Field Trip

Wai’anapanapa

Story and Photo by John D’Onofrio

The wind is blowing like nobody’s business when we arrive at Wai’anapanapa in the late morning, which is not unusual on the northern tip of west Maui. Located on this sumptuously beautiful coast a few miles north of Hana Town, Wai’anapanapa State Park is a small but exquisite park, offering quite a radical variation of the dreamy white sand travel poster image of Hawaiian beaches. Here, at the edge of the tumultuous Pacific, the sea is met by jagged jet-black lava cliffs, carved into a fantasyland of dragon spines and twisted knifeedge spires.

We down-climb into a sculpted sea cave with the aid of a fixed rope and then hike east on the Wai’anapanapa Coastal Trail across ragged black lava beside the bluegreen sea, wending our way through carpets of vibrant green Naupaka plants. Wai’ānapanapa means “glistening water,” and indeed, at day’s end, the evening light illuminates the coast with the rich colors of a Gauguin painting.