There were three trails to Kaupo in the early 1900s, but the Kipahulu trail was the main access point for Kaupo residents and visitors. Although the Kipahulu trail covered rough terrain, the alternate paths through Kahikinui or Kaupo Gap took longer, and boats came to Kaupo only once a month.
There are many accounts of the Kipahulu trail from visitors to Kaupo in the early 1900s. Here are five people who visited Kaupo in the 1910s and ’20s and wrote about the trail:
- L. Horace Reynolds, travel writer (1914)
- Jack Walker, travel writer (1915)
- William Frederic Badè, Sierra Club president (1921)
- Thomas Maunupau, museum researcher (1922)
- Philip Ninomiya, schoolteacher (1929)
L. Horace Reynolds
In December 1914, Mid-Pacific Magazine published the article “Along the Ditch Trail” by L. Horace Reynolds. Reynolds travelled through Haleakala Crater, then down Kaupo Gap and along the trail to Kipahulu, Hana, Haiku and Paia. Below is Reynolds’ description of the trail from Kaupo to Kipahulu.
Between Kaupo and Kipahulu several descents into similar gulches have to be made, making travel very tedious as so much time and energy is spent in covering a short distance. At present steamers plying along the coast carry freight and passengers from point to point, but no doubt when more people settle in this district, these ridges will be tunnelled and the gulches bridged and a good road put through.
Reynolds’ predictions proved overly optimistic. Many more people did not settle in the district, and no tunnels exist. Only one bridge exists in Kaupo, at Manawainui Valley.
Jack Walker
In April 1915, Mid-Pacific Magazine published another travel article about the area, “From Kaupo to Keanae” by Jack Walker. Walker’s offers a glimpse into the mishaps that could occur on the trail.
In a straight line is only two miles from Kaupo on the sea to Kipahulu, but the way you have to ride over the mountain trail and along the precipices it is seven miles, and most of the way you do not care to ride your horse down hill, but the scenery is so beautiful that you do not mind walking. As we walked along there was a Japanese leading a horse behind us, and on the horse were packed a number of live pigs sewed up in sacks, and as we were zigzagging clown one of the cliffs the horse made a mistep and rolled down. He kept rolling, and every time he struck the trail he bounded up and some of the squealing pigs fell off. Down the poor horse rolled thru the guava, until at last he disappeared, and we picked up the bags of pigs as we went along, and packed them on our horses to help the poor Japanese. When we got to the very bottom of the cliff we found that in spite of his fall and roll of several hundred feet, the horse was still alive and able to walk.
William Frederic Badè
In July 1921, Sierra Club President William Frederic Badè visited Haleakala Crater. After riding down Kaupo Gap, Badè took a mule to Kipahulu. His account of the trip, published in the Sierra Club Bulletin in 1922, provides a dramatic (if not melodramatic) description of the trail.
Wheeled vehicles seem to be unknown in the Kaupo region, for there are no roads of any sort. All travel and intercommunication is be horseback and muleback over bridle-paths that often are extremely picturesque. This is particularly true of the eight miles of trail from Kaupo to Kipahulu, and since we had before us an uncommonly long dayʻs journey we decided to travel to Kipahulu on muleback. In view of what the trail actually proved to be, it was satisfaction to find ourselves mounted on a very cautious and sure-footed pair of mules. A handsome brown Adonis, scarceley more than twelve years old and covered by an immense gaily corded lauhala hat, was appointed our guide, and the gaze of many wistful dark eyes followed us down the trail into the dewy morning.
Of all the paths that ever were hung between the mountains and the sea, surely few can boast a greater variety of wild natural beauty than that which borders the trail to Kipahulu. This trail is carved in sharp zigzags up and down the sides of steep-walled gorges of great depth, clothed with most luxuriant tropical vegetation. There was many a turn that tested the rider's confidence in his mount, for when, in descending, the mule's ears got on a level with the hoofs of his front feet, and there was a drop of several hundred feet beyond the outer edge of the trail, the instinct of self-preservation took most of the humor out of the situation. The up-grades did not seem quite so full of sinister possibilities, for the chance of staying on the trail seemed better in sliding off a mule's back to rearward than when tobogganing down through the gap between his ears.
These gulches are like nothing I have ever seen anywhere else. Torrential rains have cut them out of the flanks of the great lava mountain, and their abruptness is such that one has to cross two or three in every mile of distance. At the bottom there usually is a torrent which has to be forded, and the mouth of the gorge invariably debouches sharply into the sea, forming a miniature cove. As the surf pounds into these little coves it rolls the rounded rocks and pebbles along the shelving bottom with an indescribable muffled roar like distant thunder. The head of one of these gorges was enclosed by a crescent of Yosemite-like walls from which a dozen waterfalls were pouring. Their sources were in clouds that swirled above them, constantly dissipating in rain and as constantly renewed by condensation from the moisture-laden trade-winds.
Thomas Maunupau
In May 1922, Thomas Maunupau accompanied Bishop Museum archaeologist Kenneth Emory on a visit to Kaupo. Maunupau took a boat from Honolulu to Hana, then a car to Kipahulu. In an article in Nupepa Kuokoa on June 1, 1922, Maunupau describes the final leg of his arrival, a mule ride from Kipahulu to Kaupo.
Ua kaumaha no na holoholona a he naue malie wale no ka hele ana imua. O keia hele ana aku he pali wale no iluna ma kekahi mau wahi, ua kokoke no paha e kaukani kapuai ke kiekie a ke nana aku oe ilalo, aohe kau mea o ka mamao, a ma kekahi wahi, ma ka lihi pali oe e hele ai, a no ka haule aohe nao ai i ka papaa. E pii ana oe iluna, a e iho ana ilalo, pau mai hoi ia pali, manao iho oe ua pau loa ka pali, aka aia wale no oe i ka hoomaka ana. Nui no hoi ke kahawai ame na awawa ma keia mau wahi. Nui ka hala ame ka hau ulu ma kahakai. (The animals were weighed down to where they could only plod ahead. Going along, it was just cliff in some places, and it may have been nearly a thousand feet high. Looking down, you couldn’t see anything for a long way. In some places, you would go right along the edge of the cliff, and if you fell it would be a disaster. You would go up, then back down, and the cliff was over. You would think the cliffs were done, but it was only the beginning. There were many streams and valleys at these places. Many hala and hau trees grew along the seashore.)
Philip Ninomiya
In 1929, Philip Ninomiya was sent to Kaupo after being trained as a teacher at the Territorial Normal and Training School. In a 1976 interview, Ninomiya’s described his initial mule ride from Kipahulu to Kaupo.
My supervising principal took me to Hana where I had to pick up some pots and pans, and clothing that I had shipped previously on a boat. They were kept at Hana School. I packed them in two gunnysacks, threw them over the saddle at Kipahulu where he got two mules for us. I mean, one mule for himself, and one mule for me. We went up and down the gulches for three and a half hours ride to Kaupo, Maui.
The duration of 3 1/2 hours matches Maunupau’s account from 7 years earlier. Maunupau wrote that his mule ride took about 4 hours.
Final thoughts
The descriptions above make it clear that the trail from Kipahulu to Kaupo was not an easy journey. Despite this, it was the fastest way to get in and out of Kaupo. In addition, by the early 1920s, cars could drive between Hana and Kipahulu. In 1922, Maunupau was able to hire a car and driver to take him from Hana Bay to the Kipahulu-Kaupo border. That car ride of 13 miles took an hour. The remaining mule ride from Kipahulu to Kaupo was half that distance yet took 4 times as long.
Note that the last two accounts above, from Maunupau and Ninomiya, are from people who had business in Kaupo (historical research and teaching). Thus, they traveled to Hana and took the trail from Kipahulu to Kaupo. Conversely, the first three accounts are from sightseers, all of whom visited Haleakala Crater, then traveled down Kaupo Gap and on to Kipahulu. Kaupo was not a destination for them, but rather a transit point on their island tours.