Let us save you a disappointment we have watched too many visitors drive three hours into: the Seven Sacred Pools are closed for swimming, and have been for a long stretch. The National Park Service keeps the Pools of Ohe’o closed to entry because flash floods and rockfall here have injured and killed people. Here is the honest pitch anyway — the pools are still beautiful from the trail, and the valley above them holds one of the best hikes in Hawai’i.
Can you swim at the Seven Sacred Pools? (No — here's the real story)
The park’s position is plain: the Pools of Ohe’o are not accessible for entry due to safety concerns. Two hazards drive that. First, flash floods — rain falling miles uphill can turn the gulch into a brown torrent with almost no warning, even under blue sky at the coast. Second, rockfall from the cliffs that wall the pools, which has proven deadly. People have died here doing exactly what old guidebooks show. When you see the closure signs, that is the history behind them.
You still get to see the pools properly. The short Kuloa Point loop from the visitor center leads to overlooks where the tiers stack down toward the ocean — the postcard view, minus the risk. On a heavy-rain day the whole gulch runs white and it is honestly more dramatic from above than it ever was at water level.
About that name: there are more than seven pools, and they were never designated sacred — 'Seven Sacred Pools' was mid-century marketing invented to sell the long drive. The real name, Ohe’o, needs no embellishment. Kipahulu was a heavily settled, heavily farmed Hawaiian district, and the park now manages this coast with that history in front — worth keeping in mind as you walk it.