I'm so excited to post this......SO FREAKING EXCITED!
Can you believe that a place like this exist?
Havasupai is a name that is a combination of two places in
the Grand Canyon. One is called Supai
which is the name of the village where a tribe of Indians still live to this
day. The other is Havasu Falls. A stunning waterfall just below the village
of turquoise blue water contrasted against the red rocks of the southwest. The two names pushed together names the
Indian reservation.
This stunning place was our destination for the
Rawlins/Jorgensen spring hike/backpacking trip.
Thanks to Lori for bringing this up over the Christmas break and
starting the planning process. This was
a hike that I’ve wanted to do for years but have never been a part of the group
that was going or I had already made other plans.
The place is one of the most unique places I’ve ever
traveled to. There are no roads to the
village and falls. Everything is either
hiked in, packed in on mules, or flown in by helicopter. At first I couldn’t believe that a village
wouldn’t have some sort of access road that the natives would use that just
took forever to drive down, or something like that. Nope, sure enough, no roads.
We started the trip by heading to Vegas where we picked Lori
and Kelly up from the airport. Kaela had
never been to Vegas before so we stopped at the Fremont Street Expierience so
she could get a taist of what the ghetto part of the strip was like before we
came back and did the glitzy strip after the back packing trip.
After packing up the car with all the backpacking gear (BTW,
Bean, my hatchback, was a champ at having enough space for everthing) We headed out into the Arizona night. After turning off the main highway we drove
up over some higher elevations and almost ran into 6 or 7 elk on the road! We saw more animals off to the side. I’m so grateful we didn’t have an accident
because in some cases, you were on top of them before you knew it.
The road ends at a hilltop parking area on the rim of the
canyon you hike down. We pulled off to
the side in a spot and set up a quick camp to catch a few hours of sleep.
The trial is a 10 miles trek down a wash to the
campground. You start the journey on a
mesa top before switch backing down to the canyon floor. I was worried about the distance with
backpacks so Kaela and I decided to do some conditioning hikes above our house
in the canyons below Mount Timpanogos.
We did two hikes with packs, one 6 mile and one 8 mile hike to help
condition our bodies and minds for the grind of 10 miles. In the end I think the 10 miles wasn’t as
hard as we imagined it was going to be.
4 hours later we arrived at Supai and checked into the
campground. We then pushed on for
another 2 miles before reaching camp. We
stopped in between at the first falls we came to called New Navajo Falls. This was the new falls that had been created
after the flash floods of 2008 wiped out the old falls. It was a great spot to take a break and do
some swimming. We were amazed that there
wasn’t any one else there. A few more
minutes further we understood why as we crested the hill and viewed the amazing
Havasu falls as it cascaded down through its red rock shute and into the
travertine pool below. Hikers would stop and take pictures and gaze jealously
of the baithers in the pools below anxiously anticipating when they would be
able to take off their packs and join them.
We pushed on and found a campground that had some trees
nearby for Kaela and I to hang up our hammocks.
Kaela and I changed into our swimmers and went back up to Havasu Falls
and played in the pools. One pool had an
eddy that you could float in and it would push you in circles for as long as
you wanted. The water was perfect. A little cold at first but then felt just
right.
Came back for a delicious rehydrated dinner that Kelly had
prepared and settled into the hammocks for a restfull sleep.
A little note on hammocks.
Kaela and I are really into them.
They are by far the most comfortable way I have ever slept outdoors and
that includes sleeping on an air mattress.
Think about it this way, remember the last time you went camping. How many times did you wake up to shift
positions? Two maybe three times if
you’re lucky? Kaela and I woke up once In
the middle of the night. The next day
felt completely rested and ready to go for a full day worth of activity. I’ve never had that before sleeping in a tent
on the ground. So, If you’ve never
thought about hammocks, try it. It’s
amazing.
Day two into the backpacking trip we packed up lunch and
headed further down the canyon. Our
first stop was Moony falls that is just massive. There is no true natural way to get to the
bottom of the falls because of the sheer canyon walls. So to accommodate the adventurous tourists
who want to get to the bottom and further down the canyon. The reservation from the tour guide in New
Orleans and “take your time and watch your step” you were fine.
Once at the bottom of the falls we hiked further down the
creek passing beautiful sections of red rock and desert greenery we arrive at
beaver falls. Beaver falls is great
because it has three different tears that you can play on. One has a 12 foot drop that you can jump off
of. We all jumped off, even Lori who is
afraid of heights and drowning! She
became quite the daredevil in the last few years.
Back at camp, we found our packs had been invaded by a bold
family of squires who chewed through our packs to try and find food. Even though they didn’t get the food they did
quite a bit of damage to our packs. (Sorry Ben for the holes in your
backpack)
The morning came, and we broke camp to hike back out. We all agreed that the trip was too short and
we could have easly spent another 2 nights there in the canyon. It’s honestly felt like a resort of sorts for
back packers. You could spend a whole
day just lounging in the pools by camp and under Moony Falls. You could spend another back at Navajo Falls
because no one is there. You could keep
hiking past Beaver Falls until the river empties into the Colorado river in the
main channel of the Grand Canyon.
We left with the thoughs in our head of ‘when can we come
back’ because it was all over too quickly.
We made it back to the car in about 5:30 hours and headed into
Vegas. Walked around the strip and hit
up the Rio buffett the next day for lunch.
We estimated that between the 3 days, we walked over 30 miles. High Fives all around.
Now we are looking for our next destination for a
hiking/backpacking trip. Anyone have any
suggestions, please leave a comment below!
