2000 - Ala Kahakai NHT
Featuring ancient cultural remains, this 175-mile trail links numerous communities, prehistoric and historic sites around the shoreline of the Big Island of Hawai'i. Cultural highlights include royal centers, heiau (temples), loko 'ia (fishponds), ko 'a (fishing shrines), and wahi pana (sacred places). The death of British sea captain James Cook and the rise of Hawai'ian king Kamehameha I took place along this trail. Its natural resources include coastal vegetation, tropical ecosystems, migratory birds and several threatened and endangered endemic species of pants and animals. The Trail's establishmeht was championed by Hawai'ian Senators Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye, and today it is administered by the National Park Service. Two nonprofit groups, E Mau Na Ala Hele ("to perpetuate the trails") and the Ala Kahakai Trail Association work together to make this Trail a cherished route of Hawai'ian heritage.
(See NPS website www.nps.gov/alka)