Kauai Helicopter

Since my original post describing my hike in Haleakala National Park, I've been meaning publish a post on another spectacular adventure from that same trip, my helicopter ride over the island of Hawaii.

This year, my nephew and godson Alex, who lives on Oahu, celebrated his tenth birthday. I wanted to do something very special for the occasion. With his parents blessing, I settled on a helicopter tour of Kauai. Though I couldn't quite time my trip to coincide with his birthday, I flew to Hawaii a few weeks later and surprised him by showing up at his Lacrosse practice with a line about flying to Kauai later that night. We didn't actually tell him he was accompanying me until we were at the airport. Together we flew to Kauai and stayed overnight. The hour-long helicopter tour with highly-recommended Jack Harter Helicopters departed early the next morning.



Full Screen Version

If you use Google Earth, I suggest you view this file, which shows the flight's elevation in 3D.

I won't attempt a "play-by-play" description of the tour. Needless to say, the trip was well worth it. Kauai is a very rugged island and some of the best sites are inaccessible to the general public by any other means. We were fortunate to have exceptionally good weather, which permitted the pilot to fly over the normally cloud-shrouded center of the island and show us a few extra special sites, most notably the summit of Mount Wai'ale'ale, the wettest spot on earth.