What I Learned by Hiking the Koko Crater Railway Trail

You still try. That’s the lesson.

This is the Koko Crater. One of the many trails, mountains, and craters my family and I hiked on our recent trip to Hawaii.

The length is manageable, between 1.4-1.6 miles depending on which website you look at. But it isn’t the length that gets you, it’s the +1000 steps and 900 feet of elevation gain that will destroy your legs.

My wife was the one that did most of the research and planning for our trip and she was excited to try it.
“I hear the views are beautiful!” – Sarah
“Right, but there’s no way we are making it up that thing” – Me

We had to change some of our plans that morning and so we pulled into the parking lot way too late in the day. “This sun is going to destroy us” but we still started the hike.

The tree-lined and paved path up to the trailhead is no problem at all. However, the people coming back were a bit concerning. The amount of sweat and hard breathing they are doing made me a bit nervous. And that was them coming down, not going up!

“I really don’t think we have a shot of finishing this thing!” but we still kept moving forward.

We got to the bottom of the stairs and took in exactly how high up we’ll be going and how many steps we’ll be covering. I hadn’t seen the numbers before then and every step looked like it would do us in.

“Babe, one of us is going to end up in the hospital, if we do this” but we still started the climb.

Blame it on my negative mindset. Blame it on the late-day sun and lack of water. Blame it on the moody teenagers that didn’t want to go on a hike. You can blame it on whatever you like but the fact of the matter is we got about 0.3 miles into the 1.6 and decided we had seen enough. Our Low Country lungs and sedentary lifestyle had finally caught up to us and we turned back to the car.

But before we turned back, we stopped. My wife looked up to see what could have been. My girls looked down to see what we had accomplished. All of us took a second to think about how the day could have been more. More relaxing in the hotel, more hiking up this crater, more water, more shade, more energy, more… but we still tried.

And as I already shared, that’s the lesson of the story, you still try.

Yes, there’s a good chance you don’t have the skills they are looking for and they might not ask for an interview. You still apply.

Yes, your company has never paid well, and you don’t think they’ll give you the raise you want. You still ask.

Yes, you aren’t seeing the results you want from your projects and things are moving too slowly. You still push for change.

Would it have been amazing to get to the top of Koko Crater and take in the views? Yes! I’ve seen the pictures and it looks beautiful. But honestly, I’m glad we at least tried.

I’m glad that we saw the crazy amount of stairs in person and appreciated how hard of a hike that trail is. I’m glad that my girls have something to tackle and overcome if they ever head back to Oahu. Most importantly, I’m glad that we tried to do something hard and failed.

Sometimes I think that accomplishing our tasks softens just how hard the challenge was for us. By finally getting the job, or the raise, or the change we wanted we forget how hard it really was. I think sometimes failure is necessary for us to see how far we can push ourselves and appreciate that hard things are hard.

Our hike was challenging, and we didn’t even make it close to the top, but I still have these pictures and this story that I find valuable. I still benefited from the experience and appreciate what we were able to accomplish.

I doubt my girls have internalized all the life lessons from our trip yet, but I’m hopeful this seed was planted in them. Sometimes things are too big for you, and you won’t be able to overcome them, and yet you still try.

– Dan Smitley