Hawaii Day 6

Sorry for the long delay in posting. Life has just been busy and I kind of kept putting it off.  So, I'm going to try and catch up to the new year quickly!

Our first full day on the island, we headed to Waimea Canyon (the grand canyon of Hawaii).  We had a long day of hiking planned.  Our first hike was about 4 miles round trip to Waipoo Falls.  It was a VERY muddy trail for the first half.  After making it to the rim of the canyon, we could see it was worth it!

The beautiful canyon views

We walked a little further to part of the Waipoo Falls.  

It goes from this to...

... here where it plunges 800 ft down!

Here's a picture of the falls that I took from the helicopter ride!

After that hike, we drove to the end of the road and the Pihea Trail.  

 

Here, the Napali coast is just below us.

This was a long 8 mile hike (round trip) to an overlook.  It had a lot of elevation changes and went through the Alakai Swamp - the wettest spot on earth.  Most of that section was on a boardwalk due to how wet the ground is.  But it was a very interesting area!

We had great weather on the way out - but by the time we got to the overlook, it had clouded over and we didn't get much of a view as you can see (sad).

We thought about waiting it out, but it looked like rain so we decided with 4 miles back to the car, we better head out.  We booked it back in record time... I think Bryce thought I was crazy for going so fast.  Fortunately, we made it back without too much rain (considering how muddy the trails were in parts).

We were exhausted after hiking about 12 miles total that day. We grabbed some food on the way home and then relaxed the rest of the day.