Our Havasupai Hike – Day 1

Every step, every mile we hiked was worth it. What amazing and stunning views were beheld. Words and pictures cannot capture the pure beauty of it all.

And what a wonderful time to be with family and friends. It was mostly families that went which I appreciate. I love seeing families do things together and this was an experience that I was thrilled we could do with our children.

We were shocked at the amount of cars at the top. We were not expecting so many. There are a limited number of hikers allowed into the canyon at any one time and I had been under the impression that it wasn’t very many but what about all these cars? We found out later that most of them belong to the residents at Supai. There are 200-300 residents that live there.

    We arrived at the Hualapai Hilltop somewhere between 8-8:30. The only ones missing in our group of 34 was my sister and her family. Unfortunately, we had to start without them since they were a whole hour-and-a half behind us.

We were all so excited!

We descended into the canyon about 2,000 feet…

and as we went along, the canyon narrowed until only high red cliffs towered above us.

 The weather was perfect. We even had cloud cover.

There were some unexpected and humorous aspects of the hike. Besides all the cars at the top, we had 12 mule trains pass us coming up the hill and going down the hill, hikers going in or coming out and to top it off there were 2 helicopters flying every few minutes over our heads. They deliver supplies to the village as well as taking in people or flying them out. It was NOISY and BUSY!

We were getting a little worried about just how many people might be down below! But we found out that there wasn’t many at all. We had the falls to ourselves most of the time. The weather wasn’t conducive to people being in the water in their swimsuits for long periods of time so that was perfect for us!

We were so happy to see we didn’t have much further to go!

We arrived at Supai to a ramshackle collection of buildings, homes, and pens for mules and horses. It’s a whole different culture down there so it added another whole aspect to the trip.

It was a 8-9 mile hike to reach our Lodge and it took us 4 hours and 7 minutes. The Lodge was a run-down little place that sports 24 rooms with 2 queen beds in each room along with air conditioning. There are no phones or tv’s but there is cell service and wi-fi.

That afternoon we all sauntered down to the main square (which is not very far away at all) to the cafe where we enjoyed hamburgers, onion rings and fry bread. We were all quite pleased with our meals but you can’t totally count on them always being open as some found out the next day.

They went to the cafe for supper and were told that they had only one cook because no one had showed up for work that day. The wait was going to be 45 minutes. At another cafe on the other end of town, some of our hikers were told that that cafe was closed because the man’s wife, who was also the cook, had cut her hand. “I’m not sure if she’ll be open tomorrow or not.” :/

We had a good time sitting on the verandah of the cafe relaxing after our long hike.

That evening in the courtyard of the Lodge, we all gathered for fellowshipping and games for those who were feeling energetic. Shhh, don’t tell anyone but I retired to my room early. 🙂

Day 2 we hiked to the Falls.

And that my friends, was unbelievable.

coming up…