Trail Mix for Dinner
& other sacrifices worth making for the perfect sunset
It was a little after 5pm when we pulled out from the side of the road near the Waimea Canyon Trailhead, and we were on a deadline. Rebekah, Nick’s cousin, and an amazing friend and resource to us on this trip, told us that we could not miss the sunset on Polihale Beach (our next campsite). It was our mission to make it and there was no time to spare.
Polihale is as far west as one can get on the island, as it backs right up to the Napali Coast. I read, in my research for camping permits, that you can’t even access Polihale without a 4-Wheel Drive Vehicle, as the three miles of road leading to the beach are unpaved, conveniently discouraging many tourists from venturing to these beaches, leaving it protected from the consequences of humans having their way with the land.
Rebekah had camped there for weeks, when she made her first trip to Kauai, and has been back many times since for weeks, and like during this overlapping time with us, months at a time. I was immediately comfortable with Rebekah and wanted all of her knowledge not just regarding the island, but on how to live your life in such a joyful, free, and generous way. Remember how I said I didn’t even have a sleeping bag before this trip? Well, Rebekah leant me hers. She saved us from lugging a tent across the country, and leant us her tent for our time on the island as well. She also happens to be a talented professional photographer. Rebekah captured us with her camera lens before our bike ride just the day before and bonded with Kyna over their shared love for the art.
Speaking of which, Kyna had a plan for this sunset. It involved me, her designated model, in the ocean and on the beach, a few rolls of film, and her camera. I looked at my muddy bathing suit and hiking clothes I was wearing and she reassured me that she brought dresses for me to wear. We were giddy from our day at Waimea, and as Nick zipped farther and farther west, we also realized we were hungry, and would need dinner before heading into Polihale. Pickings were slim in southwestern Kauai on a Sunday evening, and the two options en route were fast food chicken wings, which didn’t work for the 3/4 vegetarians among us. We pulled into a gas station shop and did a quick supermarket sweep — gathering easy mac, ramen, salads, hot sauce, peanut butter… basically anything edible for the campsite. We were in and out in 10 minutes with a collection of misfit foods.
The sun was beginning to sink in the sky and my heart was racing. And then we turned right onto a gravel road and we were in the three mile home stretch to Polihale. Let’s GO! Our heads banged into the ceiling and the Jeep was jostled in the air and sideways into and out of deep potholes. Nick had to slow it down to a cool 7 mph to keep control of the car, and I understood now why 4 Wheel Drive was required and were grateful for our jeep and our driver. A runner better than myself could have certainly beat us there by foot, but our roller coaster ride together eventually got us onto the sand in one piece.
Nick drove us through the sand road and through dips in the dunes, we could see slivers of the beach, and the sun beginning its descent. He parked atop a dune — we would find our camping spot later, we had a sunset to see. Kyna kicked the guys out of the car and handed me a sheer piece of black fabric. “Put this on!”
But… where’s the dress?
This was the dress.
“How do you feel about going topless?”
I didn’t have time to think or feel insecure. We had a sunset to catch. So for once, I didn’t overanalyze it.
I shimmied into black bathing suit bottoms and Kyna draped the fabric around my shoulders and tied in the back like a dress. We rushed onto the beach and the most beautiful, untouched, empty stretch of sand and sea sprawled endlessly to my left, and to the right were the most overwhelmingly vast shadowy cliffs I had ever seen. This was the Napali coast. There were almost no words for the colors as the sun sank into the sky.
I spun around on the beach and ran into the ocean channeling my inner pensive mermaid. Nick and Mitch were immersed over their heads, smiles wide. We cheered as the sun disappeared into the blue horizon. And confirmed that it was, indeed, the greatest sunset we had ever seen.
As twilight turned to nighttime darkness, Nick and Mitch found what seemed to be the perfect campsite. Tucked behind two large dunes, a large patch of flat beach was surrounded by trees and protects from the wind coming off the ocean. There was a minimalist bathroom a few yards away and cold shower stall. Done.
The Jeep’s headlights illuminated our patch of campground and we began unloading the tents but then, Mitch let out a pained “Ow!” and I felt it almost simultaneously, a sharp tiny object digging into the sole of my foot. My iphone flashlight revealed a little thorn stabbing through my flip flop and into my skin. I yanked it out and then surveyed the ground, and found that it was covered in the same thorns that had penetrated my foot. How were we supposed to pitch our tents and put our inflatable mattresses on a sandy bed of thorns? The alternative was moving campsites, and wasn’t any more appealing as night had fallen, and driving + visibility was hard enough on the deserted beach. So we decided to clean the campground floor. That meant literally sweeping the sand rid of the thorns with any flat object we could find, so that we could put our tents down. While the trees promised to leave more thorns for us in the middle of the night, the spot was otherwise perfect — we would just have to keep our trailrunners on outside of the tents as to not get impaled by our thorny friends.
That morning on Salt Pond beach felt like it was actually a week ago. And once we were settled, exhaustion set in. Kyna and I took turns rinsing off in the cold water shower while the city slickers turned boy scouts made a fire.
I snacked on trail mix, too tired to even make easy mac, and felt my eye lids drooping and my body growing heavy. It was only 8:30, but it was absolutely my bedtime.
I was asleep in the tent by myself for a few hours when Nick unzipped our door and woke me up. He helped me find my shoes and I stumbled out to the beach behind him. “You have to see this,” he said, as I looked up and saw a sky lit up by a galaxy of stars and planets that were always there, even when I couldn’t see.
