Havasupai

****  This is going to be a very long post.  Get comfy! :)  ****

This last weekend I went to Havasupai, in Supai Arizona with Rob (yes, my ex bf) and a group of his friends.  Now I know what you're thinking... "Who in their right mind would go to Arizona in late July?!?" Right?  Trust me, if I do it again it will be early June or sometime in September.

(As far as going with someone I dated, it was actually pretty cool.  No weirdness or anything.  Oh, and Randy was ok with it too.  And it wasn't Rob who invited me.  It was his friend, Devin, with whom I had ridden the MS 150.)

SO let the adventure begin.

Traditionally, people hike in in the middle of the night to avoid the extreme Arizona heat (and death) that occurs when wandering in the desert in the middle of the day.  We wanted to leave earlier in the day so we would arrive around 10 pm, sleep till about 4 am, then start our hike but one of the guys we were going with had to work till 1:30 so we didn't end up leaving SLC until about 2:30.  

We got to Supai around midnight or 1 am and even though we were all pretty tired, didn't see the point in setting up tents and stuff so that we could maybe get one or two hours of sleep in, so we just started out on the trail.

  This is the canyon once it started getting light enough to shoot pictures.

There are no pictures of the 8-mile hike to the Havasupai reservation village.  I think we were all pretty much just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.  From the parking lot to the village is 8 miles, then from the village to the campsite is just over 2.  I really didn't think a 10-mile hike would be as rough as it was but my pack never was situated correctly, so the pressure on my back/shoulders and just the one hip was killing me most of the hike.  

Also, for some reason I always forget how badly my knees hate hiking until I'm a few miles into any hike.  The tendons behind my knees absolutely felt like they were going to snap by the time I got to the campsite and I was walking like the arthritic old woman I'm probably going to be someday.  :(  

Just before the last little stretch into the campsite, you run into what used to be Navajo Falls.  

I suppose it still is Navajo Falls, but there was a flash flood that took out a lot of the ground around it last year.  You can see the tree line, I believe that's where the top of the falls used to be.  So sad.

When we finally got to the campsite and found most of our group members, it was too hot to sleep, so we got our swimsuits on and took the 1/2 mile or so to Havasupai Falls.  The water felt SOOO nice after all that hiking and cooled my joints down a bit.

 

Havasupai Falls from the trail leading down into the campsite. 

I know you're jealous of my hair in this one.  I only wish I could duplicate it.

 More Havasupai Falls.  I love the little pools at the bottom!  

Our campsite was right next to a river that came off the falls, so because it was too hot to do anything else, we spent the rest of the day just sitting in the river.  :)  

The second day we hiked about 3/4 mile down the river to Mooney Falls.

The hike there itself was very short and straightforward.  However, to actually get down to the falls you have to go through an incredibly steep rock tunnel with chains and narrow steps and all kinds of good stuff.  One of the girls in our group was extremely claustrophobic and afraid of heights but she managed it very well.

  The route down to Mooney 

After playing at Mooney for a couple of hours we were rested and feeling adventurous again, so we decided to continue on to the legendary Beaver Falls.

The thing with Beaver Falls is that many attempt it, but for some reason, few people actually get there.  It's about 3-4 miles beyond Mooney and you can either follow the river the entire way or take a mountain trail.  We decided to take the trail and I'm really glad we did.  

Even on the trail though, we met several people who had turned back before actually getting there, mostly just because of the distance.

 Some of the trail to Beaver Falls 

Right around this point Rob and Chris decided they'd rather go back to the village and get Navajo tacos, so they turned around and went back to camp.  (They ended up taking a nap, then waking up at 6:30.  The cafe in the village closes at 7, so they actually ran the 2-mile uphill path, and got there just when they had pretty much already closed the kitchen, so they still didn't get them.  Poor boys.)

One of the girls who were with us said that her friend had been to Beaver Falls before and that there was a big palm tree which people use as a landmark to know that you're on the right path and that you're very close.  (You have to cross the river several times, so it's kinda easy to get on the wrong path.)

 More of the trail to Beaver Falls. 

As you can see, the sights on the way TO Beaver Falls are gorgeous!  Which is why many people don't make it all the way.  They just play in the river and call that good enough, but we were determined.

We finally found the elusive palm tree!!!  :D

 Beaver Falls

 The descent into what is considered the main part of Beaver Falls.

      

On the way back we kinda lost the trail for a minute and ended up in the river for a section we didn't see on the way down.  It had some pretty cool little falls.  

  One of the pretty cool little falls.   

On the way back, we got talking about animals and how Australia is home to some of the biggest species of spiders and snakes in the world.  Just then I heard a HUGE movement in the bushes just off to my left, and this guy showed up seriously like 15 feet away from me.

  He was so stinkin cute, and it was amazing to watch his agility on the rock ledge.  

 I think he went up on this cliff just to pose for us.  Isn't that a great shot?

Of course, every adventure comes with its price.    We learned that duct tape stays better in water than moleskin.  My feet are the ones on the top.  My Chocos aren't that new, but they haven't had many water excursions, so I was still kinda breaking them in... with my ankles...

Luckily, the shoes I used to hike out had a different cut, so they weren't rubbing in the same spots I had blisters from the above trip.

They give you the option to pay $20 to have a horse/mule pack your backpacks out for you so you don't have to hike out (and up) with them.  That was the easiest decision I'd made the whole trip, I think, and the best $20 I've spent.

On the way back, I started getting attacked by this rogue butterfly.  Terrifying, huh?  It was.

Apparently butterflies are attracted by color and have no sense of smell, cuz I definitely didn't smell like a flower.  I finally stopped swatting it away and let it land on me and it sat there and stuck its little nose thing as deep as it could into my purple tank top!  It was so weird.

  Beautiful, but weird.  

As you can tell by the pic above, we could not hike out in the middle of the night because the horse people don't load and pack in the middle of the night.  So while we didn't have to carry our packs out, we did have to hike in the heat of the morning.  I ran out of water when we had about a mile and a half left of the steepest part of the hike, so I got a touch of heat exhaustion on by the time I reached the top and was not feeling very well.

They did have a trailer up at the parking lot where you could spend $2 for a bottle of water or $3 for a popsicle, which I also thought was a steal by that time.

When we got to the top, we learned that one of the horses that had been carrying two packs from our group had broken away from the owner and he had gone to look for it...  After about an hour of worrying that we weren't ever going to see him or the packs again, he showed up, extremely apologetic.  We were all just happy to finally be able to get on the road and get home!

SO, would I do it again?

Yes.*

*So long as I either conditioned my knees and situated my pack better, or took the option of helicoptering/horseback riding in.  

If anyone would like to join me, I'd always love adventure companions!  :D