Trekking the Untamed, Secluded Beauty of Hawaii’s Waipio Valley

The hiking is a workout, but Hawaii’s Muliwai Trail—a 19 mile, three-day trek along the Big Island’s northern coast—rewards the effort with black-sand beaches, waterfalls and wilderness to call your own.

The payoff comes quickly. Within four minutes of starting an ascent of the steep path at the north end of the Big Island’s Waipio Valley, its mile-long black-sand beach comes into view. on that strand are 60 or so feral horses that live in the valley. From a well-earned perch, you can watch waves break along the shore, framed by 1,000- and 2,000-foot cliffs, while the vividly green valley that stretches 6 miles into the Kohala Mountains looks like a colossal spirulina-and-kale smoothie pouring into the ocean.

Home of Hawaiian royalty until the 1600s (and sometimes called the Valley of the Kings), Waipio was a fertile settlement of a few hundred until a 1946 tsunami drove most of the inhabitants away. Today, only a few dozen farmers and fishermen remain.

The single road down, with its at times 40% incline and deeply rutted bottom, is only open to cars with four-wheel drive, but the valley isn’t completely isolated. So the goal is to go beyond it, climbing the 1,200-foot cliff to its north and then hiking up and down the 12 gulches crisscrossing the Kohala Forest Reserve’s Muliwai Trail until you reach the next valley, Waimanu, which is fronted by its own dazzling beach. No road accesses that destination, so with any luck you would have the whole place to yourself.

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