we were not in space by now. How is it possibly that we are still going UP?!

Then, the glorious moment. I heard Kent's sweet voice singing the magical words, "I think it's starting to level out up here." And it really was!

It went from steep uphill, to more gradual uphill which then morphed into level ground! It was such sweet, sweet relief.

I was taking the slowest steps known to mankind. A wispy, white-haired, walker grandma would have left me in the dust. But I was moving for extended periods of time and it felt so good. I still needed breaks, but we now had a long downhill stretch ahead of us, all the way to Hanakapi'ai Beach.

The downhill really didn't help my sickness at all, but it was nice to not be panting so much. We finally made it down to the beach and I saw a tiny peek of bright white light at the end up this hellish tunnel. We were so close. Just 2 more miles to go.

The first mile out of Hanakapi'ai is brutal uphill in the straight sun. I had been dreading that part all day. I knew it was going to be hard,

We decided to take a more substantial break at the beach to really prepare ourselves for the last push. We walked over to a tree and sat down.

That's when we saw our "freakin' nightmare" friend from mile 6! She was sitting across from us under another tree. She saw us and said, "You made it!" I smiled and did my most enthusiastic cheer arms and excited face (Which probably translated to a finger twitch and a slow blink). Kent answered her, though.

The second we sat down, I leaned over with my arms on my knees and my head on my arms. I'm sure I did not look well but I had long ago stopped allotting any energy to appearances. (Sorry Kent!) Our friend came over a minute later and asked if we wanted some electrolytes for our water. I tend to be the person that refuses, refuses, refuses, until people push something on me. Not this time. I knew I desperately needed water and I hoped beyond hope that those electrolytes were flavored so that I could drink it like I had been drinking my Gatorade.

I looked up at her and said, "That would be so great, if you really don't mind." She left and returned with a couple of tablets. She even offered us some of her water, but we told her we had plenty. We electrolyzed two bottles and the second I brought it to my lips, I could smell the most delicious fruity smell. I could drink it! It was definitely not super flavorful and delicious, but that slight flavor was manna from heaven. I was so happy.

I thanked her as profusely as I could in my state, and we donned our backpacks for the last two miles. We crossed the river and walked a little ways up the hill.

Break time.

Electrolyte lady passed us, along with many other people. It was actually a pretty intense part of the trail, thought, so a lot of people were stopping with us for breaks. Plus, Hanakapi' Beach is a very popular, and somewhat easy, hiking destination, so we now had a lot more fellow hikers.

People would make comments to us about how hard it was. I would laugh (ish) and empathize with people, but Kent hated it. These people had a 4 mile round trip they were working on and he did not appreciate them assuming we were in the same boat. I totally agreed with him. This nightmare torture of a day that had begun at 4 a.m. was not the same. But I was willing to commiserate with anyone who wanted to commiserate.

We leapfrogged quite a few different groups. One of those groups were angel humans. The first time I passed them, they said, "Take your time, honey. You have all day." Shortly after that, we were sitting down, they passed us again and one lady gave me a bag with four glorious pineapple chunks in it. I needed that so badly. On my empty stomach, a juicy pineapple was the absolute best case scenario. I inhaled them all and drank the juice out of the bag.

We continued on up, with the sun beating down.

As we neared the top, I could feel the end was near, so I victoriously chugged my last few swallows of Gatorade. We hiked a bit more up and down, but then: THE BEAUTIFUL SIGHT OF KE'E BEACH. I knew we were on our final descent (3/4 of a mile to go!). I started to become slightly giddy and loopy.

We got to chat with a guy from the angel pineapple group I described earlier. He was ahead of his group so we hiked with him for a while. He was so nice and really great to talk with, which helped pass the time. Before I knew it, I looked through the trees and I could see a gleaming red light. Break lights! Cars!

I was so giddy and emotional. I almost started crying. I told Kent that it felt like my entire life's worth of Christmas morning all rolled into one purely magical moment. (Do you even know how much I love Christmas?!) That's how good it felt to step foot out of that trail head.

I peeled off my shoes. Kent tried, but his blisters were so bad, he opted to keep them on until after we ate (at Chicken in a Barrel...duh!) On our drive from Ke'e to Hanalei (about 10 minutes), I got really emotional. I was super touched and thankful for all of the helpers we had along the way. I started to cry as I named them all to Kent. I also cried about how hard it had been.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done. (Yes, including my major surgery) I know that sounds a little dramatic, and also really lucky because if that's the hardest thing I've ever done, easy life, right? I agree. BUT, it truly was so hard for me. The mental aspect above all. It was physically hard but if the physical was all I had to deal with, I would not be classifying it as extremely as I am.

I honestly, truly, did not know if I was going to be able to do it. I was very fearful that I was going to pass out at some point. Hiking those 11 miles on the food and water that I did, I still can't fathom how I didn't have some sort of a medical crisis. (Fittingly, I had lost 11 pounds on that trail.)

The helpless feeling that I felt on Saturday, knowing what the hike was like, feeling as nauseated as I did, and knowing there was only one way out: step by grueling step, is a feeling I will never forget.

Every time I think about those moments on the trail, I have such a huge sense of relief knowing that it's over.

At the risk of serving a little cheese with this post, I really actually learned a lot about myself. I have never pushed myself so hard. Physically, I've probably come pretty close. Mentally, no way. I have definitely had it pretty cushy, and it was never necessary for me to endure that much when I didn't want to or thought I couldn't.

Kent was so solid through the whole hike. He was in so much pain from his blisters. (Sidenote, he literally duct taped his feet for the hike out. Duct tape-to-blister contact. Insert crinkly face emoji guy) He was in so much pain and I wanted to be able to take care of him, but I couldn't. He was so nice and encouraging and he never got frustrated with our insanely slow pace. He is my best person.

Sitting here now, on our comfy couch with ice water by my side, I'm even a teeny bit glad it was so sucky and horrible. It bonded us. We did it together. It's our memory now. He was such a comfort to me and my love for him really grew through such a terrible time.

I'm so incredibly glad that it's over, and a lottle bit glad that it happened.