Aloha Friday Picks: Hit the Trails this Weekend in Hawaiʻi
These hikes are a great way to celebrate National Trails Day on June 5.
Aloha Friday Picks is a weekly news blog that will run every Friday and features three things we recommend you do, try or experience over the weekend. Send us tips at media@hawaiimagazine.com.
Every June 5 the American Hiking Society hosts National Trails Day, a day that not only celebrates all public trails in the U.S. but encourages people to help maintain them, clean up public spaces and advocate for equitable access to quality green space. And Hawaiʻi has slews of state-run trails on every island, for every skill level. You can climb to the top of a tuff cone on Oʻahu via railway stairs (Koko Crater Trail) or across 920 acres of windswept dunes on the northwest shore of Molokaʻi (Moʻomomi Preserve). Here are three picks for this weekend if you happen to be on Oʻahu, Maui or the Big Island.
For more hikes, visit Hawaiʻi’s official trail and access website here.
Oʻahu: Kaʻena Point
Photo: Catherine Toth Fox
See one of the most remote places on Oʻahu—and one of the last intact sand dune ecosystems in the main Hawaiian Islands—with this 5-mile hike to Kaʻena Point. You’ll get sweeping views of the island’s rugged north and leeward coastlines—and maybe even wedge-tailed shearwater and Laysan albatross fledglings.
Maui: Sliding Sands Trail
Photo: Getty Images/aghezzi
This 11-mile out-and-back hike in Haleakalā National Park isn’t too difficult—but it will take time. Most camp overnight to complete it. But the payoff—to see the trail’s Mars-like landscape—is well worth the effort.
Big Island: Kīlauea Iki
Photo: Catherine Toth Fox
One of my favorite hikes in the state, Kīlauea Iki in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park offers varied terrain through native forests and across a desolate crater floor that’s otherworldly.
For more tips and information on hiking in Hawaiʻi, visit here.
