Alakai Swamp Trail

The Alakai Swamp Trail traverses the highest elevation swamp in the world, a haunting and biologically extraordinary ecosystem perched atop the Alakai Plateau at roughly 4,000 feet above sea level on Kauai. The swamp exists because the plateau sits directly beneath Waialeale, one of the wettest spots on Earth, receiving up to 450 inches of rain per year. Wooden boardwalks protect hikers from the knee-deep mud while preserving the fragile root systems of endemic bog plants found nowhere else. The forest is dominated by stunted ohia trees draped in mosses and home to some of Hawaii rarest native birds, including the iiwi with its curved crimson bill, the apapane, and the critically endangered puaiohi. The alien-feeling landscape of misty cloud forest and open bog gives the swamp an otherworldly atmosphere unlike anything else in the Pacific. The trail ends at the Kilohana Lookout, which on rare clear days reveals views all the way to the north shore of Kauai and the Pacific Ocean far below the plateau edge.