Hikers ignore warnings on Stairway to Heaven
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
KANE'OHE — Taj Pacleb and his friends from the Seventh-day Adventist Church ignored the no-trespassing signs as they hopped a chain stretched across the path leading to the Stairway to Heaven.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
They ducked through a hole in one metal fence — topped by rusted barbed wire — and had to slither through another. Their plan was to climb the 3,922 rotting and creaking metal steps of Stairway to Heaven to get closer to God.
Hikers continue to climb the Stairway to Heaven despite the deterioration of the stairs on the mountainside.
Even if it meant bending a few rules.
"The government doesn't own this place," said Pacleb, an 18-year-old from Nanakuli, as he made his way through a shady grove of bamboo. "God owns this place."
But the government is doing its best to keep people away from one of Hawai'i's most famous outlaw hikes. In two weeks, private security guards will begin roaming the area as work begins on repairing the broken steps and rusted handrails of what had once been the path to Coast Guard communication equipment at the top of the Ko'olau Range.
The $800,000 repair project represents an interesting legal problem for the city: Even though there are signs to warn trespassers and fences to keep them out, city officials know that people continue to climb the Stairway to Heaven nearly every day. And that knowledge, they fear, could make them vulnerable to a lawsuit if someone should be injured or killed.
So, Nakoa Companies Inc. has been hired to begin fixing and replacing the stairs in mid-July. The work is expected to be finished in October.
City officials want Stairway to Heaven repaired for two disparate reasons. They want to guard against lawsuits by showing that they've done what's reasonably expected, but they also might some day open the trail to everyone if it's deemed safe enough.
Hanging by a rope
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
The stairs are overgrown with foliage and so badly worn in places that 5- to 6-foot chunks have wasted away, leaving hikers to pull themselves up nearly vertical sections of mountain with only the help of jury-rigged ropes.
Hikers illegally bypassed a gate leading to a former Coast Guard station accessed by the Stairway to Heaven.
"We want to discourage use," said city planner Terry Hildebrand. "I hate to think how many people do it anyway."
Stairway to Heaven, also known as the Ha'iku Ladder or Ha'iku Stairs, is the most dramatic example of a problem that plagues county and state officials throughout the Islands. In a place where the philosophy is to ensure access from the mountains to the sea, land managers and attorneys worry about tourists and residents getting hurt in beautiful, dangerous places despite warning signs and, in many cases, fences and barriers.
Tourists, in particular, can be "lulled to sleep thinking they're in a pretty benign situation," said Rick Fried, a Honolulu personal injury attorney who is president of the Consumer Lawyers of Hawai'i. "The counties have an obligation to warn if there's a risk. If they did nothing, they'd be open to some exposure."
But what are state and county officials to do when people continue to sneak into dangerous areas that have been shut down — such as Stairway to Heaven or Sacred Falls, where eight people were killed in a massive rockslide two years ago?
As long as officials made a reasonable attempt to warn of the dangers, James Krueger, a well-known personal injury lawyer from Wailuku, Maui, said he would not represent someone who got injured.
"They won't be compensated," Krueger said. "I don't want to see a case like that pervert the legal system."
Jack Rosenzweig, a deputy attorney general for the state in tort litigation, still worries.
"Under our law, once you start taking steps to provide warnings, then you're opening yourself for a claim that the warnings you did provide weren't reasonable or adequate," Rosenzweig said. "It's a very tricky area."
Or as Gil Agaran, chairman of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, said: "You can't stop people from endangering themselves, unless we end up putting up enormous fences that keep people out completely. But that's a problem, too. People here are used to access to our public lands."
3,922 steps to go
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
Along Stairway to Heaven, a stream of hikers huffed and puffed their way up the 3,922 steps.
Corrosion is evident on this section of handrail along the trail.
The steady pace of traffic along H-3 Freeway droned in the background as some of the steps squeaked under the weight of each passing hiker. Portions of the galvanized steel railings have been eaten through from the steady Windward rain and mist.
Jimmy Thomas, a 22-year-old student from Waimanalo, said he has wanted to make the climb "since I was a baby." He found it easier to tuck his rubber slippers into his board shorts and hike the stairs barefoot.
"There are signs everywhere" warning people to stay off the trail, Thomas said. "We just ignored that."
The worst part of the two-hour climb for 19-year-old Wati Temo of Lahaina, Maui, came near the top. A second set of missing steps meant she had to scamper up an even steeper slope with just the help of a rope.
"There wasn't much to grip my feet on," she said. "I looked down and my mind was going, 'What if this thing breaks?' "
Dan Nakaso can be reached at 525-8085 or dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com
