I've been wanting to see Havasupai for years now and couldn't really figure out how to make it happen. It was a little daunting and I didn't really know anybody that had done it...I knew that there were permits involved and I instantly felt overwhelmed and defeated. For some reason, this year I decided to go for it, so when the phone lines opened on February 1st, I started dialing. I couldn't get through for 3 days, and pretty much concluded that it wasn't going to happen, but Brian found a website and we found 1 night available in July and snagged it right away. At the time, Brian, his dad, and a friend of mine were going to go down. That changed a few times over the last few months, and it ended up being me, Brian, and his sister, Suzy (a marathon runner). We couldn't have asked for a better group of people. She drove down on Sunday and we made our way up to Seligman where we got a room at the Supai Motel for the night. Right away, Brian realized that he'd forgotten his hiking shoes and was left with sandals and socks for our journey. After walking around and checking out the quirky town for a little bit, we settled in and tried to get a couple of hours of sleep before waking up at 2 am and driving to the trail head. It stormed like crazy all night, making for nice, cool, overcast conditions the next morning.
When we pulled up to the parking lot, I couldn't believe how many cars there were and my stomach sank. It smelled like urine so strong and the wind was blowing about 50 miles per hour. We managed to find a good spot right at the trail head and loaded up. I was worried about wearing a hat because of the wind, but it seemed secure once I put my headlamp on, so I hoisted up my pack and we made our way down the steepest switchbacks in pitch darkness. Once we got down a couple dozen feet, the wind subsided and as we descended, we could see dozens of headlamps below us, slowly tracking into the canyon. I tried to get some pictures, but they didn't really turn out.
About 2 miles down, the trail started to level out a little bit and we made a right hand turn into a canyon/wash. The sun started to come up and we could finally see what we were surrounded by and it was glorious.
We hiked along, admiring the scenery, until we stumbled upon this:
The entire foot of a horse or donkey. Knowing what I know now, we should have just turned back right then and there. But we didn't. We started to veer left through the canyon, descending deeper and deeper and getting into more interesting territory.
As we wove through the canyons, the terrain gradually became more and more sandy and required more and more effort to trek through. We noticed that our shoes were filling with dust and sand our feet were starting to rub and blister. We were only about 5 miles in at this point, but it was still cool and early and we wanted to just get there before resting and taking our shoes off.
Before long, we started getting close to water and we entered a wide canyon with lots of trees. It eventually led to the town of Supai.
At this point, our feet were rubbed raw and were bleeding and the sand trail started to drop rather swiftly into the canyon. We stopped at the Ranger Station and got our wristbands and then continued the remaining 2 miles to the campground.
We caught a glimpse of 50-Foot Falls on our left and we couldn't wait to get around the next bend to see what it held.
All of a sudden, we came to a series of stairs and to our left, Havasu Falls for the first time, and it was magical.
Seeing the perfect milky water gave us the oomph we needed to carry on to camp and get set up as quickly as possible to go explore. The clouds were starting to break up and the sun was intense, even though it was only about 6:30 am, so we wanted to get in the water as soon as we could. It was so humid and I'm pretty sure, especially with all of the water and Gatorade I was drinking, that I've never sweat so much in my life. Our clothes were all covered in salt. We picked a spot right on the water with lots of trees to hang up our hammocks. Suzy and I couldn't wait to take our shoes off and step in the water. Immediately after, a huge group of teenagers showed up and set up camp right next to us on the other side of the creek. They ended up being good neighbors, so we were thankful for that. While unpacking, I realized that I'd lost my sunscreen, chapstick, and a couple of extra batteries for my camera somewhere along the way. After building up some courage, I ventured over to the kid's camp and asked if they could spare some sunscreen. One of the girls rolled her eyes and came over with a bottle and squirted a dollop about the size of a quarter in my palm and then walked away. I promptly rubbed it into my shoulders and hoped that my hat (thank god I brought it) would suffice as protection. Then we proceeded up the path towards the other falls.
After about half a mile, my feet were sizzling in the sand and I knew I needed to go back and grab my Chacos. On my way back, I found a sweet couple and asked them for sunscreen and they coated my thoroughly. Thank goodness. Even though my feet were killing me, I'm glad I went back for my sandals, because the trail going down to the waterfalls was INSANE. There was an amazing campsite right on the edge, but there weren't enough trees for our hammocks. We looked around for a minute, not realizing that Mooney Falls was right under us.
The walls of the canyon look like melting mud, but are solid rock and super rough, but so cool. There are a series of caves and chains and ladders that you have to go down and it was not for the faint of heart. I'm not a fan of ladders anyway, let alone when they are wet and loose and slippery and straight down the side of a 200 foot cliff. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of pictures because I was just hanging on for dear life. The nice thing is that, considering the amount of cars in the parking lot, there were only a handful of other people down there. It's a pretty spread out area, so we had a lot of the spots to ourselves.
We dove into the water as soon as we got down and just marveled in the beauty around us.
After about 10 minutes, the teens from camp started coming down, floaties in hand, and swarmed the area, so we continued downstream to explore. It felt like we were on some sort of tropical island, it's so lush down there with vines and waterfalls. It was incredible.
After a few hours, we went back up to camp for some snacks and to discover that we'd forgotten our dehydrated meals for dinner :( Luckily, we had plenty of food to keep us full...as long as we could keep the squirrels out of it. They are relentless little things...I tucked my pack into my hammock and twisted it around, and they still got it and ate my dried apricots. We could see them ravaging the kid's packs hanging from trees across the creek too. At this point, we also discovered that bringing alcohol down is a felony. There was a Ranger digging through their camp with his dog looking for anything, and he found some cans and wrote them up for it. We hung out for a while, played some cards, and rested up before venturing upstream to Havasu Falls and the Frybread hut set up along the trail. We dug in and then hiked down to the base of the waterfall and ended up having it all to ourselves.
After playing until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer, we hiked back to camp and cozied up in our hammocks for a surprisingly restful night's sleep.
Our plan was initially to spend the whole next day at the falls and then hike out in the later afternoon when it'd cooled down a tad, but when we woke up, our bodies were so sore we couldn't fathom hiking around several miles and then out the 12 miles back up to the trailhead. My knees and hips were begging me for mercy after hiking steep downhill terrain with a pack that weighed about 35 lbs. Suzy's and my feet were literally bleeding and we then discovered that we'd forgotten our socks, so it was going to be grueling hike out. We taped up our feet and loaded up with as much water as we could carry at about 6:30 and started the trek out.
It was still shady for most of the hike, luckily, and we kept up a good pace, scared to stop for fear that we wouldn't be able to get back going again. As we rounded mile 5, the sun was coming above the canyon rim and we were baking (remember that we didn't have any sunscreen). The drizzle the day before only contributed to the humidity and it was nearing 90 degrees already. I knew that we had not even come half way and my body was giving way...everything was stiff and my knees were locking up, my feet were swollen and bleeding from the blisters, and now we were going to be in the sun and going uphill for the rest of the way. As much as I hate to admit it, I had a mental breakdown. I just started bawling as the feeling of total hopelessness came over me. Suzy gave me a long-sleeved t-shirt from her pack so I didn't burn in the sun, and I refilled my water bottle and we continued on. I cried for the next 1/2 mile, at least. A couple of hours later, we reached the dreaded switchbacks and I started crying again, not knowing how on earth I was going to make it. Suzy booked on ahead and Brian gave me his trekking poles and took my pack and channeled his old boot-camp experience and marched it out. I was about 5 minutes behind him the whole time, just praying for it to be over. I'd climb up one section to the tiny corner of shade and then rest and drink water and pep-talk myself to the next shady spot. After about 1/2 a mile, I looked back at how far we'd come and I couldn't believe how high up we had climbed in our condition. On the way down the morning before, it was pitch dark, so we couldn't fully grasp the gravity of what we were doing. Oddly enough, that was all I needed to keep going...just to actually see how far we'd come. We actually calculated that it was the same distance and elevation gain as walking up 89A through Oak Creek Canyon from Sedona to Flagstaff, only in sand and gravel and with packs on.
At 11:30, I reached to the rim. Brian was waiting in the car with the air conditioning cranked up and Suzy met me at the trailhead. She said that she was only up there, maybe 5 minutes before I got there, which made me feel better. As soon as she got to the top, she started puking her guts out, and she said that she felt more accomplished hiking out that day than she ever felt completing a marathon. It's certainly the hardest thing I've ever done, both mentally and physically. I guess you just have to be strong when there isn't any other option. We drove back to Seligman and grabbed Burgers and Root Beer Floats that we chowed down on in our motel room, took showers and crashed just before a huge thunderstorm rolled in. In hindsight, it was a good thing we didn't wait until that evening to hike out because we would have been stuck in the storm. I couldn't even bend my knees or hardly walk and still can't really. I think that the experience aged me about 20 years and I'm not sure that my body will ever be the same again. Moral of the story, either fly out in the helicopter, ride a horse, or if nothing else, pay for the mules to haul out your packs if you ever decide to go, and for the love of god, don't do it in July!