Kalalau Beach and Camping (Pt 3/5) – July 14-17 2011

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In addition to the many activities to experience while camping at Kalalau, this trip was specifically planned around watching the full moonrise from Kalalau Beach in July. As the beach gets moonlit to near daylight, a different perspective of landscape illuminates. This may be contradictory to what other people may anticipate, as the intensity of the moon does drown most of the star light and creates less distinct constellations.

The last time I was here was during a near new moon, so everything was looked like this picture from Waipio Valley, Hawaii (see above). Being so far away from any sort of street lamp or city light really preserves the details of even the faintest constellation… or even makes them more difficult to see with so many overlapping each other. haha. But anyhow…

After watching an epic Day 1 sunset upon arriving at Kalalau, we filled our water jugs and showered at the falls at the far end of the beach. Note, there are a couple outhouses at the campgrounds, but at least one of them is open only M-W-F… you probably don’t want to use either of them (due to excessive methane inhalation) unless you really have to do some serious “deuce dropping” anyway. O_o If you can dig, squat and bury, I think you are better off going in the forest… We made sure to mark our deposits with extra T.P.

Camp (Two 2-man tents and one 3-woman tent) was set up just before dark. We hung a clothes-line and our packs high off the ground. We also swept the entire area around our tents/campfire of dried leaves, since we all know that bugs like dead leaves… and we don’t like bugs… especially the winged monsters in the form of american cockroaches. We also rolled large rocks around the fire as stools for the bonfire soon to follow. (Photo courtesy of David Chat).

David, Seth and I were on camp fire duty and used the wood the group gathered earlier that day on the way to the campgrounds (Left photo courtesy of David Chat). As you may imagine, there isn’t much firewood around most of the camping areas since the grounds are booked solid for many months.

We quickly started boiling water for dinner using compact camp stoves and IsoPropane. We ended up only using a little over two of four 8 oz gas cans for the entire trip. Always better to be safe than sorry.

Mountain house for some and Backpackers Pantry dehydrated meals for others… Even brought a Boddingtons to go with my Fettucini Alfredo with Chicken. lol. (Photo courtesy of David Chat)

Planning to watch the moonrise over the mountains, we soon headed to the beach around 830pm. David and I immediately broke open our tripods and DSLRs to catch the moon peaking over the deeply incised ridges…

…while others practiced some advanced light writing in the moonlight. Watching the full moonrise at Kalalau Beach was probably one of the most amazing natural phenomena that I’ve witnessed in Hawaii.

One creative idea posed by Jen Castillo… I’m surprised it came out as well as it did, mostly thanks to Seth and his status “U” pose, lol (Pictured left to right: Reanne, Jenelyn, Troy, Jennifer, David, Me, and SETH!).

For “some of us” love was in the air, while others questioned the motives of “some of us”, haha (left). A few other campers who kayaked into Kalalu parked near us on the beach (right).

The following day we took off down the mile-long Kalalau beach to explore the coastal caves and boulder/rock climb some of the immense rock features.

The last time I was here the first sea cave was filled with waste-high sea water, but I’m guessing the north shore swells brought in more sand this year. However, there were only two sleeping women in it.

The next large cave(s) down the coastline has several openings. The back of this one (left) opens in a much larger cave, but there were several people in it so I ended up not taking pictures of that one.

The last cave down the coastline has mounds of cobble and boulders in it, as well as some arranged/stacked rocks.

David and I tackling a few problems on a larger boulder near the end of the beach. Careful if you try this, the rocks are extremely sharp. Minus a few scratches, extremely fun to top out on these two!

Also near the end of the beach, there is a HUGE boulder which probably fell from up mauka and cracked many years ago. The girls immediately started to climb up, and in no time there were at the top.

Jen stemming up the crack and posing at a wide point near the top.

Before the end of the day, we made sure to make it back near camp to watch another epic sunset.

Another end to another epic day at Kalalau.

Note this is a 5-part series. Preparation, further write-ups and Kalalau Photo Gallery can be found at the top of the page.

To view this location on a Google Map also known as my “Adventure Map“, Click Here. To view all the photos from our trip, click on the Kalalau 2011 Photography Gallery. For more adventures of the Lost Trailblazers, either look at my other blogposts and “Adventures with the Lost Trailblazers” photo gallery or check out David’s website “UnrealHawaii.com“.