Waimea means “reddish water,” an appropriate name for the colorful canyon on the west side of Kauaʻi. After heavy rains, the streams that run through Waimea can turn reddish-brown as water washes iron-rich red dirt into the river. But the red cliffs of Waimea Canyon tell a much older story.
Waimea Canyon is often called the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific,” but it is not simply a Hawaiian version of a famous Mainland landmark. It is evidence of the violent creation, collapse, and slow transformation of Kauaʻi itself.
Kauaʻi began as a massive shield volcano, built by layer after layer of volcanic eruptions millions of years ago. Around four million years ago, a huge section of the volcano’s summit collapsed, creating a vast depression in its center. Later eruptions filled portions of that depression with new lava. Then the rain began to shape the island.
As one of the wettest places on Earth, rain falls in the high mountains around Waiʻaleʻale. Water flowed down the ancient volcano, collecting in streams and rivers and steadily wearing away the rock. Over millions of years, the Waimea River and its tributaries cut deeper into the landscape, exposing layer after layer of the island’s volcanic history.
The result is a canyon that is roughly 10 miles long and more than 3,600 feet deep. Viewers can see the many red, brown, and gray layers of basalt lava flows and volcanic deposits in its walls, with bright green trees, shrubs, and grasses clinging to its shelves and crevices. Long before visitors arrived to look into its depths, Hawaiians knew these valleys, streams, and uplands as part of a living landscape, with their own histories and moʻolelo, and of course, ghost stories.
Among the legends associated with Waimea Canyon is a story said to date back hundreds of years about an old Hawaiian man who was killed while traveling home from Kalalau. People claimed that his spirit returned each year to the place where he was murdered, sitting beside the road with a pack of dried fish on his back, and killing the first man who encountered him on those nights.
Another haunting tale associated with the area is the Woman in White, sometimes called “the White Lady.” In one account, a man driving to Waimea Canyon one night saw a woman wearing a white dress walking alongside the winding road. He stopped to ask if she needed a ride, and she politely declined. He continued driving when, just a short distance up the road, he saw the woman again ahead of him. This time, he refused to stop, believing it must be a spirit, because how could an actual person travel faster than his car?
These stories have become part of the folklore surrounding this remarkable landscape, but many more tales remain.
Two years ago, a visitor shared her experience while hiking with friends in Waimea Canyon. They were following the Kukui Trail, headed for Wiliwili Camp at the bottom of the canyon next to the Waimea River. The hike down the 2,000-foot cliff was strenuous but not too challenging for the four experienced hikers.
About halfway down, the group took a short water break. But just when they were about to continue, she thought she heard someone coming down the trail behind them. She told her group to wait, to see who was coming. No reason, she said, just curious to see who else was hiking. But no one arrived. While she thought it was strange, the rest of her group thought she was hearing things because they didn’t notice anything.
The rest of the way down, the woman said she began to feel nervous, like someone was following and watching them. She said she’d been visiting Kaua‘i for nearly a decade and had never felt the eeriness she experienced while hiking in Waimea Canyon. The rest of the hike was uneventful, and the group made it to the campsite and began setting up for the night.
The river was much drier than she expected, just a trickle of water through the rocky bed that barely flowed over their feet. They sat at the river’s edge, soaking their feet for a while and taking in the beautiful scenery. But then the eerie feeling returned. While her three friends were talking, she thought she heard someone approaching. She stood up and looked around, but saw no one. She assumed it was animals nearby.
The only man in the group decided it was time to set up a campfire, but for some reason it was impossible. The other two women teased him at first, but quieted down when they saw their friend’s frustration growing. She said it’s not that hard for an experienced camper to build a fire, and her friend must have done it a hundred times before. But this time was different. As they looked on, they’d see the kindling light up, they’d witness a couple of sticks start burning, and then watch as the flames died for no reason. It wasn’t a very windy day. It wasn’t raining, and the wood was as dry as it could be.
After more than an hour, they gave up on a campfire and just used their lightsticks and flashlights as needed. After a filling meal of protein bars and beef jerky, they settled in their tents to sleep. But it was a restless night for her.
The entire night, she kept hearing footsteps outside her tent and mumbling sounds like people talking in low voices far away. Yet every time she looked outside her tent, no one was there. None of her friends heard anything. Unable to sleep and worried someone was hanging around their campsite, she sat outside their tents and waited to see if anyone approached.
For an hour or so, she saw and heard nothing and thought that her presence might have scared away whoever was hanging around. Then, just as she was about to nod off, a light caught her attention. In the middle of where the water should have been flowing, a man stood on the dry riverbed. But the man wasn’t bathed in shadows, he was glowing.
Terrified, the woman woke up her friends so they could see what was happening, but the man had already disappeared. In the morning, despite plans to stay the weekend and hike to Lonomea Camp, they decided to leave. While her friends were disappointed, they believed she saw something out of the ordinary, and it felt like a bad omen.
“The very next day, there was a huge fire nearby,” she said. “It ended up burning over 1,600 acres. I still think about what would have happened if we were still camping.”
The woman believes the eerie feeling that someone was following them, the way the fire wouldn’t start, and the glowing man were warnings. She was especially glad her friends believed her and that they agreed to leave.
The authors can be reached at hawaii.mysteries@gmail.com
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