Know before you go
Gates, gravel and the 1801 flow.
Between Kīholo Bay and Kekaha Kai the trail crosses the 1801 Hualālai flow and the Kaʻūpūlehu shoreline, much of it resort or private land with public shoreline access points. Kīholo Bay and Kekaha Kai State Park are the public anchors, both at the end of rough roads.
Access
- Kīholo State Park Reserve, Highway 19 near mile 82: a gravel road down to the bay; day use. Camping is suspended (DLNR, 2026).
- Kekaha Kai State Park, Highway 19 near mile 91: a rough lava road to Mahaiʻula; Makalawena is a further 20-minute walk north across the lava. Kua Bay (Maniniʻōwali) has its own paved entrance near mile 88. Gate hours are posted at the entrances; no water.
- Kūkiʻo: public shoreline access through the Hualālai resort gate, with a small visitor lot; ask at the gatehouse.
Distance & terrain
No managed section. Kīholo to Kūkiʻo and Kūkiʻo to Makalawena are each several miles of unsigned shoreline on lava and sand.
Water
None. Carry everything.
Hazards
- The 1801 ʻaʻā is the sharpest rock on the trail; a fall here is a hospital visit.
- Black lava radiates heat; there is no shade at all.
- The park roads are rough; rental-car agreements usually exclude them.
Respect
Kīholo's ponds and the shoreline at Kaʻūpūlehu are honu resting places: ten feet, and never between a turtle and the water. Stay off the resort's private paths and stay on the marked shoreline access.
Official: DLNR · Hawaiʻi Island state parks · The full planning guide →
Mauka · Hualālai
Hualālai still sleeps.
Above Kaʻūpūlehu rises Hualālai, the third-most-active of Hawaiʻi Island's volcanoes. Its last eruption — in 1800–1801 — sent two lava flows toward the sea. The mountain has been quiet since, but USGS still classes it as active.
Mid · the flow
The 1801 flow buried a village.
Hawaiian oral history records that the 1801 Kaʻūpūlehu flow advanced toward the village over weeks. Kamehameha himself is said to have offered a lock of his hair to Pele to turn the flow aside. The flow eventually stopped — but the village was lost.
Walking the trail here means crossing a fresh-on-geological-time ʻaʻā field. The cinder cone source is visible mauka; the ocean accepts the flow's terminus makai.
Open this section in the map (lava layer on) →Coast · the lava shore
Where lava meets the Pacific.
The 1801 flow reached the coast in two lobes. The terminus is now an anchialine pool complex and a rocky shore — exactly the geological raw material out of which a new fishpond, in another century, might be built.
Stand here · 360°
Kīholo to Kekaha Kai.
The bay, the Kūkiʻo shoreline on the 1801 flow, and the Kekaha Kai beaches. Tap a viewpoint to load it and look around.
Conditions at the shore · live
Reef · young coral
Young coral on young lava.
Coral colonies establish on submerged lava on a timescale of decades. The reef offshore of Kaʻūpūlehu is, by geological standards, an infant — recovery and resettlement still actively underway.
Ocean · kai
The deep channel is right here.
Within a mile offshore the seafloor drops past 600 m. Humpback singers favor this drop-off: their song carries clean into the deep canyon.