The famed stairs that are off limits. Photo: Friends of Haiku Stairs
Fourteen hikers were arrested in Oahu over the first week of September for hiking the infamous Stairway to Heaven. Eight of those arrests were made on September 3 alone and all hikers will be charged with “criminal trespassing,” which is a misdemeanor that can carry a penalty of 30 days in jail.
The right – or lack thereof – to hike the Stairway to Heaven, aka the Haiku Stairs, has been a point of contention in recent years after the Honolulu City Council voted in 2021 to remove the staircase. The process of dismantling the WWII-era, 3,922-step stairway began in the spring of 2024, which led to a rush of hikers doing one last hike before the removal. As a result, there also was a flurry of arrests and citations in April as construction was slated to get underway.
While the dismantling of the stairs via helicopter began in the spring, on July 3 an appeals court granted an injunction to a group opposing the project, Friends of Haiku Stairs, to pause any work until further arguments were heard in September. Still, at that point sections of the stairs had already been dismantled. According to Hawaii’s Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE), hikers used climbing ropes to reach the staircase.
The popular hiking app, AllTrails, has removed the hike from its listings since my last story on the topic in May. Previously, the review section was a comical place for people to incriminate themselves for a hike that has been illegal since 1987.
“It is dangerous for people to enter the construction zone and dangerous for them to try to descend the ridge,” said Jason Redulla, chief of DOCARE. “They need to think about the consequences if someone gets hurt, or worse, needs rescue. It is a difficult place for first responders to reach, which could delay medical treatment.”
“Plus, it’s incredibly disrespectful and self-centered for anyone to be on the Haiku Stairs, or on the Middle Ridge Trail, when it’s been made abundantly clear that these areas are off-limits for safety and natural resource protection reasons,” Redulla added. “They fail to consider not only the risks they’re taking, but the risks emergency teams face when having to rescue people who are breaking the law.”
