The Pali Notches hike has gained notoriety on Oahu for its steep climbs and treacherous vertigo inducing cliffs.

I had avoided this hike for years, as I had been dissuaded from ever attempting it by a well respected hiking buddy of mine. He basically had some rather unfortunate luck with traction on the day of his expedition along the KST trail. Nobody was hurt, but he was rattled for a bit and his story really psyched me out from ever trying it… Until NOW!

I was talked into doing the hike by a group I saw coming down the ridge one day, when I was just hanging out at the Nuuanu Pali Lookout. They explained that they managed to make it to the chimney and back in just 1 hour and 3o minutes. For some reason, my brain equated a quick hike, with an easy hike (which was an error on my part). Above photo shows us at the first notch.

Since my usual hiking shoes were still soaked from a previous escapade, I figured I would bust out the legit hiking boots for this occasion. They had been great on long distance hikes (when I needed to carry heavy packs), but they were less than ideal for this trail. These boots were designed to keep you ankle straight, which was really unhelpful on such a steep and slanted trail. Perhaps I’m just a pansy, but I was having a difficult time keeping my balance. We did this hike the day after a heavy rain, which I’m sure contributed to how slippery the initial incline was to the first notch. It was super slippery (alright enough complaining).

If you are uncoordinated, suffer from a fear of heights and struggle with really steep inclines then I do not recommend this hike. Despite being a relatively short hike, it has definitely earned its reputation for being intense and sketchy. You will be down on all fours, climbing up and down ropes on the edge of cliffs all along this trail.

Here we are tackling the 2nd notch. To whoever put up these ropes: Thank you! You are doing God’s work!

Ropes really are clutch on this hike. However, the above photo is a perfect example of how you DO NOT want the rope to lay against the rock. If you look near the upper portion of the notch, the rope got caught on a rock. This is incredibly dangerous due to the high likelihood of the rope popping loose from that stone as you shift your weight, move and twist the rope around. I know because I was the rookie who it happened to. The rope was caught and then, very abruptly, came loose from the rock. This sent me swinging into the bushes down below. I don’t think I had ever held on to a rope so tightly in my entire life. I was a little shook up, but learned a valuable lesson about rope placement 😛

This is the way you want the rope to sit. Make sure it is straight up and down, to prevent any surprise spontaneous base-jumping from occurring.

Once we made it over the 2nd notch, we simply had to follow this narrow ridge up to the 3rd notch (the chimney).

Although the trail was precariously close to the ledge, I found it much easier to navigate than everything up until then. Just beyond the girl in the blue shirt was the chimney. There were two people on it though, who had set up their tripod and camera gear for shots of sunset (which is cool for them but sucked for us). The chimney is so narrow that there is no room for people to pass each other or even share the summit (safely). So we were basically blocked from going to the 3rd notch 🙁

Don’t be a rude trail hog!

But it’s all good. Our view was amazing!

The Nuuanu Valley was looking pretty majestic. Oh the perks of living in paradise. I could have stayed up there forever.

Regrettably, what goes up must come back down. That descent was soooo slippery. We were grabbing onto every shrub and blade of grass we could to keep from sliding down.

Above is a better view of what the trail looks like between the 2nd and 3rd notches.

The view during the descent was absolutely spectacular. We were lucky the was able to peek through, as clear skies can be quite ephemeral on the Koolau’s ridges.

Can you spot the girl in the blue shirt in this photo?

I was so stoked we finally did this hike and really glad we made just in time for sunset. Unfortunately this meant we would be finishing the most slippery portion of the hike in the dark (thankfully I had snagged a headlamp before running out the door). All in all, the trek took us 1 hour and 30 minutes (including the few rest stops we took to take photos).

UPDATE: Since writing this post we have been able to return to this hike to reattempt the third Notche!

We were stoked to see nobody between us and the 3rd Notche. Having this trail all to yourself is very rare.

We hurried our way up to catch the last few glimpses of sun. At last we had conquered the 3rd Notche. This hike had felt incomplete to me for weeks until this moment.

We continued a tiny bit further to check out the next section of the trail. Our sketchiness alarms were definitely warning us to turn around. As the trail got much thinner, we could look up at the infamous Chimney… The Chimney would have to saved for another day I guess 😛

As the wind died down, we were blessed with the most serene sunset.

The Pali Notches hike has been a contentious trail due to the inherent dangers it exposes hikers to who attempt the climb. For this reason the state has been trying to close it down for some time. Since I’ve lived here, I have seen rescue helicopters pulling people off the trail at least twice. It is a gorgeous hike, but I would not recommend it if it has been raining or during high winds. You will definitely need to have your wits about you to complete this adventure or you could very easily end up off the ledge. If you would like to try a similar hike but with a slightly more reasonable level of danger, I would recommend the Pali Puka.





