Havasupai

We had our final week of Summit gym, including a boxing class. I played volleyball with a group. My boss agreed to pay for an online CEU membership of my choosing. And I supervised the YW paint rocks (not sure where that idea came from, but it wasn't the YW). None of that is really important though. 

The trip of a lifetime. Let me explain: this is a part of the Grand Canyon on the Supai reservation with beautiful waterfalls and clear blue water. The only way to get there (nowadays) is to enter a lottery system and pray, pay $400 a head, and backpack your way down 12 miles of steep canyon covered with loose gravel. 

The Top. 

This year is the first year since Covid that they've allowed visitors, so these people have been waiting 3 years to use their tickets and even then, some people are still getting delayed another year to limit the number of people in the area. Three years ago, I met Roger's cousin's brother-in-law, Ken, who had 8 tickets for the end of May and I have been hounding him ever since to include me if anyone drops out. 

And they did. Because we weren't sure until about a month in advance that the group would actually be able to go this year, cancellations were somewhat last minute and we ended up with a group of 7, instead of 8. 

Some slippery ladders. 

We met up with the group at 9pm Thursday night and camped in our vehicles so we could be on the trail by 5:15am for an 11-12 mile hike down the canyon. I had my nice camera and tripod with me and Roger had most of our gear (to even out weight), but we were hefting a lot more than the 30lb packs everyone else was sporting. But we made it and with minimal blisters, to a campsite right between 2 streams and out of the way by 9:20am (Ken estimated we'd get here by 1pm). 

Our favorite fall.

We hiked down a treacherous path to Mooney Falls for some exploring and swimming. The hike down goes through the rock on some rough hewn stairs to a chain system with poorly made ladders, sticks with notches in them, and rock - and all of this was wet, muddy, and slippery. 

Mooney

But it was worth it. The canyon is heavy on calcium and has a bunch of cool rock formations and tons of little waterfalls. 

On the way to Beaver. 

The next day, we did another long hike, this time only carrying lunch, water, and camera gear (for me). It's about 3 miles downstream to beaver falls, this time walking through grape vineyards, blistering sun, and again, sketchy ladder systems. 

Beaver Falls

We played around at the falls and I got to talk to Steve, who is a photographer and apparently handled the Vegas market on bachelorettes for a while. Mooney was on the way back to camp, so we stopped there for a few minutes again, before making it back to camp for dinner. 

Upper Beaver Falls

Day 3 was a shorter, steeper hike back towards the Supai village to check out the smaller falls - Fifty Footer, Little Navajo, Hidden Falls. 

Fifty Footer. Narrower since the recent floods. 

We played around some more. It was the perfect temperature to swim and then warm up in the sun, and then jump back in. 

We think this is Hidden Falls. 

We ended at Havasu Falls, the most famous (and the easiest to get to, especially with camera gear), taking a small detour to a closed mineshaft before playing in the water some more. 

Havasu Falls. 

Day 4 was exit day. We were up and out of camp by 5:15am. Some of our party was getting the chopper out of there (but usually it doesn't run until 12 or 1, so we opted for the faster, hiking option). We waited at the village because we were carrying some of their gear up for them, but ended up leaving it with some friends also ready for the chopper. It was a long 11 miles back to the top, and really only killed me in the last half mile or so. But we got out and ate literally everything in sight for the next 24 hours. The saltier, the better. 

I haven't edited the pics really, but here's an idea of what it was like. Obviously, even edited photos won't do it justice. It was beautiful and a unique experience that was surprisingly challenging for the hype. I'm 100% glad that I bugged Ken into letting me and Rog attend and now I've got a new challenge to bother him about ;)