Running Big

In 2018, Charlie and Laura had the good fortune to spend 2.5 months on Hawaii’s Big Island. When we started looking for trails to run on, we found that information was scant. This site is a compendium of what we learned, drawn from hours of poring over maps, scounting paths through the jungle, talking to locals, and putting in a lot of miles.

Running shoe chewed up by a'a' lava

We learned that while there is seemingly a lot of open land on the Big Island, much of it is private, and even for public land, there is a culture of discouraging access to it. Keep in mind that the landscape of the Big Island is always changing with the whims of Pele (i.e., new lava flows). We will not be updating posts, so while these routes worked for us, they may become out-of-date. All trailheads were accessed without difficulty in a 2-wheel drive rental sedan.

There are, generally speaking, two types of runs: Makai (toward the ocean) runs, and Mauka (toward the mountain) runs. Makai runs tend to be hotter, drier, and over some kind of lava. Mauka runs tend to be cooler with a lot more elevation gain, and often (but not always) softer surfaces. In addition to these categories, the Big Island is organized into “districts”. The routes here are in Ka’u, South Kona, South Hilo, and Hamakua.

Some additional sources for trails in the Big Island include:

Nā Ala Hele Trail & Access Program: This is the Hawaii state government’s official resource for trails. Many of the routes are more theoretical than actual, and details are thin; but it’s a good starting point.
Hawai’i Birding Trails: Birding-centric resource.
Hawaii Island Hunting Maps: Much of the back-country activity in Hawaii is from hunters seeking goats and pigs. The hunting maps provide insights into how to access many of the island’s forest reserves.
Mapping sites: https://caltopo.com, https://maps.google.com, and https://www.trailrunproject.com all provide useful insights into where tracks might or might not exist.