How Long Is the Pīpīwai Trail?

How long is the Pīpīwai Trail?

Four miles round trip. Two miles in from the trailhead across the road from the Kīpahulu Visitor Center, two miles back out, and 800 feet of climbing along the way. That is what the park prints, it is what the sign at the trailhead says, and it is the number to build the afternoon around.

If you log the walk on a watch or a phone, expect it to hand you something closer to 3.6 miles and 849 feet when you get back to the car. Both figures describe the same hike. The gap between them is roughly seven minutes of walking, which is less than you will spend deciding where to stand for the photograph at the falls, so take the larger number and stop thinking about it.

Why do the published distances disagree?

Three reasons, and none of them are interesting. The first is rounding. Trail signs carry figures a tired person can remember, so a path that runs a little under two miles to the falls gets printed as two, and a climb measured somewhere in the high seven hundreds gets printed as 800.

The second is the canopy. Half a mile of this trail runs under closed bamboo where the sky disappears completely, and there is a good stretch of heavy forest before that. A receiver holding a weak fix draws a smoother line than the one your feet took, clipping the inside of bends it cannot resolve, and a smoother line is a shorter line. Trails under cover this dense routinely measure short on a watch.

The third is that there is no finish line. Waimoku drops onto a boulder field, and how far across those boulders you pick your way before you stop and turn around varies by a couple hundred feet from one hiker to the next. Two people who walked together on the same morning can post tracks that differ by more than the publishers do.

How far is it to each stop?

The fork beside Hale Hālāwai comes at 0.1 miles, about 3 minutes in. Bear left. The right branch is the Kūloa Point Trail and it drops toward the coast, which people notice about the time the ground starts going down instead of up.

The steepest sustained stretch runs from around 0.3 miles to Makahiku Overlook at 0.5 miles, roughly 20 minutes from the car. The banyan follows at 0.7 miles, the bridge over the confluence at 0.9, and the short flight of stairs above it at 0.95. The bamboo begins almost exactly at the 1 mile mark and runs about half a mile. The two stream crossings sit at 1.8 miles, and Waimoku Falls is at 2, about 70 minutes in at an unhurried pace.

All of those are one way and cumulative. Double them for the day.

What if four miles is more than you want to walk?

Turn at Makahiku Overlook. That is 1 mile round trip and about 1 hour, and it buys you a railed platform looking across the gulch at a waterfall close to 200 feet high. It also gets you the hardest half mile of the trail, so nobody who does it has to wonder whether they could have managed the rest.

The next honest stopping point is the bamboo. Walk to where the stalks close over the trail at the 1 mile mark, stand in it for a while, and turn around, and you have covered about two miles round trip including every foot of the real climbing. Push through the whole grove and come back and you are near three.

If a group is going to come apart, it comes apart in the first half mile. Make the call at Makahiku rather than at the bridge, where turning around costs you an hour and eight tenths of a mile you already paid for.

How much elevation gain is there?

800 feet, and half of it is behind you at the half mile mark. Makahiku Overlook sits 400 feet above the trailhead, which works out to an average grade near 15 percent over that first stretch, all of it on uneven stone steps set into the hillside.

The remaining 400 feet is spread across a mile and a half and mostly does not register, with one exception. The steps immediately above the bridge pick up 90 feet in 0.05 miles, which is a city block's worth of stairs, and that is the pitch people remember. From the far end of the bamboo to the falls you climb only 120 feet across the last mile.

Questions

How long is the Pipiwai Trail?

4 miles round trip, 2 miles each way, with 800 feet of climbing. GPS tracks tend to log 3.6 miles. Plan for 4.

How long is the Pipiwai Trail in km?

About 6.4 kilometres round trip, 3.2 each way, with roughly 240 metres of climbing.

How much elevation gain is the Pipiwai Trail?

800 feet, and 400 of it comes in the first 0.5 miles. GPS tracks log closer to 849 feet.

How far is Waimoku Falls from the trailhead?

2 miles one way, about 70 minutes of walking. The viewing area is at a sign set back from the base for rockfall.

How far is the bamboo forest on the Pipiwai Trail?

The bamboo starts at about 1 mile in, roughly 42 minutes from the trailhead, and runs for about half a mile. Bamboo and back is a two mile outing.

Is the Pipiwai Trail 3.6 or 4 miles?

Signs and the park table say 4. Logged tracks say 3.6, because GPS reads short under the bamboo canopy and nobody stops in exactly the same spot at the falls. Plan for 4.