Hawaiian Trail by Costco Road

1.6 Miles up Hina Lani Road from Queen Kaahumanu, this Hawaiian trail is intact for at least a mile south of the road. As you can see, the trail is very nicely done, with large flat pahoehoe pieces providing fast and easy travel across the very rough a'a flows.

Although the trail is an easy hike, the detours where it's overgrown are not. Walking on a'a is not hard, as long as you ALWAYS watch where you're walking and NEVER put your foot down if you can't see the ground. Actually that's two versions of the same rule.



Here is the spot in the road. The trail goes off to the right. I's almost exactly 1.6 miles up from the highway.















Right by the roadway the trail is blocked, by both the overgrown Christmas berry plants and by large boulders. You have to detour across the a'a at these points (unless you bring a machete and/or a chain saw). The detour at the beginning of the trail, by the road, is pretty long. I detour around the fountain grass too, since walking on lava where you can't see the ground is hazardous.







Look how nice and well-done the trail is. This part is about half a mile in. At about one mile in, the a'a runs out and the land is very overgrown with haole koa and Christmas berry. Fairly impassible without a machete, if not a chainsaw.

But the a'a for the mile or so I could follow the trail has maiapilo, halapepe, naio, alahee, lama, manane, and the medicinal ko'oko'olau. I'll put those pictures in another post.
The last picture just shows how big some of the pahoehoe pieces that make up the trail are. My foot is relatively normal size.