We left Maui with our heads low and our kayaks dry, and boarded our flight to the Big Island of Hawaii. As the locals told us, Maui has streams and the Big Island has rivers, so again we were hopeful. That hope grew strong once we peered out of the airplane windows to see rivers and waterfalls scattered across the coast.
Once had arrived we got our rental cars organized, loaded the boats and gear and found whitewater 5 minutes out of the airport once we crossed our first bridge. Instantly our group vibes changed and the fire our of stoke grew to a blaze. We immediately geared up and headed to the river to laps the drops as many times as we could before the sun set down.
The next day we got up early to start our mission on the mighty Wailuku River. Our focus was on the Wailuku River being it has the biggest drainage and holds it's flow the longest. After our experience in Maui we knew it was necessary to stick to the larger rivers, being that we still faced no rain even on the Big Island. It took us three day to make it from our Put-In, the Waluku falls, down to the ocean. Our first day consisted of hiking upstream to the Wailuku Falls, though after some serious scouting of the 40ft falls we all concluded that the nasty lip combined with low flows probably wasn’t a great idea. We continued down stream to find more massive low volume water falls, until we made it to Mini Pe’ePe’e falls. Mini Pe’ePe’e was as clean as an 18ft falls could get. The cleaner style lip became more common as we continued downstream over smaller waterfalls and through the Boiling Pots. We found out why that area was called the Boiling Pots- the infamous lava tubes. Watching an entire river go underground and pop up again is not ideal for a whitewater kayaker, so we went slower during this section to ensure the team was being safe and steering clear of the tubes. In the Boiling Pots section we found a clean 25ft drop that landed into a 10 foot pool with no exit. While the drop itself was perfect its exit made running it a tough call. The low water allowed us to set proper safety to ensure the team could run it and get pulled out of the water before reaching the end of the eddy. After scouting down stream we decided that our best option was to call it a day and get out at the riverside parking lot before venturing into the canyon down stream.
On day two we got ready to venture through the next set of canyons following the 25 ft falls in the Boiling Pots. Together we decided to get one more lap off the 25ft falls to start the day, and then worked our way around the lava tube and continued down a fun 15 foot slide with a bad cave on the right. Quickly we found ourselves at another lip, this one being a little bit bigger. The 55ft Raptor Falls had a complicated entry, little volume but looked like it could have a clean run. After much deliberation, Dane was full of spunk and confidence so he went first. Watching from the lip, Dane pulled off what looked like a perfect line, until he fell through the falls and hit the green water behind it and gave himself a slight concussion. After a radio conversation explaining exactly what happened, the rest of our group opted to cliff jump. We tossed our kayaks and paddles over the edge, waiting for the clear sign from Dane below, and jumped, careful not to slip on the take off. The scenery alone while paddling this river made it even more amazing. Tight canyons, clean low volume waterfalls followed the 55 footer, which brings us to our next sequence rapids- the 'Hawaiian bobsled', a tight narrow slide into a 15ft boof. Immediately following the narrow ‘Hawaiin Bobsled was an amazing sequence which we dubbed- Pineapple Express. This rapid is a fun short canyon with a 10 ft slide followed by a 5ft boot, into a narrow canyon that ends with a 35ft drop. This became one of our favorite sections of the Wailuku because of the visuals and the fact the whitewater was epic. We finished day two with another roadside parking lot at Rainbow Falls.
Day 3 of paddling the Wailuku started early back at Rainbow Falls. Our original plan for the trip was to come run the famous 120ft Falls, though still cursed with extreme low flows we chose to set up a repel at the lip of the waterfall and continue our way downstream. Below Rainbow Falls we found tons of great waterfalls and fun rapids stacked up onto of each other. One rapid quickly became one of our favorites- a 20ft drop with a kicker at the lip that we named, ‘Hyper Boof’. This rapid was so much fun that we lapped it more times then I could keep track of. Just barely taking the favorite rapid title from Hyper Boof was the following rapid- a twisting rapid that slides into a 90 bend and drops off a 10ft drop. We named this the 'Shaka Brah’ which is the Hawaiian hand sign for ‘Hang Loose’. Later in the week we returned to challenge ourselves with different down river freestyle tricks off this awesome rapid. After a couple more slides we came to the the final canyon that ends into the ocean. The last drop has enough fingers and channels that each paddler was able to pick a different line as we dropped into the ocean. It was a crazy feeling to paddle in fresh water all day only to end it with getting splashed in the face by salt water. We celebrated the completion of the river with a couple surfs before taking out. We only had to walk a few feet across the street to our take out, which is also a Bar and Grill.
We ended our trip with a couple more laps on the Wailuku until the water dropped too low to even scrape down the amazing sections we had found. We finally and to put away the kayaks and pick up some surf boards as we spent out last days surf out on the ocean. Though we walked away from Hawaii feeling like the whole expedition was a success and we can’t wait to get back to explore some more.
