Spirit of Aloha | Features | September/October 2007

13 Greet the Misty Kōke‘e Dawn
By: Joan Conrow

ETHEREAL KAUA‘I LIGHT IN A VAST PRIMORDIAL PLACE

PHOTO: JIM DENNY PHOTO: DAVID BOYNTON

I’ve got this thing about mist.

Floating mist, chilling mist, thick mist, sparkly mist. Mist that rises, steamlike, off the big winter surf. Mist that tracks the green mountain ridges.

Mist that rises, and falls, and rises again, alternately revealing and concealing terrestrial treasures behind its moist veil.

I love mist simply for what it is: precipitation to a lesser degree than rain; and for what it does to me: It has an inexplicably nourishing, plant-watering effect. Most especially, I love mist for how it changes a landscape. It can soften, quiet, etherealize and obscure—all in its own silent, persistent way.

Throughout Kaua‘i, especially along the windward side’s interior where I live, there’s ample opportunity to witness, walk in and weather the mist that densely blankets a moonlit pasture or drifts up narrow valleys to mingle with waterfall spray, wind-driven across fluted mountain ranges.

But I’ve always been especially drawn to one place where the mist is perhaps a bit more intriguing, captivating, than all the rest—if such things can, or should, even be compared—and that’s the distinctive higher-elevation realms inhabited by Kōke‘e and Waimea Canyon.

This region is the watershed of Kaua‘i, the cup that fills continuously at Wai‘ale‘ale, one of the wettest spots on Earth, and flows over to feed all the mighty rivers of the island, creating the abundance that supported Hawaiians of old and the verdant landscape of today.

Up here, the elevation reaches about 4,200 feet—cloud level in Hawai‘i. This is where weather is born, and, like an infant, it changes rapidly, providing endless opportunities for the creation of mist.

Driving up the winding mountain road to these environs, you may encounter ko‘i‘ula, the mists that carry rainbows. Drifting past the multihued walls of regal Waimea Canyon, where the many lava flows that created the island are exposed, this mist carries fragments of shimmering iridescence in perfectly intact arches. Ko‘i‘ula are magical and captivating, rivaling the marvel of the 2,500-foot-deep gorge, whose erosion began as a collapse along a fault line and was completed by the relentless forces of wind and rain.

Coming down the mountain at sunset, or if you stay overnight and greet the Kōke‘e dawn, you may see noe‘ula, the mist tinted pink by the early and late rays of the sun. It clings softly to a palette of green, staining it with the ethereal rosy-gold light so characteristic of Kaua‘i. In Kanaloahuluhulu, the meadow of Kanaloa, at the entrance to Kōke‘e State Park, look for lilinoe, the fine mist that settles like dew drops on grass, hydrangea blooms, fragrant ka¯hili ginger. On a cloudy day, it gives the air a sheen; on a sunny day, a brilliance.

Continuing on nearly to the top, at the legendary overlook into Kalalau, the largest of several spectacular valleys scooped into the hulking basalt of the Na¯pali Coast, you’ll find uhiwai, the heavy mist that billows up the ridges and cascades back down from the top. When it’s settled in you’ve got no choice but to wait a minute, or maybe 10 minutes; be patient and wait 40 minutes, until the mists dislodge and move out.

The wait, however long, is surely worth your while, revealing an idyllic, if not Edenic, panorama laid out before you of impossibly green, sculpted cliffs sliced by waterfalls plunging into narrow streams that all empty, eventually, into the one that enters the ocean continuously across a broad, white sand beach.

Here, white-tailed tropicbirds soar and utter their high-pitched cries, while rare, crimson ‘i‘iwi and green ‘amakihi dart among the leaves and blossoms of the native ‘ōhi‘a. In winter, a humpback whale might breach, spout, nosedive or slap its tail in the clear blue waters some 4,000 feet below.

Inevitably, the mist wanders in and conceals the view and you can wait, or move along, perhaps a bit further on, up to the last lookout, Pu‘u o Kila; beyond it, at the Pihea trail and deep, remote reaches of the Alaka‘i, noe kolo, the mist that creeps among the gnarled trunks of ancient ‘ōhi‘a trees, easily conjures up images of obake, or ghosts, in this vast primordial place. In these parts, the mist lurks among great stands of stunted, waterlogged trees, then gathers suddenly and obscures all landmarks, enveloping you wholly before it slips away again, freeing you from its damp, cool embrace.

I’d always felt intuitively that the Kōke‘e mist was special, alive, vital.

I never knew why until one day it was explained to me quite by chance (if you happen to believe in such occurrences) at an opportune moment, as I prepared to write these words. I was simply driving along, no mist in sight, although it was on my mind, when I heard Kaua‘i kuma hula Kehaulani Kekua on the radio, speaking the words that made it all clear.

“The ‘ohu, mist, there in Kōke‘e is the breath of Laka [the hula goddess], the breath of the gods,” she was saying.

“All the native plants—the ‘ōhi‘a, the maile—depend on it. The ‘ōhi‘a pulls down mist to plants in the lower canopy and restores the watershed, just as ki‘i, or tiki carvings, were in the ancient temples to pull mana [spiritual power] down from the atmosphere.”

Finally, I understood.

It is the mists of Kōke‘e that bring heaven and Earth together.

JOAN CONROW, who lives on Kaua‘i, is a frequent contributor to SPIRIT OF ALOHA.

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