Botanical Tour and waterfall swim at The Mauna Kea Cloudforest Bioreserve

We will take you on a botanical tour of the Mauna Kea Cloudforest Bioreserve followed by a swim in Kikala Falls. The Bioreserve hosts an arboretum/botanical garden and farm where you will get to enjoy a large collection of exotic palms and conifers, a native Hawaiian forest and natural waterfalls.

As part of this experience, you will learn about the botany of the various plants that thrive in our montane tropical cloud forest. You will see both temperate conifers like coast redwoods (sequoia) growing alongside tropical conifers and palms from New Caledonia and Madagascar. You will see native Hawaiian plants along with beautiful bold tropical and temperate ornamental foliage and flowers.

You will learn about the native Hawaiian forest ecology, and about the native Hawk ('io) and the native owl (Pueo) that live on the Bioreserve. We will introduce you to the various projects that the bioreserve is undertaking, such as carbon sequestration with coast redwoods, the development of xmas trees for Hawaii, our regenerative grazing project, and our soil conservation efforts.

You will also see a large collection of tropical fruit trees, including Jack fruit, banana, marang, pedalai, bananas, pineapple, cacao, cupuacu, surinam cherries, champedak, pili nut trees, and many other expotic tropical fruit growing in a montane tropical cloudforest setting.

At the end of the tour, we will take you to Kikaka Falls, our main waterfall, where you will be invited to swim.