At the end of Makena Road, past the last curve where pavement gives way to dirt and a portable toilet marks the parking area, the trail starts the same way for everyone. A short walk through kiawe trees, the only shade you'll see for the next several miles, then a scattering of small sand pockets between black lava. Somewhere around the eight-tenths-of-a-mile mark, without much of a sign to announce it, the path splits. Most people who live nearby already know which fork they take. Most people reading a guidebook do not, because most guidebooks describe it as one hike.
It isn't. The Hoapili Trail, also called the King's Highway, is really two separate outings that happen to share a driveway. One is a round trip of about three and a half miles out to a light beacon at Cape Hanamanioa. The other keeps going for five and a half miles across raw lava to Kanaio Beach. Which one a person takes says something about how they use this stretch of coastline, and it's a distinction that rarely survives translation into a top-ten list.
Where the Highway Actually Splits
The trail's name comes from two different eras. The original route was part of the Alaloa o Piʻilani, the long path that circled Maui under the ruling chief Piʻilani. Centuries later, Governor Hoapili had sections rebuilt in 1824, widening the old footpath into an eight-foot lava road that still holds its shape today. That construction is why the surface underfoot feels less like a trail and more like a deliberately laid road, uneven basalt fitted together rather than a worn dirt track.
From the trailhead at La Perouse Bay, the two versions of the hike travel together for the first stretch, tracing the shoreline past a lava rock structure that surfers call Laps, short for La Perouse. It's a working break, not a photo op. On a south swell, people paddle out and ride waves over jagged rock that would end most vacations early.
Past the surf spot, the trail climbs briefly and reaches the fork. Straight ahead and inland is the start of the Waiakapuhi lava flow and the long push to Kanaio. A spur to the right follows the coast toward Cape Hanamanioa.
The Shorter Version
The shorter hike is the one most residents actually do on a weekday morning, a round trip that most trail trackers clock at a little over three miles and roughly an hour to ninety minutes. It passes a scatter of tidepools before reaching the Hanamanioa light, which despite its billing as a lighthouse is really a signal pole. Nobody makes the walk for the structure. They make it for the coastline, the view back toward Kahoʻolawe, and the fact that they can be back at the car before the heat turns punishing.
That heat is not a small detail. Almost the entire corridor sits exposed on black lava with no windbreak and no cell coverage for long stretches. Every account of this trail, from casual reviews to hiking guides, repeats the same short list of gear: closed-toe shoes, more water than seems necessary, and a start time before nine. It's the kind of advice that sounds obvious until you're deep into the lava field with the sun directly overhead and no tree in sight.
The Long Version, and Why It Stops Where It Does
Continue past the Hanamanioa spur and the trail keeps to the Waiakapuhi flow for the next stretch. About a mile in, there's a green patch worth watching for on the ocean side, easy to miss if you're not looking. That's Keawanaku Beach, a small sand pocket that most people walk right past because the spur trail leading to it is faint enough to lose. Past that, the King's Highway continues through more lava and another kiawe grove before reaching Kanaio Beach, a grey-sand shoreline with visible rock walls and old sites from the village once called Keoneʻōʻio.
Kanaio is where the maintained trail ends for almost everyone, not because the King's Highway itself stops there but because the land beyond is private. The historic road technically continues for well over a hundred miles around the island, but the practical hike does not, and that boundary line is worth knowing before you commit to the full out-and-back in the middle of the day.
What Changed This Year
This isn't a static postcard. Trail reports from earlier this year noted downed trees along the route, storm debris that hadn't been fully cleared, and at least one small landmark, a rope swing that regular hikers had come to expect near the far end, that simply wasn't there anymore. Feral goats are a near-constant presence, grazing along both the short and long versions of the trail. None of this changes the route, but it's the kind of texture that separates someone who walked this trail last week from someone quoting a five-year-old blog post.
The corridor also sits partly inside the ʻĀhihi-Kīnaʻu Natural Area Reserve, and the reserve's own rules don't apply evenly across the whole stretch. The Division of Forestry and Wildlife has noted that regulations shift boundary to boundary along this section of coastline, with fishing allowed in some areas and not others, and dogs permitted in one stretch but not the next, because the corridor is managed by a mix of state and county authority rather than one single agency. The reserve's anchialine pools, fragile brackish pools that host species found nowhere else, remain closed to protect them, which is a protection the state still actively manages rather than a rule left over from years past.
If you bring a dog, plan for the lava. It's sharp enough that some hikers put booties on their dogs before setting out, the same logic that applies to closed-toe shoes for people. It's a small planning detail, but it's the kind that separates a good afternoon here from a short, regrettable one.
A Short List for Anyone Actually Going
- Start before 9 a.m. Shade exists only in the kiawe groves near the trailhead, and the lava holds heat well into the afternoon.
- Wear closed-toe shoes built for uneven rock, not sandals or flip-flops.
- Carry more water than the distance suggests. Cell service is unreliable for much of the corridor.
- Decide before you reach the fork whether you're doing the Hanamanioa spur or the full push to Kanaio. The two hikes have very different time and heat commitments.
- Parking at the end of Makena Road is limited, and accounts of how quickly it fills vary, so weekends are worth a buffer either way. The road in is narrow enough that passing oncoming traffic takes patience.
Why This Is Worth Knowing at All
None of this is about buying or selling anything. It's about what a Saturday actually looks like for someone who already calls this end of the island home, the short loop before the heat sets in, the goats that show up without fail, the small changes from one season to the next that a person only notices if they're paying attention. That kind of local rhythm doesn't show up in a listing photo, but it's part of what makes this stretch of coastline feel different from the resort corridor a few miles north.
If you're the kind of person who already tracks these small shifts in Wailea and Makena, or you're weighing what daily life here is actually like before making a move, Kate and Wendy Peterson at Properties of Maui spend as much time paying attention to this coastline as they do to the market on it. Take a look at their Wailea and Makena neighborhood guide, and reach out anytime you want to talk story about what's changed out here lately, trail conditions included.
