Kawaikini is the highest point on Kauaʻi at 1,598 metres, sitting just northeast of Mount Waialeale at the soggy centre of the island. The summit lies within the Alakaʻi Wilderness Preserve and is rarely visited — the terrain is genuinely difficult, requiring navigation through dense cloud forest and thick mud with no maintained trail to the top.
Mount Waialeale, 1,569 metres and just below Kawaikini in elevation, is more famous because of its extraordinary rainfall record — it averages around 9,500 mm per year and has been measured at over 17,000 mm in exceptional years, making it one of the wettest spots on earth. The crater of Waialeale catches Pacific moisture with remarkable efficiency, and the waterfalls that pour from it feed the island's rivers and the waterfall-hung walls that visitors see from boats and helicopters.
Neither peak is a practical hiking destination for the average visitor. The experience of Kauaʻi's dramatic wet interior is better had via the Alakaʻi Swamp Trail or the view from a helicopter, where the waterfalls cascading from the caldera walls are genuinely spectacular.