A 21st Century Family on a 16th Century King's Roadway: Adventure on Maui's Road to Hana 

King Pi’ilani stood knee-deep in the clear blue water. He raised his spear in his right hand and waited patiently for his supper to swim closer. In a smooth quick action, he launched his spear, retrieved it, and smiled at the large flopping fish impaled on its end.

It was 1599 and the muscular young royal Hawaiian was on a break from leading a large crew of workmen as they tackled the daunting task of building a roadway by hand that would eventually wrap around the entire island of Maui, Hawaii.


Pi’lani—the 15^th king in his line, or “ali’i”—was the first ruler of a completely united Maui. His roadway was intended to strengthen that unification.

It eventually passed by impressive waterfalls, magnificent ocean views, and through rich green rainforests. Some claim that at some points, users of the roadway had to swing themselves on vines to cross over more difficult places in the route. In addition to bringing the peoples of Maui together in one kingdom, the road also provided access to flowing streams that fed irrigation canals for watering taro on inland flats—an enterprise that gave Pi’ilani his economic base. Taro was a plant that yielded corms and leaves that were consumed as vegetables.

Four hundred seventeen years later, a ten-year-old boy stood nervously on a slippery rock that slightly jutted out over the deep green water of a jungle pool and beside an iconic Hawaiian 20-foot chilled waterfall. He contemplated the length of a free fall and the depth of the water and had second thoughts about his planned jump before retreating behind his 13-year-old sister.

The girl didn’t think about the jump, the height of the fall or the depth of the pool. She stepped up, leapt out, and plummeted feet first into the cool Hawaiian water.  By the time her head bobbed to the surface of the pond, her brother was back in position. This time, he abandoned all pondering. He duplicated her moves and jumped out from the rock and headed downward, landing with a splash in the cool green water.


The kids’ 26-year-old uncle quickly followed.

While beginning their swim to shore, both kids and uncle flashed the Hawaiian “hang loose” hand signal to the delight of their applauding parents perched uncomfortably on the slippery rocks that lined the pool.

It was an early stop for a 21^st Century family excursion on the legendary “Road to Hana” that largely followed the 16^th Century route carved out of the wilderness by Pi’lani and his men.

With our rented Jeeps parked awkwardly alongside the narrow roadway a quarter mile away, we had to execute a brief muddy walk through a beautiful rain forest with stands of bamboo trees to fulfill a bucket list dream of swimming in a serene falls-fed pool. It was just the beginning of a daylong adventure.

The narrow road to Hana is only 64 miles long but takes about 2.5 hours to cover without stops along the way at the many falls, overlooks, rain forests, arboretums, and other tempting layovers. The narrow winding highway passes over 59 bridges, most of which are only one lane wide. In addition, there are about 620 curves through lush green valleys and hillsides with fantastic views of the ocean, volcanic rocks, and black sand beaches.

Fortunately, our Jeeps easily handled the challenge and at no time were we required to swing over narrow valleys on vines as Pi’lani’s engineers recommended.

“What’s in Hana?” one of our grandchildren asked when told of the travel plan for the day.

“Not sure,” one of us replied. “But the fun will be in getting there and all the odd stuff along the way.”

Turns out, none of us were disappointed in the journey or in the “odd stuff.” Most of our party swam in those secluded green pools. Some jumped off those jutting rocks. All of us waded into the Pacific Ocean over black sand beaches, posed for pictures where volcanic rocks melded into the sea, peered into darkened seaside lava tubes, drove over cloud-shrouded mountains, made stops at curious little fruit stands that operated on the honor system, and partook of the food offerings at unusual local roadside commercial endeavors.

At one stop, we sipped coconut water through straws stuck through chopped holes in the tops of actual coconuts.

At another stop, we were delighted by an older super-friendly Hawaiian couple who served up barbequed pork, chicken, rice and vegetables arranged on a two-foot long strip

of halved sugar cane. They gave us chopsticks cut from local trees to use instead of plastic forks and cleared off a huge picnic table for us to use. There were no other eating utensils or paper napkins. Whatever was not consumed was simply pitched over a nearby hillside by the roadside proprietors. And, the food was delicious.

Most tourists stop their adventure and turn around at Hana, a lovely little seaside town where colorful Hawaiian lore tells us that the fire goddess Pele unsuccessfully fought her older sister, the goddess of the ocean. Legend has it that Pele’s bones are buried here while her spirit went on to the Big Island of Hawaii.

We elected to continue on the road that narrows into an unpaved surface. Rental car companies would rather you not take their vehicles over this remote roadway. Our Jeeps were more than up to the challenge.

One of our side explorations on that part of the journey took us to the grave of famed American aviator Charles Lindbergh. It is not marked and, if we had not asked a friendly local for guidance on the road, we would have missed it.


The grave is on the grounds of the Palapala Ho’omau Church, a 150-year-old-coral building about eight miles south of Hana. Lindbergh, who died on the island in

1974, spent his last days sketching out a design for his gravesite and chose a calm and serene place to rest in peace in the shade of a Java plum tree.


On the day we visited, someone had place a simple flower necklace on his gravestone.

Back on the road, on a secluded hillside, we encountered the odd sight of a shirtless man in swim trunks and flip-flops waving his arms and beckoning us to stop for ice cream.

“I got banana-coconut and vanilla ice cream today,” he said in a surfer dude kind of accent aiming his comments at the two kids in our troupe. “Come on over.”

We couldn’t resist. We parked the Jeeps and wandered over to a small hut with a veranda-like area carved into the hillside next to where our host stood. A rough-honed worktable stood on the terrace and it was covered with papers, utensils, whole coconuts and other remnants of the man’s trade, whatever that was.

Inside the hut, we glimpsed a lazy fat cat asleep on a small table and a tiny refrigerator connected to a generator. There was a small chair and a variety of art works strewn about.

We ordered the ice cream and our vendor, who looked like a man in his 50s who had abandoned his stateside stockbroker job to pursue a quieter life on Maui, asked us to wait a moment. He returned with a collection of coconut bowls and a couple mason jars filled with white semi-liquids, which he poured into the bowls. He sprinkled fresh dried bananas and shredded coconut over the concoction, which had the consistency of yogurt rather than ice cream.

“Here you go man,” he said. “This stuff is all fresh and it makes a real difference. You’ll see.”

Over his shoulder, we could see a small easel with a half painted picture of a nude woman. Next to that was a Japanese rock garden or Zen garden with rocks, a water feature, moss, and gravel raked to represent ripples in water. He scratched his head before scampering back into his hut and bringing out plastic spoons for each of our orders.

He charged us $10 for each order—$70 for our whole crew. He accepted Visa and Mastercharge and processed payment on a smartphone.

After initial hesitation, we tried his mixture. It was a cool, refreshing, wonderful blend of tastes in an interesting texture and consistency, but it wasn’t ice cream. We finished and he politely asked us to return the bowls and spoons unless we wished to purchase them as souvenirs for $10 each.

As we departed, one of our crew asked the man his name.

“It’s Zen, man,” he responded. “Have a great day.”

Zen’s ice cream hut was our last stop on the road. For at least another hour, we passed through cattle ranches, past even more incredible ocean-side scenery, and eventually made our way back to the more populated part of Maui—back to Lahaina, which served as the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii and a stopover for ships in the whaling industry in the mid-1800s; back to the Taco Bells, Pizza Huts, and shopping malls; and back to our high rise condominium along the Maui coastline.

It was a rugged and tiring adventure of a lifetime. As we wearily pulled into the cool underground parking garage beneath our resort, some of us offered silent thanks for air conditioning. Others reflected on the good work of Jeep-makers. We were remiss in not giving a favorable thought or two to the work and foresight of King Pi’ilani and the men who carved our pathway home through the beauty that somehow remains.