Mahana Ridge Trail — Attraction in Maui

I love Hawaii for two things: Beach and Hiking. There is no snake in Hawaii, hence we usually alternate between beach day and hiking when visiting Hawaii.

This has been a trail of shocks for my family: Hikers be aware, this is a closed loop hiking of 17 miles, don't be misled by the 2.8 miles sign at the entrance by the Fleming Park. There was no warning at trail entrance Fleming Park that the exit at the other end of the trail, the arboretum, is permanently closed. Hence, this is closed loop trail.

Blurry signs. Along the trail, the signs are not well maintained. We had to guess at quite a few forks whether to go left, straight, or right. There were detours from some construction work, which makes it harder to stay on track. When we finally made to a sign, guess what, the letters were worn out and hard to read what's ahead, left or right. There were a few times we thought about turning back, to make this one of our first "abandoned hiking" in Hawaii. However, there always appeared to be one blurry sign indicating there something 1.2 miles ahead, "inviting" us to keep going.

We started around 11am from the entrance by Fleming Park. By 330pm, we barely made to the other end. Instead of an exit, we arrived at a locked-up iron gate, cloudy sky with looming rain. Tired and disappointed, imagine our desperation realizing there's no exit. At 330pm, there's no way we were going to hike back the route that took us 4.5 hours, heading into the dusk then night! This became the trail of desperation. My husband started sharing news story that once upon a time, some hikers got lost on a Maui hiking trail and it took 5 days for search team to finally locate and rescue the hikers... Would you rather head back and get stuck in the mountain in the dark and wet night, or climb over that locked up iron gate to face whatever prosecution the violation might come with?

After hiked many tenuous yet beautiful trails in Kauai, I feel this trail is more like a punishing endurance training.

I call the last photo “tree of life” after escaping the...

My wife and I were on our honeymoon and we love hiking. We were staying at the Westin and found this hike to only be about 15 minutes away. We parked at the beach as per another reviewers recommendation allowing us to use the showers there to our boots off. The hike was enjoyable to start, ran into a couple of regugulars who said they typically hiked up the the reservoir and back. We encounted some great palm and cacti like plants as well as some great cliffside views along the way. The hike was tremendously enjoyable up until we hit the part that advised it was now "private property". This is where the trail began to turn to mud, in some parts nearly 6 inches deep. We attempted to go off trail and get around the mud when we recognized it was visibly still saturated, but that didnt stop us from being almost cocered in mud up to our knees and having to throw out socks. We did make it to the PU'U Kukui Watershed and then proceeded a little further through the gate but decided to head back at about the 2.5 hour mark, not reaching the summit. Overall the views were great and I would hike it again but most likely only up to the resevoir or private property line. As an FYI most of the hike is on a steady trail or up well placed stone stairs. There are a few parts early on that actually go through maintaince roads of a nearby golf course so there's even some asphault. However, there is at least one part that is a steep climb with little to nothing to balance on except two sets of stairs that are prob about 20 feet a part. (It seemed to be a hardened red clay mound of some sort). Please be careful both going up and down this section. Walking sticks help tremendously if you have one or find one...

We had a great workout and a beautiful day overall but this hike is not marked well and we should have done a lot more research but the last trail head sign you see after ascending from the beach through a lot of tall grass sends you directly into a hugely expensive golf course. Possibly someone manipulated the trail head sign because it specifically says “trail continues” and we ended up walking right into the golf course. There was a very wide cart path and we just went for it. There was some serious elevation on what seemed like service roads IDK…all paved but maybe it was just Christmas Day and no one was playing golf. We ended up walking all the way up into a neighborhood by the 18th tee before turning around. Overall an excellent hike some of which was very steep and we loved all the paved roads. I applaud the trail head sign leading into the golf course even if it’s incorrect. My guess is someone from the Construction site moved the sign but soooo much better for us on the day we did it....