There are honestly dozens of indelible memories to be made at Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu’s North Shore. But, man, it’s awfully hard to top the Magnum Experience.

Aboard a replica Magnum, P.I. helicopter, we’re still early in the flight as we climb into the mountains of Sacred Falls State Park on a hot, sunny and happily calm September morning.

Operated by Paradise Helicopters, with take-off and landing from the resort grounds, tours range from the fabled North Shore and Pearl Harbor to Diamond Head and skimming the waters off Waikiki. But this moment is particularly captivating as our chopper pilot navigates through Kaluanui Gulch, our heads on a swivel to absorb the jaw-dropping majesty of the steep, lush canyon walls surrounding us.

And then the Sacred Falls of Kaliuwa’a come into view. And it’s magnificent—a thin white veil of water tumbling some 1,100 feet into the narrowing gulch below, as another tour helicopter between us and the falls provides perspective.

The final dramatic 80 feet of the falls and the pool it explodes into used to be accessible by foot, but the State Park has been closed since May 9, 1999, when a landslide near the waterfall took the lives of eight hikers and injured several others.

So this is the only way to legally—and safely—appreciate this almost mystical setting.