Havasupai

To start out our summer vacation, we decided to do a backpacking trip into the Grand Canyon to the Indian reservation called Havasupai. I had heard of it last year when a few friends went down and knew that the falls at the bottom were supposed to be quite beautiful. What I didn't realize is how incredibly difficult the 10 mile hike down into the canyon is when it's 100 degrees and you have 35 pound packs on your backs! We headed down at 4 in the afternoon at probably the heat of the day. It was amazingly beautiful all the way down and through. Once we were down in the canyon, it was at least shaded and not as hot as directly in the sun. We didn't have enough water and were very happy when we hit our first blue-green stream of water where we could purify some more water to drink. We were still pretty dead by the time we got to the bottom, not to mention the fact that it was dark. After 8 miles, you walk through the town of the Native Americans and it's quite amazing to see a town down in the middle of what seems like nowhere. There were plenty of houses, a school, post office and just about everything you would need. No cars - but plenty of horses. The sun was started to set while we were in the town and it was very pretty. A mile or so later, we heard the falls and when I saw it, I almost started crying. Granted, I was exhausted and dehydrated, etc... but it was more beautiful that I could even start to describe or than the pictures could really start to show. We pitched our tent and pretty much collapsed.


















The next day, we hung out by the falls most of the day because that was the only place where it was cool. Our campsite was still very hot. The water at the falls was very cool and quite refreshing - even cold if you sat in it for too long. You can see that there are lots of pools all around it that people would just sit in all day - such an amazing place. Because it's such an awesome place, there were lots of people there, though I suspect that many of them took helicoptors or mules down and many probably had mules take their bags - I was amazed at the size of some of the tents and all of the things that many people had. We had very little and still felt like it was too much due to the fact that we were bruised and sore from our bags. We may be done with backpacking for a while (or maybe forever?). Car camping and day hikes are so much better! :-) We're just getting too old, maybe. ;-)
















We hiked up very early the next day and after the 2 miles into town, we had to wait for the office to open so that we could pay for our stay. We heard that there was an option to get carried out by a helicopter and I was all ready to go, but Scott said that we came down to backpack, so we needed to go the rest of the way. It almost killed us, but we did it! The day we hiked out, I actually felt really lucky because it was overcast and MUCH cooler and so not nearly as miserable as the way down. The last mile where you're pretty much hiking straight up was rough, but I didn't think the rest of it was too bad. I'd definitely recommend taking this trip, but do it in the spring or fall and have mules carry your things. Also, take a lot of friends and stay for a few days!