Our last backpacking trip was the Kalaulau trail in Hawaii. This is an amazing 11 miles walk along the beautiful Na Pali coast.
Mike, Jeff and myself hiked the Kalalau trail in November 2008. The hike isn’t extremely strenuous but does require effort, and is definitely worth it. We stayed 2 nights at Kalalau beach, which I highly recommend, so you can recover a little bit from the hike in, and spend some time in the amazing valley before heading out.
Not a lot of equipment is needed for this trail. We tried to pack as lightly as possible, and each of us ended up carrying a little over 25lbs. We hiked with a small 3 men tent, very light sleeping bags, hiking poles, camera and supplies. We ended up not using the sleeping bags since the weather was great, and just used the tent and some sheets. Water treatment tablets are also required.
Parts of the trail can get very muddy so we were happy we used good hiking boots, although we met some hikers the did only the first part 1.5 miles of the trail in flip flop and sandlas. The rest of the trail isn’t as muddy but does require crossing streams, so if you don’t like rock hopping, you should bring flip flops or sandals to just cross the rivers, but I don’t recommend wearing sandals for the trail itself since it can get very rocky and the beginning is covered with tree roots, and you can cover yourself with cuts fairly easily.