Recreation
Lana'i's Munro Trail enthralls trio of hikers
By David Cheever
Special to The Advertiser
Hiking in Hawai'i is a fun activity in itself. When you do it with friends from the Mainland, however, two things usually happen. First, because visitors are always curious about Hawai'i, I always learn something in the process. Second, it makes me appreciate these wondrous islands even more when I see them through the eyes of outsiders.
So with Coloradoans Alexander Munro Hunter and Butch Wilson in tow, I went to Lana'i for a day on the Munro Trail. It must be said up front that Hunter, because of his middle name, was convinced some of his Scottish ancestors must have been involved with Lana'i in some way.
It was George Munro who was largely responsible for reforesting the island after he was hired in 1911 by the Lana'i Company as ranch manager.
At the time he arrived, water was a big problem and the pastures had deteriorated because the ranch's sheep roamed the island almost at will.
Along the route today there are several offshoots that resemble trails, but in actuality, the trail is a road. As a result you can mountain bike, horseback ride, or drive the 10 1/2 miles that takes you past Lana'i-hale (the highest point on the island at 3,370 feet above sea level) to Pu'u Manu, which is practically at the eastern edge of the island. It isn't advisable to hike that far unless you have a ride back.
My friends were fascinated with the fauna and flora of Lana'i, so we decided to hike as far as we could in two hours and then head back.
Our starting point was Ko'ele Lodge, which is where the taxi dropped us after a pickup at the tiny Manele Harbor following our ferry ride from Lahaina.
The lodge itself (a three-story building with two massive stone fireplaces at either end of the lobby) did its magic on my two companions, who were wide-eyed when we stopped to get the hotel's abbreviated hiking map.
We wanted the full effect of the Munro Trail. So instead of taking the Koloiki Trail, which starts behind the golf clubhouse, we walked uphill from the lodge on Route 440 for about a mile and turned right at a sign for the cemetery.
As we entered the forest, the first comment from Hunter and Wilson was how cool it became.
Even at the lodge the temperature was muggy and warm, but once inside the tree cover, the temperature dropped, making it very comfortable.
After a while the trail opened up and there were numerous guava bushes that Hawai'i residents generally ignore. Hunter, however, initially couldn't get enough, stopping several times to munch on the small fruit. Wilson was more taken with the views that became more dramatic as we moved along.
On the left — over a huge canyon — we could see the high pastures where cattle and horses were grazing.
At this point we entered another forest where the scent became quite powerful.
Some of the eucalyptus were tall and heavy, and others were skinny with great shards of bark peeling away to reveal multi-colored underlayers.
My friends had never experienced these kinds of trees.
Next on our right were great gashes of red dirt that was the result of one of Lana'i's greatest problem — erosion.
It appeared that the ranch or some other agent had attempted to fence an area to bring back some of the native plants to halt the washing away of the island's fragile soil.
At this point, the Koloiki and Munro trails are the same, and that goes on for about a mile. Contrary to what I expected, there are some severe ups and downs at this point. In this section of the trails, our energy was taken with climbing and not the views
Soon the Koloiki Trail branched off to the left. As we left the tree cover, the view north was breath-taking.
As we made our way past an isolated stand of Cook Island pines, the view to the left down and along the Naio Gulch was awesome: a deep narrow canyon that ran straight to the sea; carved ridges from the wind and rain. But it was on our right side that Lana'i boasts one of its most spectacular sights.
Maunalei Valley is even deeper and just slightly wider than Naio. And it is much greener and closer at hand such that — unlike Naio — we could see to the very bottom.
Once we retraced out steps back to the main trail, we turned left and it became just the Munro Trail.
Soon it was time to turn around and head back to the lodge. At marker 14 on the trail, we turned left to take the Koloiki Trail back to the lodge (instead of following the Munro Trail out to the end as we had done in the beginning) and were rewarded along the way with some huge stands of Cook Island pines. At one point, the trail opened up and we were staring at a dramatic golf hole.
Our hiking adventure was now over. It really ended in the cozy bar of the lodge with a hearty late lunch of Lana'i venison pastrami sandwiches. Colorado was never like this.
