Injured California couple has to be rescued from long-closed Hawaii trail, officials say
A husband and wife from California were rescued after they became injured while hiking on a trail in Hawaii that closed to the public after a deadly rockfall years ago, officials said.
The hikers, both in their 60s, were taken by helicopter Feb. 9 off Sacred Falls Trail on the island of Oahu, the Honolulu Fire Department wrote in a news release.
They’d been hiking for about 15 minutes that afternoon when they “sustained multiple injuries, and could not continue on their own,” rescuers said.
The trail leading to an 80-foot waterfall closed to the public after a rockfall in the spring of 1999 killed eight people and injured many others, according to the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
An official with the agency confirmed in a Feb. 11 phone call with McClatchy News that the trail remains closed.
People who hike the trail face penalties that can range from a petty misdemeanor citation to a ticket under the Civil Resource Violation System that comes with a $1,000 fine per person for the first offense and increases with additional offenses, according to a Feb. 11 email from the agency.
The 1999 rockfall happened on Mother’s Day, with witnesses reporting they heard loud noises followed by screams, according to a newspaper report at the time.
“Then people began to emerge from beneath the landslide. Some had missing arms, missing legs, holes through their bodies, exposed abdominal cavities. One person had half a face. Others were flattened under boulders the size of cars, according to rescuers,” the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported at the time.
This story was originally published February 11, 2025 at 5:42 PM with the headline "Injured California couple has to be rescued from long-closed Hawaii trail, officials say."
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