Hiking the Ulupaina Loop Trail on Oʻahu
Distance: 4.1 miles / 6.6 km
The Ulupaina Trail in east Oʻahu is best known for being a workout hike more than anything. It’s a mostly forested trail with a few viewpoints along way; the best being at the top.
Compared to other east Oʻahu trails that make for great sunrise hikes, I don’t think that Ulupaina is worth the effort to try to see sunrise from the top. The viewpoint is narrow, and I personally think that there’s better trails nearby like Puʻu Māʻeliʻeli if you’re trying to catch sunrise.
Ulupaina Trailhead Parking
Parking for the Ulupaina Trail is located on Hui ʻIwa Street near the Koʻolau Shopping Center.
Google Maps Directions: Ulupaina Trailhead Parking
Hiking the Ulupaina Trail
To get to the trailhead, cross over Kahekili Highway and then again over the Valley of the Temples.
From here, the trailhead is located in the corner near the highway where the forest begins.
Ulupaina Trailhead
The trailhead and the sections immediately following are the most confusing part of the trail. Don’t rely on AllTrails to find the true trailhead because the real route and the AllTrails route won’t match until you reach either the lower/ upper loop.
Enter the forest on the far left side at the bottom of the hill. Then, turn right immediately after the trailhead.
If you feel like you’re seeing a split in the lower trail, always choose the right split. The correct path should be heading uphill until you see the split for the upper/ lower loop (photo below).
The Ulupaina Loop
The lower half of Ulupaina is to the left, and the upper half is to the right.
Overall, the upper half is a much nicer faster moving trail, but it is steeper because it’s more of a direct path to the top. The lower half tends to be slower moving because there’s almost always some trickier areas with fallen down trees as you wind your way below the ridge.
If you’re going to do the full loop, I recommend doing the slightly more challenging lower half first.
The Lower Half
Past the split, the trail becomes a lot more obvious for the rest of the loop.
If you like to look out for native plants, the lower half is much better than the upper half.
All of these downed trees were right after a multi-day windstorm.
On the far end of the lower loop, the trail will make a hard turn to start climbing up toward the summit of Ulupaina.
This is the steepest section on the lower half as it climbs to meet to the upper half.
The Upper Ridge
The photo below is where the lower and upper half meet.
If you’re going to head up the ridge to the summit, make a mental note of the area because it can be very easy to miss the turn for the upper half on the way back.
Ulupaina Summit
If you’re curious to explore further, the trail continues past the first set of power lines but not by much.
The Upper Half
This is the same junction as the photo above where I made a left turn to go back down toward the trailhead.
In all, if you hiked the lower half first, the upper half of Ulupaina will take a fraction of the time to get back to the trailhead.
At the clearing, the trail continues down to the left where the split back down to the trailhead will be shortly after.
The Lower Forest
This is the same split for the lower/ upper half from the beginning of this post.
Turn left to head back down to the trailhead.
Native Plants on the Ulupaina Trail
Since this is a low-elevation trail for Hawaiʻi, most of the hike is non-native invasive species. However, there are a handful of natives on the lower half like ʻŌhiʻa, Uluhe, and Hau to look out for.
If you would like to learn more about identifying these and tons of other native plants from around Hawaiʻi, check out my post entirely on native Hawaiian plants.
Read My Separate Post: Native Hawaiian Plant Guide
