Kauai, Hawaii, 1 March 2015
All the images in this post are of Waimea Canyon from viewpoints near the Waimea Canyon Road. This first image is a multi-image panorama.
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Both this and the first image are from the Waimea Canyon Lookout, the first you encounter going up the road.
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Now we have driven on and are at the Pu’u O Kila Lookout, at the end of the road, overlooking the Kalalau Valley. Down there is the end of the Kalalau Trail. This is a spectacular 18 kilometre (11 miles) walk that you enter from Ke’e Beach, as we did for a kilometre or two the previous day. If you do the full trail, you walk out again the same way. It can be quite dangerous especially after rain and people do die there, particularly in swollen creek crossings and precarious cliff tracks.
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Two more images of the hills overlooking the valley, which would be a ridge of (Mt) Kilohana, 4,000 feet high (1,220 metres).
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Back down to the Waimea Valley Lookout for the sunset, such as it was.
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The road along the ridges above the valley is narrow and winding and has what seemed to me an absurdly low speed limit of 25mph or 40kph. Mind you, the other thing I couldn’t understand was that all the rental cars have automatic transmission. On winding roads and on steep downhill inclines you have so much more control with a manual transmission and also you aren’t so reliant on the brakes.
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Kauai is the oldest island in the Hawaiian group and thus has had more time to erode. This was accentuated by rifts and collapse of the central volcano.
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In the centre of the island is the highest mountain in Kauai, the inactive shield volcano Waialeala. Its peak, Kawaikini, is at 5,200 feet or 1,600 metres. It is also a place of particularly high rainfall, averaging around 11.5 metres per year, another factor in the spectacularly eroded valleys.
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Waimea Canyon is also known as “the Grand Canyon of the Pacific”.
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The waterfall that you can see in the distance we will see a closer view of in a couple of posts time.
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Waimea means “red water”, in consequence of the red soil of the canyon.
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The many bare patches is no doubt a reference to a high level of erosion.
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Murray Foote 
Beautiful photography! I especially like the 2nd and 3rd pics of Mt Kilohana – those ridges and clefts look like green velvet. Gorgeous!
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Thanks heaps Zoe! I think you’re going to like the three posts I have coming up of Waimea Valley, Na Pali Coast and other areas from the air in a couple of posts time.
I was nearly going to Vietnam later this year (Hanoi and Ha Long Bay was my initial thought) but the trek I was hanging it off that I was invited on fell through.
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Ooo exciting, I will definitely be watching for them 🙂 Ah, about Vietnam – never mind. Next time?
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I was offered a place in a 112-day trek in the Altai Mountains in Siberia but it was cancelled for lack of interest. I was intending to include Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Maybe it will come up again.
However, I am in the process of organising a memorable journey for the end of the year – Mauritius, Reunion, Madagascar, Falklands, South Georgia Is, Atacama Desert….
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Super.. Some of this is a lot more difficult than it looks
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Thanks very much, Rajiv!
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One of the most memorable places in the world we have been. Thanks for the great images as a reminder of days past.
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Thanks very much Derek. We could definitely have spent more time there. More Kauai images to come though.
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Spectacular place and superb images Murray. Pity about the trip falling through that really would have been something to participate in, who was organising it?
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Thanks very much Lee. The trip was being organised by Steve Hague who has a blog Life in Russia. He is an American with a Russian family living in Russia. There might be another opportunity later.
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Sounds like the right person to lead a trip in Russia/Siberia and would be an incredible experience. These days (with a commitment to a dog) I won’t leave home for such extended trips, pity 😦 about one month’s my limit.
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[…] Waimea Canyon […]
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Wow! You shot some spectacular images of Waimea Canyon. You were lucky to be there on such a beautiful day. It’s almost always raining there! (I did notice some showers in the later photos.)
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