Far Out Campsite

Waimea Canyon, Kauai
Aug. ‘73

In the morning, I continued my hike. On the trail, I passed two more
“locals” with rifles. They were not friendly, either. However, I didn’t have to
worry about the “gun toting kids.” Last night they did not see me as they passed
by me on their way out of the canyon. This place was becoming a bit
too crowded. I thought about leaving, but when I came to a stream, I
left the path and hiked up along the banks of the stream. I hoped I
could avoid the goat hunters that way. By the sounds of the singing
birds, it appeared as if I had. The farther I hiked up the stream, the
safer I felt.

As luck would have it, I ran into a longhair coming down the same
riverbed. The guy was friendly, but not very talkative. Apparently, he
had been down in the canyon for a long time, but he carried nothing.
He was on his way out of the canyon when I met him. Maybe he was one
of those nature people that I had met on the other side of the island.
Whoever he was, I sure appreciated the directions he gave me to his
camp. I followed them until I found it, and when I did, it was amazing.

In order to get there you had to wade across waist deep water. The
campsite was located at the entrance to a small gorge that was cut off
by the river in front and the towering pillars on both sides of the
camp. All this afforded the campsite a natural protection from
intruders. No hunters would accidentally stumble upon this camp. The
camp itself was surrounded by a beautiful grove of trees, in the
center of which, stood an orange tree full of ripe oranges. If the
“earth people” were to find this place, it would flip them out. But I
won’t tell them. I wouldn’t want to start a war between the locals and
the earth people. There was always a cost/benefit ratio to everything,
I guessed.

I had passed a huge mango tree on the way in, and not far from the
mango tree, a guava tree, with guavas the size of grapefruits, was
growing–the place was fantastic! Yesterday, I stumbled upon an avocado tree
and a banana tree. I ate some of the not so ripe bananas. No wonder
they called this place the “garden island.” There was fruit growing in
Kalalau also, but the variety was limited (lots of passion fruit)
compared to what I had found in this canyon. Today was a lay about
river day. There was lots of sunshine, and the river was full of large
rocks to lie upon. I spent most of the day just listening to the
babbling waters.

About these ads