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Getting Information About Kauai

The search for the perfect trail guide

I wish I could be certain this was a flawless book. However, some things limit an author’s ability to produce a perfect, error-free, always up-to-date book. Here are some of the factors, and what you can do to help yourself (and me).

Nature makes constant revisions; so do agencies

Nature constantly reshapes the landscape across which we plan to trek. That’s usually a gradual process, but once in a while she makes drastic changes overnight. A landslide can erase a trail in seconds. Erosion can undercut a cliff edge and make last year’s safe hike an extremely dangerous one, so that the local authorities close a trail you’d hoped to ramble on. And Kauai’s fragile volcanic terrain erodes quite rapidly.

Agencies in charge of hiking areas may close an area because they’ve realized it’s environmentally too sensitive to survive more human visits. An area once open to overnight camping may become a day-use-only area. Trails become impassable from lack of maintenance. Happily, agencies may open new areas because they’ve been able to acquire new acreage or complete a trail-building project.

Since I first wrote this book, I’ve seen old trails close and new trails open on Kauai—and then vanish as the rainforest reclaimed them in the wake of a natural disaster. Other trails on public land have become inaccessible because to get to them, you have to cross private land, and the landowner no longer grants permission to cross the land.

Change is the only thing that’s constant in this world, so that guidebook authors and publishers always play “catch up” with Nature and with agencies. We want to keep guidebooks up to date, but we are always at least one step behind the latest changes. The day when you’ll have constantly-revised books on-line at your wristwatch/computer terminal is not quite here, although it’s getting closer. It’s possible that a few trail descriptions are becoming obsolete as this book goes to press.

Write for the latest information

You should use this book in conjunction with the latest trail information from the agency in charge of the areas you plan to hike in (the Division of State Parks or the Division of Forestry and Wildlife). However, this book gives you a much more complete picture of Kauai’s principal hiking and backcountry camping opportunities than information available from any single agency can. And it describes those opportunities from a hiker’s perspective.

It’s a good idea to write to these agencies as soon as you’ve read this book and decided where you want to hike and camp on Kauai. Ask them for their latest trail and camping maps, regulations, and permit-issuing procedures. Enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope for your convenience in getting the information you need as soon as possible. Their addresses and telephone numbers are in “Permits.”

Prepare yourself with general information, too

A generous source of a wide variety of useful information about Hawaii is the Hawaii Visitors Bureau. You’ll find it at (800) GO-HAWAI as well as on the World Wide Web at http://www.visit.hawaii.org, a site that offers colorful pages including “Vacation Planner” pages for the State of Hawaii and for each major island.

Here are a couple of guidebooks I use. For all the Hawaiian islands, pick up the latest edition of J.D. Bisignani’s Hawaii Handbook (Moon Publications, Chico, CA). For an outstanding guide to Kauai, get the latest edition of Andrew Doughty and Harriett Friedman’s Ultimate Kauai Guidebook (Wizard Publications, P.O. Box 991, Lihue, HI 96766-0991, wizard@aloha.net).

Let me know what you think and what you find

I hope this book helps make your visit to Kauai even more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise. I plan to keep on updating it regularly, and you can help me. Let me know what you think of it. Did you find it helpful when you visited Kauai? Was it accurate and complete enough that you enjoyed the walks and hikes you took based on the book? Did you notice any significant discrepancies between this book and what you found when you visited Kauai, discrepancies that you judge are not just the result of two different perceptions of the same thing? What were they? The publisher and I are very concerned about accuracy. We’d appreciate your comments. I’d also like to know about it if you think there are ways in which the book can be improved. Write to me in care of Wilderness Press, 1200 5th Street, Berkeley, CA 94710, or send an email to mail@wildernesspress.com.