KE’E — For years, Friends of Kalalau have spent Saturdays on the first two miles of the trail that leads to the famed Kalalau Beach.

Volunteers sacrifice their time to remove rocks, check on the makeshift steps cut into the path to Hanakapiai Beach and slice back the ever-encroaching bushes to keep the trail clear.

This month, they were honored by the state for their work, receiving the Citizen Conservationists Award from the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Mark Hubbard, leader of the adventurous volunteers, said Friends of Kalalau accepted the award at the June 4 blessing of Ha’ena State Park and NaPali Coast State Wilderness Park, but they first heard about it in 2018.

“We made arrangements to do it the day before the big flood (April 2018),” Hubbard said Monday. “That was a Saturday. We were headed out to work on the trail and Dan (Dennison, spokesman for DLNR) was flying over to give us the award that day.”

Rain shut down both of those plans, and the following day storms blocked access to the trail, triggered landslides and closed the state parks.

“A year goes by and he (Dennison) calls me about April this year and says, ‘we still want to give you this award,’” Hubbard said.

So, they did.

Friends of Kalalau stayed off the first two miles they regularly maintain after the floods and were finally able to restart their maintenance in February, after state parks fixed a landslide within the first two miles and two landslides further down, at about the nine-mile mark.

Routinely, the group gets between six and nine regular volunteers meeting them for every cleanup — usually held twice a month on Saturdays.

Malama Kauai also organized some volunteers to help Friends of Kalalau with their cleanups during Volunteer Week in April.

“We did some brushcutting and fixed some of the places where there was a little bit of damage, but we haven’t done a huge amount (of work),” Hubbard said. “It’s nice now because nobody’s been on it.”

The first two miles to the beach are the Friends’ kuleana, or responsibility, but the group went above and beyond and worked the trail all the way to Hanakapiai Falls as well. Hubbard reports that trail is back to regular conditions, too.

“The Falls trail has never been great, but it’s not any worse than it was,” Hubbard said. “The crossings are OK. We had to open up some areas that were overgrown, but we just put one day into it.”Now, along with the pride that comes with their hard work, volunteers have a plaque from the state naming them Champions in Citizen Conservation.

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Jessica Else, environment reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or at jelse@thegardenisland.com