Our Goal
The Kōloa Community’s Hapa Trail Volunteers have established as its goal: The preservation and perpetuation of the ancient history of agriculture in the nä ahupua’a of Kōloa and Weliweli. The Kōloa archeological field system that lies between the Ha’upu Range and the Po’ipü-Kukui’ula coastline held, up to 1975, the richest of all remaining archeological agricultural sites in Hawai’i and the most advanced of all example of agricultural practices and production in ancient Polynesia.
Informational Walks
The Hapa Trail Restoration Committee invites you to join us on our informational walks down the Hapa Trail. These site visits are an opportunity for the community, media, decision makers and historians to view the trail, the historic dry stack rock walls and the proposed sites of wall destruction and breaching of the trail for automobile crossings of the adjacent developments being currently permitted by the Kaua`i Planning Department.
Learn more about the Aproposed restoration of the trail and rock walls that line 6000 feet of historic Hapa Trail. Mr. Louie Abrams, President of the Koloa Community Association, and Koloa resident, Mr. Ted Blake, discuss trail alignment, zoning ordinances and the historic agricultural Koloa Field System.
The walks begin at the north end of Hapa Trail near the St. Raphael’s church in Koloa down to the south end at Poipu Road. The round trip walk takes approximately 2 hours.Our next scheduled walk will be on Saturday, July 18 departing at 8:30 am, in conjunction with Koloa Plantation Days. For more information please call 808 554 9795. This walk will be led by a guest archaeologist and include lunch at Poipu Beach Park as well as demonstrations of traditional Hawaiian salt making and poi pounding.
Mapping and Measuring
The Hapa Trail is a 30 foot wide easement belonging to the County of Kaua`i. Hapa Trail begins at Weliweli Road in Old Koloa Town near St. Raphael church and continues as a pedstrian path down to Poipu Road, and includes the pedestrian beach access to Poipu Beach. Members of the Hapa Restoration Committee and Koloa Community Association have begun documentation of the existing resources along the Hapa Trail, the Koloa Field System and adjacent areas. We have mapped and measured 6000 feet of the trail in 40 foot increments. At each point we have photographed the east and west walls, and measured the height and width of existing rock walls, as well as the width of the trail.
Hapa Trail News
Testimonials
"My concern about the future plans of the project area is does the developer know this place here? Why put something inside of there when you do not really know what is in there and have not gone and seen themselves? The Hawaiian people will tell you that it is very maha'oi. If you do not know this 'aina do not go and maha'oi around that place. To me one will be punished by going over there and building when you do not know everything about this place. That is why I say, "If you do not know a person that well why should you do this and that for the person. You do not know that person's ways. This going to be a major development. Why go into it without searching the area for things of the past that could be there but you do not know. I would not want such a development there across from where we live. It is quiet and peaceful here, no one around but my family."
“We used to just go up there and sit in peace and talk with spirits. Ella, my elder sister, walked to church every Sunday on the trail that borders the project area and gathered seeds to make lei and fruit to eat. In the proposed project area was a heiau. When we were young, we used to pick mangos to eat. We also gathered 'ilima flowers for making leis and gathered wood for imu in the project area.”