They don’t put it on the postcards, and they sure as hell don’t tell you at the airport—but Kaua‘i isn’t a place you conquer. You don’t “do” the trails here. You don’t bag peaks like prizes or chase waterfalls for Instagram. Out here, the trail doesn’t lead you. It watches you. Measures you. And if you’re not listening, the land will take back what you never really had.

It’s easy to forget that, especially when the sun is pouring gold across Nāpali cliffs, and the jungle smells sweet like guava and laua‘e. But Kaua‘i is old. Older than the rest of the Hawaiian chain. It’s the grandmother island, gnarled and quiet, full of ghosts and memory. And she remembers every footstep. Every trespass. Every hiker who didn’t come home.

Just last week, two more added to the tally—though, for now, they’ve lived to tell it.

March 23rd, 2025. The first call came from deep inside the Makaleha range. A woman struck on the head by a falling rock—gone silent, bleeding, unconscious at the foot of the falls. You ever been there? It’s not a place you just stumble upon. You have to climb over roots thick as your thigh, wade through waist-high river crossings, and scramble along moss-slick boulders with nothing but instinct and hope. She made it all the way in, but the mountain decided she’d go no farther.

Rescue crews from Kaiākea station came fast. Air 1 hovered over that steep canyon while ropes and hands and stokes litter ferried her limp body back toward the light. She made it to Wilcox. The gods, this time, let her go.

But the mountain wasn’t done yet.

Not even an hour later, Kalalau sent up her own distress call. Near mile marker 1.5, a visitor from Utah—gender unclear—fell lame with a leg injury. Couldn’t walk. Couldn’t crawl. And if you know that trail, you know that’s as close to a death sentence as it gets. The trail narrows there, choked with ferns and carved into the side of cliffs. One wrong move and you’re feeding the sea.

Rescue crews didn’t hesitate. Air 1 again. Another liftoff. Another gamble paid off in flesh and rotor blades.

But these two stories—they’re just this week’s entry. They’re nothing new.

Every few months, another headline trickles down like rain through ‘ohi‘a branches. Stranded hikers. Washed out crossings. Helicopter rescues. Flash floods. Broken legs. Missing persons. Drownings. Death.

Take Hanakāpī‘ai, for instance—that first seductive bite of the Kalalau Trail. It fools people. Lush. Accessible. Gorgeous. But that river? She changes moods like the tide. In 2012, a woman was swept away trying to cross her swollen waters. The body was found downstream, caught in a pile of driftwood. There were signs posted, of course. There are always signs.

In 2014, another. A man from the mainland, thinking he could ford the river during a flash flood. Locals had turned back. He went forward. He didn’t come back.

In 2017, a family from the Midwest called for help after being pinned down for two nights by rising water on the Hanakāpī‘ai side. No food. No signal. Just the sound of frogs and falling rain.

The rescues come fast. Our fire crews are warriors—Kaiākea, Hanalei, Kōloa, Kalaheo. They fly into places you wouldn’t hike in on a dare. But even they can’t always reach in time.

Makaleha has her own record. In 2019, a 34-year-old hiker fell more than 30 feet trying to scale a waterfall. His friends had to hike out alone for help. He was lucky. In 2022, another was not—slipped while trying to photograph the upper tier of the falls. Died on impact.

Then there’s Sleeping Giant—Nounou. Harmless, they say. Great for kids. But in 2020, a trail runner went missing on the east ridge. Found two days later with a shattered ankle, after crawling over lava rock and ironwood needles with nothing but a granola bar and a will to live.

Even the majestic Alaka‘i swamp—a place of bogs, songbirds, and endless fog—has taken its toll. In 2021, a couple from California got lost after misreading their GPS. They spent three days in the wet cold, hallucinating by the third, before being found by pig hunters.

And these are just the stories we know. The ones that made it to paper.

The thing about Kaua‘i is that her stories are often oral. You hear them from uncles in the back of pickup trucks, from aunties at the laulau table, from kids with sand still on their feet.

They tell of places where you don’t go alone.

Of the cliffs at Kalalau where lovers leapt to escape the haole invaders.

Of the trail to Hanakoa where the night marchers still walk. They say if you hear drums in the darkness, lie down. Don’t look. Don’t breathe.

Of Waimea Canyon’s back trails, where a certain pueo follows you—not a bird, but a warning.

They speak of ‘āina as ancestor. Trail as teacher. And punishment as inevitability for the arrogant.

The county’s tried. Signs. Permits. Emergency apps. Trail status updates. But the truth is, no amount of tech can outwit the elements. You can’t outsmart an island that watches with a thousand eyes.

There’s no guidebook for what happens when the clouds roll in fast and the mud turns slick like ice. No app for knowing when your body will give out halfway down a ridge. No YouTube video that prepares you for the sudden terror of being truly alone, wet, cold, and forgotten, while the green swallows your cries like a mother rocking you back into silence.

People ask me what the solution is. I say this: there isn’t one. That’s the point.

This isn’t Disneyland. This is Kaua‘i.

And if you walk her trails without reverence, without humility, without offering something of yourself first—she might just take more than you were willing to give.

So before you lace your boots, before you chase the photo, before you post the reel—stop. Breathe. Listen.

Ask the land permission.

And remember: every step is sacred.