specialidiot
Break Glass, Smoke Lucky
I was on Kauai for my older brother's wedding which was Saturday the 5th. The following Sunday, my younger brother, his wife, and I decided to hike a state park near Hanalei and see a waterfall called Hanakapiai. It was a coolish day in the mid 70s with a forecast for scattered showers. We took off from the trailhead around 10:30 and hiked to two miles to the stream and beach, crossing the stream easily without needing to get our feet wet at all. We then turned up the canyon, following the path upstream knowing there were a couple more crossings as we got higher. After about 20 minutes the hikers coming downhill got more frequent and then they are telling us that we might as well turn around the water is too high to cross.
We decided to have a look anyway and when we got there, there was a human chain in process! There were 5 men and women across assisting two women from upstream, and it was pretty hairy. Nope, not gonna go any farther and we turned around.
Well when we got back to the beach and lower crossing, this is what we found.
Our gentle brook was now a roaring rapids. No way.
We spent the next several hours (now its about 1:00 pm) watching several macho types trying to devise ways across. They were hauling fence gates, bamboo poles, etc and nothing was going to work. Someone linked 5 lifeguard floats together and that reached across. Two fools actually got in the water and managed to cross, but not without some very hairy moments.
Around 4:30 Lihue Fire and Rescue shows up in a Bell 500 helicopter. There is a little clearing a few hundred feet up and I guess that's an evacuation landing zone. One of the four comes down and tells us that there are people stranded up by the falls, including a little boy who was washed down several hundred feet and was sitting on a rock ledge in the middle of the rapids.
We watched them rig up a 100' tether and basket and off they go. They brought 6 people including the little boy, and a father with a three year old.
There were another 15 stranded at a higher landing zone, and the chopper took them back to the trail head, 4 at a time. Then they returned and got the little boy, the dad with the girl, and another 3 loads of hikers from our location before it got too dark to fly. At least they got off all of the families with small kids.
There was a trail maintenance shed with a corrugated tin lean too that we spied, and decided to see what was up there for cover. All we had was a bottle of water each, and like most day hikers, only wearing shorts and tshirts along with our sneakers. I had a backpack with dry socks, flipflops and another tshirt. A young couple was up there claiming it as their's and we explained that there were at least 50 people stranded with them and that they would be sharing.
Here's the shed, the picture of the chopper was taken from the lean too.
OK so now it's dark. Two of the rescue guys were going to stay the night with us. They managed to get a fire going down by the crossing, and some of the hikers coming in from multi-day trips had some food and water filters so we got busy with that.
Up to this point, there had not been a drop of rain, but now a few light showers were passing through. I had found a roll of construction grade trash can liners so those got passed out for warmth and rain gear. A couple of tarps from the tool shed were put down on the floor of the lean too. Oh, I forgot to mention - the inside of the shed was filthy and smelled horrible. We figured it was a health risk and we'd better stay out.
Our little crew at the shed/lean too consisted of about 11 of us, including an elderly couple from Austria, and a few others from around the country. At 56, I was next oldest. My brother was trying to get a fire going but there wasn't any wood dry enough, so that didn't work.
Finally we are drifting off to sleep. One couple had space blankets. Those suckers are loud, I wanted to strangle them because they would not stop moving!
To make matters worse, around 11 PM the "widely scattered showers" became a steady and heavy rain that would last until dawn. It got cold enough that the trash can liners were not enough to keep several of us warm - I was shivering uncontrollably and wrapped myself in a corner of the tarp.
By 4 AM our little shelter was soaked, and we were all on our feet huddling to stay warm. One of the rescue guys stopped by and said we looked pretty good compared to the 50 or so that didn't have shelters. They managed to get a fire going though, and kept a bonfire fueled through the night.
Finally daylight about 6:30, and the rain stopped. We tramped around the thoroughly messy area, and everyone was walking around to stay warm, muddy has hell and half asleep. But the sound of the returning chopper cheered us up and they lined us up to leave, 4 at a time.
Here's our group being shown the way - my first helicopter ride! It was only 3 minutes long but thrilling. My brother is an airline pilot so of course he was watching the gauges and he told me the pilot had the thing redlined. He has a video I hope to post later.
You can see the waterfall at the left in the picture.
So that was yesterday morning, and I got on the red eye flight last night to LA, then on to MSP this afternoon. I slept most of the way home, and am off to bed now but I had to share my experience.
Here's one local news story. Watch the video, you can see me at about 1:58, in the grey tshirt and dark shorts kind of in the middle of the group with one leg up on a rock.
http://www.kitv.com/news/Close-call-for-hikers-stranded-on-Kauai-trail/25372126
We decided to have a look anyway and when we got there, there was a human chain in process! There were 5 men and women across assisting two women from upstream, and it was pretty hairy. Nope, not gonna go any farther and we turned around.
Well when we got back to the beach and lower crossing, this is what we found.
Our gentle brook was now a roaring rapids. No way.
We spent the next several hours (now its about 1:00 pm) watching several macho types trying to devise ways across. They were hauling fence gates, bamboo poles, etc and nothing was going to work. Someone linked 5 lifeguard floats together and that reached across. Two fools actually got in the water and managed to cross, but not without some very hairy moments.
Around 4:30 Lihue Fire and Rescue shows up in a Bell 500 helicopter. There is a little clearing a few hundred feet up and I guess that's an evacuation landing zone. One of the four comes down and tells us that there are people stranded up by the falls, including a little boy who was washed down several hundred feet and was sitting on a rock ledge in the middle of the rapids.
We watched them rig up a 100' tether and basket and off they go. They brought 6 people including the little boy, and a father with a three year old.
There were another 15 stranded at a higher landing zone, and the chopper took them back to the trail head, 4 at a time. Then they returned and got the little boy, the dad with the girl, and another 3 loads of hikers from our location before it got too dark to fly. At least they got off all of the families with small kids.
There was a trail maintenance shed with a corrugated tin lean too that we spied, and decided to see what was up there for cover. All we had was a bottle of water each, and like most day hikers, only wearing shorts and tshirts along with our sneakers. I had a backpack with dry socks, flipflops and another tshirt. A young couple was up there claiming it as their's and we explained that there were at least 50 people stranded with them and that they would be sharing.
Here's the shed, the picture of the chopper was taken from the lean too.
OK so now it's dark. Two of the rescue guys were going to stay the night with us. They managed to get a fire going down by the crossing, and some of the hikers coming in from multi-day trips had some food and water filters so we got busy with that.
Up to this point, there had not been a drop of rain, but now a few light showers were passing through. I had found a roll of construction grade trash can liners so those got passed out for warmth and rain gear. A couple of tarps from the tool shed were put down on the floor of the lean too. Oh, I forgot to mention - the inside of the shed was filthy and smelled horrible. We figured it was a health risk and we'd better stay out.
Our little crew at the shed/lean too consisted of about 11 of us, including an elderly couple from Austria, and a few others from around the country. At 56, I was next oldest. My brother was trying to get a fire going but there wasn't any wood dry enough, so that didn't work.
Finally we are drifting off to sleep. One couple had space blankets. Those suckers are loud, I wanted to strangle them because they would not stop moving!
To make matters worse, around 11 PM the "widely scattered showers" became a steady and heavy rain that would last until dawn. It got cold enough that the trash can liners were not enough to keep several of us warm - I was shivering uncontrollably and wrapped myself in a corner of the tarp.
By 4 AM our little shelter was soaked, and we were all on our feet huddling to stay warm. One of the rescue guys stopped by and said we looked pretty good compared to the 50 or so that didn't have shelters. They managed to get a fire going though, and kept a bonfire fueled through the night.
Finally daylight about 6:30, and the rain stopped. We tramped around the thoroughly messy area, and everyone was walking around to stay warm, muddy has hell and half asleep. But the sound of the returning chopper cheered us up and they lined us up to leave, 4 at a time.
Here's our group being shown the way - my first helicopter ride! It was only 3 minutes long but thrilling. My brother is an airline pilot so of course he was watching the gauges and he told me the pilot had the thing redlined. He has a video I hope to post later.
You can see the waterfall at the left in the picture.
So that was yesterday morning, and I got on the red eye flight last night to LA, then on to MSP this afternoon. I slept most of the way home, and am off to bed now but I had to share my experience.
Here's one local news story. Watch the video, you can see me at about 1:58, in the grey tshirt and dark shorts kind of in the middle of the group with one leg up on a rock.
http://www.kitv.com/news/Close-call-for-hikers-stranded-on-Kauai-trail/25372126
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(happens every day) Glade you and the 121 others got safely rescued out of there. 
