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To be perfectly clear: The Haiku Stairs, aka “Stairway to Heaven,” is closed and off limits. Officials underscored that fact with the arrests of 14 hikers over the past week on criminal trespassing charges.
Not only is going on the stairs illegal, it is dangerous — not just for the hikers, but for first responders who’d get called to rescue anyone in trouble.
The stairs were apparently accessed by climbing the Middle Ridge Trail in the Moanalua Section of the Honolulu Watershed Forest Reserve. That trail itself is not closed — though state officials do discourage hikers from going up there.
