oh also he did it during rainy season
so maybe
>tries to go back
>either drowns in chest-deep river crossings
>or the "rope section" which maybe didn't have ropes in 1993 was just a wall of 2000 ft mud and he fell

still it's crazy they don't identify who the state worker who found him with the helicopter, tried to extort him, then abandoned him is, he should face some sort of punishment

>helicopter pilot tried to extort him and then just took his backpack and gear
are we sure this guy didn't kill him and dump his body off the helicopter somewhere too?

>>2868313
I mean definitely could have happened. But also, it was a 10 mi hike to said beach where the helicopter incident occurred, and he would have crossed a high mountain on a rainy Hawaiian island in the rainy season without proper gear and would be kinda near death anyways from the expeditition. He also somehow encountered another hiker who was injured earlier and another helicopter came and he refused that one.

I just think it's an interesting trail - a true adventure and I'm not sure if they could maintain it much better given the jungle setting but it would be cool if they tried to fix it up and make it more accessible.

Apparently 1/3 of the island is owned by a Chinese company that had a resort/ranch they abandoned but haven't sold yet - but the part this guy was hiking on is not part of that (mainly because it's too steep to be useful for anything).

My takeaway is that Hawaii is a really unfriendly place and the "aloha spirit" bullshit they push so hard is a cover for how violent and unfriendly polynesians actually are. I do wonder if it was a native who was his final encounter.

And I only found this story in context of an article about Hawaii trying and failing to pass bills that would make hikers have to pay more for their own rescues. And the article was complaining that people only pay 2000 dollars for their helicopter rescues and they cost more. Like that's cuz it's a racket/extortion. And a police chief was quoted in the article saying "if people need help they won't care about money" but um that's not true.

And there's not a ton of information on this trail online.

>>2868345
It definitely seems like an unfriendly place to outsiders. For hikers specifically seems like they'll use any excuse to shut down a trail, whether it's environment protection, safety, maintenance, or just private property issues. All of these are legitimate concerns and overtourism is definitely a thing in Hawaii so I get it but it still sucks that their first instinct appears to be total shut down instead of trying alternate solutions like daily quotas, permits, etc. Those are a pain too, but I'd like to be able to access these places at least, like the Kalalau Trail.
the Waipio/Waimanu Valleys on the Big Island as far as I can tell have been closed off for years now, the trails there are surely overgrown now, probably doesn't take long for trails like these to deteriorate to basically nonexistence (like the one in the OP story). Also on Molokai the Kalaupapa trail was closed to tourists during covid and they just haven't reopened it to tourists even 6 years on. The Haiku stairs on Oahu have been closed forever. Dozens of examples like this.

>>2868383
The natives hate you and just want your money. If you are doing anything that doesn't bring them money, they will try and stop you.

>>2868383
The Haiku stairs are pretty famous it's kinda shocking they don't rebuild and reopen them.

I've never been to Hawaii and I've heard of that. The thing is, this is all on public land (the wailau trail) and so I don't think it is closed officially, just abandoned and neglected.

I feel like if it were China they would have all the trails reopened and have concrete/wooden/steel/whatever walkways mounted through the mud-destroyed parts but America seems to hate the idea of people hiking on public land in anything that isn't a city park.

>muh liability
I have never once heard of a single case of a hiker who went on a closed/private trail they weren't supposed to be on, got injured, sued, and won. This is a bullshit excuse to keep people out.

I will say they did the same thing here during covid - some trails close due to "overcrowding" i.e. refuse to add more parking spots during COVID, and have just never reopened. Some are like you could hike there but you would have to hike in from a ways out or be dropped off, some are outright fully closed.

>>2868396
from what I'm reading the mouth of the Wailea Valley is private tracts and some people actually live there, access is usually by boat, you have to know someone and pay probably a hefty sum to access via boat. Or risk your life basically bushwacking through steep jungle and then hope the locals are in friendly moods, which they probably would be given how difficult such a trek is and how rarely anyone does it, but if there were a better trail and more people started arriving they'd probably get tired of that real quick and they'd make efforts to shut down the trail. There's not much info online but it seems this might be what actually happened. Shame, seems really nice.

Using China as an example for good hiking infrastructure is nuts, unless you mean Taiwan. China doesn't really do hiking, I guess on the few trails they do have they love paving them over or making glass bridges or whatever.
Hiking anywhere on public land here in the US is usually fine, but if there's one tiny bit of private property to access an area suddenly it's impossible, which seems especially common in Hawaii.

>>2868406
absolutely nobody lives there and its not private land and hell even if it WAS nobody could get there
it was taro plantations and then somehow got bought up by private owners and sold into a nature reserve type thing

>access is usually by boat
well, I mean if you want to not have to do the return hike (which I don't think anyone does) you need to time a boat to come pick you up from the beach
basically the hike starts on the south end of the island at the highway, you ascend the ridge to a view, then drop into an extremely steep 2000 ft gorge down a series of ropes through mud and ferns and eventually get to creeks and rocks you have to wade through to get to a beach

I don't think there are other people/landowners there or that's the issue, the issue is just how rough and unmaintained the land is

its one of those things where the trail was probably used more in pre-colonial times maybe in the 1600s or 1700s

>China doesn't really do hiking
???
there's tons of touristified hiking areas in china with fancy bridges and shit you would never get in america, ive seen the videos

>but if there's one tiny bit of private property to access an area suddenly it's impossible
I had a hike where I think I had to park on private property, but it was like land owned by the power company and it was just access to a wind turbine or something like that anyways 500 ft of the hike is walking through power company and then the WHOLE rest of the hike (2 mi? each way) is on public land to the top of a mountain and back

its really stupid and there's another way without a trail at all where you park in a neighborhood, or a LONG way where you park in an actual spot on public land, but then the hike is 12 mi or something, america is retarded

the view was very nice too, campsite next to it, maybe there was another nearby place I didn't see to park but america is very disorganized and confusing and random

> There's not much info online
the trail is literally on alltrails

>>2868408
bro the OP video literally says that locals are in the area, so do the other like 3 trip reports online. And you can see maintained structures on satellite imagery. And you can literally check land use maps to see that it's private property. Whether anyone actually lives there full time or not I don't know, but clearly the valley is used by locals and they probably don't want hordes of people to suddenly trample on the area. Hints from some of the trip reports seem to imply the trail used to be more formal and more used in the past, like in the 80s maybe. The alltrails route is only up to the ridge, none of the posted activities go all the way across.

China doesn't have much of a hiking or camping culture. They don't have many trails for the sake of being trails, most actual trails likely only exist for the sake of connecting villages or accessing some mountain top temple or something.
This is probably changing as it gets more westernized. Like those fancy glass bridges and sky ladders they've built, though I'm not sure if that even counts as hiking culture, it's more like adventure tourism. I think the camping culture they are absorbing is mostly a glamping thing also. But some national parks like jiuzhaigou or zhangjiajie I think are trying to have some proper hiking and camping, but probably 99% (at least) of Chinese outdoor tourists stick to the cable cars, paved walkways, glass sided viewpoints etc

>>2868413
>literally says that locals are in the area
???
I don't think so and I also don't think that's the issue
to even GET to the valley part you have to descend 2000 ft through mud and thicket on ropes and most people don't/can't even get to that part because the trail condition before that is so poor too
>none of the posted activities go all the way across.
there's some youtube videos of people going across and there's no fucking people or houses there

china has tons of gorges with trails leading through them
> Like those fancy glass bridges and sky ladders they've built,
that's what I mean, hawaii should literally be that
this whole fucking thing could be turned into steps
ANYTHING CAN BE TURNED INTO STEPS WITH ENOUGH CONCRETE
but you'd have to drive the foundation into the bedrock so it wouldn't be cheap to prevent it from getting washed away

>>2868415
> hawaii should literally be that
this whole fucking thing could be turned into steps
>ANYTHING CAN BE TURNED INTO STEPS WITH ENOUGH CONCRETE
>but you'd have to drive the foundation into the bedrock so it wouldn't be cheap to prevent it from getting washed away
>Develop the trails! Handicap accessible infrastructure to the instagram locations!
Get thee behind me Satan.