How to Legally Hike to the Haiku Stairs

We picked a beautifully sunny day but with the rain the few days prior, the trail was incredibly muddy; we quickly became covered from head to toe. The ridge trail was intense and dangerous, even more so with the winds and fog we encountered. Scrambling up choss, made even more unstable by the conditions with nothing but a straight drop on either side of you, trusting in the ropes others had placed before you? Absolutely terrifying. In 2 miles on the trail you increase 2,585 ft in elevation, with nothing but some bushes and grass surrounding you, and occasionally, if you’re lucky, a tree or two.

This hike was the most mentally, physically, and emotionally trying hike I’ve ever been on. The wind gusts were so high that we had to take cover by trees and bushes and wait it out. To be safe during the rope sections only one of us would go up at a time. In certain places when I would reach the top and call out to Jon that he could come up, we couldn’t hear each other and didn’t know if either was safe until we met at the top again. One misstep or slip up and you would go toppling down the ridge. Considering that there was a search and rescue mission at a neighboring ridge in our view, we knew how serious this hike was. The thought of coming back down these slippery, muddy ridges made me even more nervous…

After multiple false peaks, when we finally scaled the last peak and saw the tell-tale radio antennas, I cried with joy knowing I was almost there, that I had made it, and that I was still alive. At the top, we stopped for lunch, met some others, and then had a decision to make: should we take the ridge trail back or go down the (illegal) stairs. We weighed our options, knowing that with the Ridge Trail and the current conditions we were likely looking at either serious injury or needing to call search and rescue to come get us. With winds continuing to pick up, and bad weather rolling in on the ridge side, we opted for the stairs, knowing that we risked a hefty fine. (Again, illegal, so I don’t recommend this route but it was our safest option).

Just as Jon predicted, the sun would come out while trekking down all 3,922 steps and we saw the magical and breathtaking views of the land before us.
The stairs are just as terrifying in their own right: some were missing or broke, handrails are gone in places, and a section was completely wiped out and sideways from a previous storm. Some places it’s like a ladder and you’re clinging to years old, unmaintained metal, bored into the ridge by men decades before you.

The history of these stairs is what’s amazing to me, and it’s a shame that graffiti and litter abound in this breathtaking area. Respect the history and the land!

And for anyone who’s wondering, yes we did encounter the guard. As soon as I hit the bottom of the stairs I took off running as fast as I could. The guard was standing there, and I think he might have thought I was running to him, but honestly I was just so glad to be back on the ground, I wanted to get as far away from ridges and stairs as possible. I don’t know if I spoke first or if he did, but I began to profusely apologize while running (and possibly crying tears of joy). He grabbed his cell phone and told me to run because I had exactly 7 minutes before the police arrived. I ran like my life depended on it; I wasn’t taking any chances. I think Jon was trotting shortly behind me.

This is where we got lost – since we hadn’t planned on taking the stairs we hadn’t looked up routes, so we had no idea where we were or how to get out. After a lot of Google searching we found a way out and we thought we were home free until we encountered barbed wire that we needed to climb around and through. Once we made it through that, we popped out into a residential area. We walked and walked, bumping into a homeowner who looked at us and said “how were the stairs today?” with a big grin on his face. After a quick chat with him, we had to figure out how we would get back to our car which was now on the other side of the island! Eventually we found an Uber – the best $19 I ever spent – and got back to our car. We were incredibly grateful for the water spigots, where we tried rather unsuccessfully to clean ourselves off.
This adventure is definitely one for the record books… We will never forget it!