This mysterious waterfall has been hiding in plain sight from me ever since I moved to Oahu. Although it is likely the be the most seen waterfall on Island, it is also one of the least visited.

As drivers speed over the Pali highway, they often catch a brief glimpse of this waterfall in the distance.

For some reason the idea of exploring this waterfall never really occurred to me until recently. Over the last year, I could not pass by it without thinking of the various ways I could approach this waterfall. I just seemed so close, I figured it would be a walk in the park…



Although I have attempted to reach this waterfall from several directions, my most successful route has been by starting from a vague trailhead near the offramp to the Pali lookout (if you are coming from the Honolulu direction).

There were a surprising amount of hills we had to navigate over and around in these woods. The trail was not very well marked and it became quite apparent that it did not host many visitors.

Shroomy shrooms

Some say that if you end up in the bamboo forest, then you are going the wrong way. So I guess we were lost…

The above series of three images is to show the random assortment of markers we would come across all along the trail. There were several different colors that lead us in many directions (a few of which were dead ends). Many of these markers did more to confuse us then help us…

We did not always advance with much confidence. Many times we could not even tell if we were on a trail at all. However, I had a hunch that we should follow the pink markers (whenever they were visible).

The canopy was dense, causing my gps lose reception frequently. It was also disorienting as you could no longer see the direction of the sun, the mountain range or even hear the direction of traffic. I felt like climbing up a tree, just to check if we were going the right way.

Yay another marker! The forest began shifting to a community of paperbark trees. These trees were an indicator that we were not only going the right way, but that we were pretty close.

Although we had crossed several stream beds, this was the first one that wasn’t dry.

Hoping the water was coming from the falls, we decided to follow the water upstream.

The paperbark trees seemed to be getting thicker. Their bark was saturated and water would beed up around your finger when you poked their trunks.

Waipuilani Falls! When we finally found this obscure waterfall, I could hardly believe it.

Perhaps one of the bigger surprises was the small cave near the base of the waterfall. I love waterfalls, but I also really love caves. It was as if this place was custom made for me.

The waterfall was much wider then I had imagined and I was blown away by the cave which split the cascade into two falls.

Looked pretty inviting to me. The entrance was a little wet and froggy, but after getting a little ways in it dried up nicely.

Good thing we always bring our trusty headlamps.

There were some enigmatic sparkling deposits along the walls. This cave raised so many questions: Where did it go? What was the reason for that pipe on its floor? If anyone knows, please leave a comment below.

I got really excited when we came to a fork in the road. But the tunnels promptly ended on both sides. Who dug these tunnels and why?

I wish the cave had gone deeper, but it was still really interesting. Although I’m afraid we may never find out the intent of this excavation.

As we began to head back out, we admired the different colors of stone that were in the tunnel, and looked around for any signs of buried treasure.

We admired the vividly colored mosses growing near the mouth of the cave while keeping an eye out for frogs.

It was nice to be back out in the sun with a little fresh air.

Upon our exit from the cave, we crossed paths with a very strange old man. He had moved our bags away from the location we had left them when entering the cave. He seemed to have hid them in some bushes off to the side of the stream. He made us a bit uneasy as he immediately brought up some pretty perverted topics of conversation. Although his collection character flaws were a bit off-putting, nothing shocked me more then when I noticed his pockets were full of the trail markers we had “used” to navigate through dense forest to the waterfall. He explained that he didn’t want too many people finding this place, so he ripped down every trail marker he came across on his way to the waterfall… Without any trail markers, we got super lost on the way back. We found ourselves in the dreaded bamboo forest, which was even thicker and more difficult to navigate than the first time we passed it. All in all though, we had a great time until we got lost on the way back out.

I’m sorry this write up is probably even less helpful than usual to anyone actually trying to find and do this hike. But we were lost and winging it most of the time, so I don’t feel very confident giving anyone else tips or directions to this spot.

So far I’ve attempted this hike four times. I’ve only made it to the waterfall twice and I’ve gotten lost on the way back to Pali Highway three times…





