You know what they oughtta do? They ought to make Mount Everest more accessible. Pave the trail. Some guardrails. Maybe put in a tram. It's supposed to be beautiful up there. More people should be able to see it.

Crazy, right?

Isn't it along the lines of asking the state to improve the trail into Kaua'i's Kalalau Valley?

The point of climbing Everest is that so few are able. Kalalau, even a hundred years ago, was defined by its inaccessibility. It's hard to get there. It was always hard to get there. That's part of what makes it so special.

Kids used to taunt one another by saying, "Go Hanakapi'ai, fall down!" — the equivalent of "Take a long walk off a short pier."

Now some people are pressuring the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to shore up the trail because it's gotten too dangerous.

Isn't it supposed to be dangerous? Isn't that the lure?

No one is asking for guardrails or trams or paving or anything like that. In fact, it is experienced hikers who are saying the rough going is getting very rough. And certainly, it is a tragedy for any soul to be lost or hurt in such a beautiful place. But how much trail maintenance is too much? To make a footpath along the side of a sea cliff wider, there has to be digging. To make a rocky trail bed more stable, soil has to be brought in from elsewhere. Every change brings more changes to a place valued for its resistance to the spoiling effects of the outside world.

It's not a public place like Hanauma, where you have hundreds of people tromping around every day. Hanauma is for the most part tame, all-access, paved and loved to death.

Kalalau is the opposite. Wild, untamed, extreme.

Certainly there are misguided guide books that make it sound like the Kalalau hike is easier than it is, but when guide book authors lie, fabricate or don't know what the heck they're writing about, the state shouldn't have to pony up to make the fiction somehow true.

We in Hawai'i so embrace the concept of public access that we've come to expect, that everyone should be able to go everywhere. In theory, wonderful, but in practice, yikes. There are some places that are too fragile for all-access. There are many people who, despite their own estimations, are in no shape to be hiking along a sea cliff for 11 miles over two days. They should probably stick to the Diamond Head trail, where a helicopter can neatly pluck them to safety should they turn an ankle.

People are dying in crosswalks on city streets and the state is having a hard time coming up with money to fix that dangerous hike. The Kalalau trail is dangerous, has always been dangerous and will, without huge deleterious changes, remain dangerous.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.