Waipiʻo Valley

Interesting facts

In 1791 the waters off Waipiʻo and Waimanu saw the first Hawaiian sea battle fought with Western guns, remembered as Kepuwahaʻula, "the red-mouthed gun".

Tradition credits the chief Līloa with building Pakaʻalana, a great temple at the valley mouth, in the 15th century.

Līloa's son ʻUmi-a-Līloa, who united Hawaiʻi Island, was remembered as the "husbandman king" for laying out large taro patches in the valley.

When missionaries William Ellis and Asa Thurston arrived in 1823, Ellis counted 265 dwellings and estimated about 1,300 people living on the valley floor.

By the time Isabella Bird visited in 1873, her Hawaiian host reckoned the valley held no more than about 200 people.

In the late 19th century Chinese planters turned much of the floor over to rice; the last rice crop was harvested in 1927.

Geologists found that Waipiʻo Stream gradually captured most of the water that once drained into neighbouring Waimanu Valley.

Hiʻilawe Falls has a single main drop of about 1,200 feet, among the tallest in Hawaii.

According to Hawaiian folklore, a gateway to Lua-o-Milu, the underworld, lies hidden beneath the sand at Waipiʻo.

Why it is worth it

Waipiʻo is a deep, flat-floored valley cut into the windward coast of the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, in the old district of Hāmākua. Its floor lies at sea level, close to two thousand feet below the green walls that close it in on three sides, and the fourth side opens onto a black-sand beach where the river meets the Pacific surf. At the back of the valley several waterfalls drop from the rim; the tallest, Hiʻilawe, falls roughly 1,450 feet in total on Lalakea Stream, though the stream above it is diverted for irrigation and the fall can run thin or dry. The Hawaiian name is usually rendered as "curved water".

For Hawaiians the valley is far more than scenery. It was the seat and home of many early aliʻi, the ruling chiefs, beginning in tradition with Kahaimoelea and continuing up to the time of King ʻUmi. Its wet floor was one of the great taro landscapes of the islands: estimates suggest some 800 acres of patches once fed perhaps ten thousand people. Tradition also tells that in the 18th century the Maui chief Kahekili II raided the valley and burned its four sacred trees. A handful of taro farms still work the bottomland today.

The landscape remains restless. The 2006 Kiholo Bay earthquake brought down sections of cliff and set off rockfalls along the walls. Beyond the far side of the valley, the Muliwai (or Waimanu) trail climbs the northern wall toward Waimanu Valley, which can be reached only on foot or from the sea. The valley's scale has also drawn filmmakers; it appears in the 1995 film Waterworld.

The road that descends from the lookout on the southern rim is among the steepest public roads anywhere: it drops about 800 feet in 0.6 miles, averaging a 25 percent grade and reaching 45 percent in places, and it is open only to four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Getting there

The lookout above the valley sits at the end of Hawaii Route 240, the Honokaʻa–Waipiʻo Road, which leaves Route 19 near the town of Honokaʻa. Hilo, the island's main town on the east coast, lies about 68 km to the southeast in a straight line. The nearest airfield is Waimea-Kohala Airport (MUE), about 15 km away; the island's larger airports are at Hilo and Kona.

Waipiʻo Valley

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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