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Havasupai - Part 3
This is the final entry about my trip to Havasupai. Day 1 and Day 2 are covered in my two previous entries.Day 3:
On Thursday, the forecast was 79 °F and sunny. I was sort of anxious on this morning, because for me, today was going to make the difference between whether this trip was awesome or just okay. We had not gotten any satisfactory swim time due to arriving after peak sunlight on Tuesday, and the weather being cool and cloudy on Wednesday. When I go to a swimming hole, I don't just want to look at it, I want to get all up in it (and not be miserable). When I had planned the trip, I wanted two full days in the canyon so I could re-visit things that warranted further exploration on the second full day. I had initially thought we would end up swimming at Havasu Falls and the three upstream waterfalls, as they were all shaded and uninviting by the time we arrived on Tuesday. However, after yesterday’s hike, I had added picnicking at the water picnic table below Mooney Falls to my to-do list. Cade didn’t express any particular preferences as to what we should do, so I opted to start at Mooney Falls first and work our way back upstream. I had a headache when I woke up, and eating breakfast and drinking caffeine didn’t help, so I took some Advil and lay down in my bed back at the lodge until about 9:30 AM. Cade had no complaints about this, as it was still pretty cool outside when we got back from breakfast, and he hates being cold. Plus, we weren’t going far today (at this point, three miles was “not far”), so we didn’t need a super early start. We expected it to still be cool when we left the lodge, but as soon as the sun rose above the canyon wall, it got warm almost instantly. We had learned from the previous two days that sun-time at the swimming holes is pretty limited due to the high canyon walls, so we were going to try to adhere to somewhat of a schedule so that we could visit all of the pools during optimal sunlight. We had observed on Tuesday that Havasu Falls loses sun before 2:30 PM, Hidden Falls loses sun around 3 PM, and Rock Falls loses sun just before 4 PM. I wasn’t really sure when Upper Navajo Falls lost sun, but I didn’t really care, since the swimming hole situation there looked less than satisfactory.
On the way down to Mooney Falls, I decided to stop by Rock Falls once more on my continuing quest to get a good picture of it. On Tuesday afternoon, it had been backlit by direct sunlight, and on this morning, it was backlit by the light reflecting off the canyon walls.
I probably should have tried to get a picture from the base yesterday when it was cloudy, but we had been in somewhat of a hurry to get to Beaver Falls. My photos from today were slightly better than the ones I had gotten previously, but still not great. While we were here, I was tempted by the deep passageway along the reeds downstream of the falls, and I decided I wanted to snorkel through it later in the day.
When we got to the point where the trail reached the creek, we decided to head upstream and check out Hidden Falls to see if it looked like it would be worth devoting a large chunk of time to later in the day. However, we quickly came to a point where we were going to have to walk through the creek to get there, and neither of us felt like taking our shoes off yet, so we decided we would come back later.
We continued down the trail and passed Havasu Falls. The sun was already hitting the smaller cascades on the downstream end of the plunge pool, and I was tempted to just stop here and forget about Mooney Falls, but I knew I would regret doing that. As we continued to the campground and passed the frybread tent, we noticed it had a sign with a rather honest set of operating hours.
We continued to Mooney Falls and once again did the perilous descent down to the base.
I was glad I had taken pictures of it yesterday when it was cloudy, because the light and shadows today made the falls almost impossible to photograph. Check out the comparison of yesterday and today (second photo by Cade):
We got down to the base of the falls just after 11 AM. I waded to the island downstream of the plunge pool to accomplish my first mission: a mid-creek picnic at the awesomely situated picnic table. I made myself a PBJ, waded out into the creek, and climbed onto the bench. I thought it was going to be chilly due to the waterfall spray, but the mist was mostly blowing toward the other side of the island. Cade got some pretty good pictures and a video of my epic picnic.
After I finished eating, I got into the swimming hole with the rope swing beneath the cascades (second photo by Cade):
The water was only about chest deep, so I decided not to try the swing. I snorkeled through a grotto behind the cascade and took a video with Cade’s phone, which has a Lifeproof case.
I talked to two women who had gotten into the pool, and they were debating on whether to go to Beaver Falls. I asked if they were at the lodge or the campground, and they said they were at the campground, so I told them it was worth it and they still had plenty of time, since they wouldn’t have as long of a hike to get back.
The ten-foot waterfall that spilled into the Ghost Canyon side-stream area that I had explored yesterday was only a few yards downstream from here, so we waded to it. It looked like there was a deep pool at the base of the falls on the river-right.
This looked like a tempting jump, but I decided to climb down and scope out the depth first. It wasn’t as deep as it looked (I think it was about 4-6 feet), so I was glad I didn’t try jumping. I walked around in the area below the waterfall, but it was mostly shallow, so I climbed back up and we waded back upstream. I decided to swing on the rope swing before leaving, but I didn’t drop into the water due to it being shallow.
Cade’s HDR gave me a weird shadow, since it apparently doesn’t work well with moving images. I wasn’t sure exactly how deep the plunge pool was directly below Mooney Falls, but a sign at the top of the cliff warned that there was a strong undertow behind the falls, plus I had read a story about a kid drowning here, so I never went into this pool.
It was about 12:30 PM by this point, so we headed back up the cliff to check out Havasu Falls while the sun was still high. We got to Havasu Falls around 1 PM. The plunge pool was partially illuminated, but the waterfall was still shaded due to the sun’s position (I’m not sure if Havasu Falls ever gets full sunlight in fall, when the sun is south of the equator and therefore always behind the cliff, which faces north).
I checked out the small cascades and pools on the downstream end of the plunge pool, and only the top pool was over my head. I jumped into it several times.
I also swam into the plunge pool of Havasu Falls, but the current made it hard to get near the waterfall. The pool was also not very deep, only about seven feet up against the cliffs on the upstream end. I used a rope to climb out of the water and jump back in, but I didn’t climb high due to the depth.
We left Havasu Falls around 1:30 PM and headed upstream to Hidden Falls. At this point, Hidden Falls was the only waterfall we had not seen up close. I’m not even sure if it has an official name, but most people who post pictures and videos of it refer to it as Hidden Falls or Secret Falls. You kind of have to know it’s there, because it’s lesser known and not easily visible from the trail unless you know exactly where to look. We waded upstream past the point where we had stopped earlier in the day, and we made it to the falls in about a quarter-mile.
This was about a 15-20 foot waterfall, and there was a high ledge that people jump from perched about 30 feet above the plunge pool.
The cliffs on the river-right side of the pool had a large grotto, so we dropped our stuff there to keep it out of the direct sunlight. We got there just before 2 PM, and the shadow was already covering about a third of the pool. I tried to scope out the depth with my diving mask, but the current and poor visibility made it difficult. There was a calm nook just beneath the jumping ledge, and I went down several feet there and never touched the bottom. It looked like it might be fun to jump off the river-left side of the waterfall, but the current was too swift in that area to check the depth, and the rocks were undercut, so I didn’t want to risk getting pushed underneath them. I climbed out of the water and jumped from about 8 feet into the calm nook. I took a reading with my thermometer on the river-right side of the pool, and it was 68 °F, much closer to the commonly reported 70 °F figure in the literature. I climbed up the cliffs on the river-left side of the falls to see if we could get all the way to Rock Falls from here, but I ran into a sheer rock wall just upstream of Hidden Falls. I looked over the edge of the jumping ledge and decided there was no way I was jumping from it (not that I ever thought I would). As I was coming back down, I saw group of about ten people approaching from downstream. When they got here, they climbed up to the jumping ledge, and one guy jumped off with no hesitation. The rest of the group sat up there for a while and tried to work up the nerve to jump. I made myself another PBJ, and a woman jumped when I was almost finished. Several other people jumped, and one of them sort of landed in a forward-slanted position, which looked painful. There was one guy left at the top of the cliff, and the rest of the group egged him on until he finally jumped. The guy who had jumped first went back up and jumped a couple more times.
Cade and I left Hidden Falls around 3 PM. Our next and potentially final destination was Rock Falls. The falls themselves were already in the shadows around 3:20 PM (I’m not sure if the sun ever shines directly on them at this time of year), but the plunge pool and the reed garden were still mostly illuminated.
I snorkeled down the passageway along the reeds, and I was surprised to find that it was about ten feet deep in most areas. I kept going until I reached the brink of the next cascade, which was about six feet high. The cascade had small aquatic vegetation growing in its travertine rims, which made them muddier and crumblier than the rims on most of the other cascades. Although it’s not clearly visible from the trail, the creek splits around an island upstream of Rock Falls, so Rock Falls is actually just the portion of the creek on the river-right side of the island. The river-left side of the creek tumbles gradually down a series of smaller cascades, and the island ends just upstream of the small cascade at the end of the reed passageway. I thought about going up the river-left side of the creek, but it looked kind of overgrown, so I decided to backtrack to the shore and walk back upstream along the bank. I got in the water to check out what was left of the pool below Rock Falls. Despite appearing shallow, it was about seven feet deep in front of the boulder pile, so I jumped off one of the boulders several times. I also climbed up the collapsed portion of the waterfall and went into a small grotto behind the falls. Cade decided to fully get into the water here for the first time this trip.
I was getting cold, so I decided I was going to get out and head upstream for a more thorough exploration of New Navajo Falls before the sun sank, since I had only seen it from the side on Tuesday. The sun had just dipped below the canyon wall by the time I got there around 4:30 PM, but I decided I would still check it out. I went into the water through a passageway in the reeds and swam out into the middle of the pool. I crossed the pool and climbed up the other side, but the view wasn’t as impressive here as from the middle of the pool. I decided I needed a photo from the middle, as the waterfall looked a little more epic than I had originally thought based on the side view. Older photos of this waterfall when it was brand new show it pouring over a barren rock wall, but it looks much more exquisite now that it has grown travertine aprons like the older falls. I snorkeled back across the pool to get my phone. Along the way, I found an area about eight feet deep in the middle of the pool near the base of the waterfall. However, most of the pool was waist deep or shallower. Since my face was under the water, I almost swam directly beneath the waterfall without realizing it (that would have been a rude awakening). Cade had shown up by this point, and he was ready to go, since he did not want to miss a hot meal at the café tonight. I retrieved my camera and put it in my ghetto Lifeproof case (i.e., a Tupperware container) and got my pictures and videos from the middle of the pool (the video also includes the side angles from Tuesday).
I waded back to shore, and we headed back to the village around 4:45 PM. Along the way, we stopped at an uneventful area along the creek so I could change from my Vibrams back to my hiking boots. This portion of the trail was becoming a familiar walk, like when you’re at the beach and walk across the same path through the dunes every day to get down to the ocean. We got back to the village around 5:30 PM, just 30 minutes before the café closes. I got a grilled ham and cheese with a side (i.e., meal sized portion) of fries. When they say they close at 6 PM, they mean they leave the building then. I almost didn’t finish eating in time, and Cade had to bring his fries with him. When we got back to the lodge, the shower was cold once again. It was a nice evening, so I took a moment to stand on the deck outside and admire the canyon walls one last time.
The bats were fluttering about by this time, but they don’t really show up in the video.
I took my cold shower and tried to rest up for our big hike out of the canyon on Friday. I wasn't overly impressed with any one swimming hole today in terms of swimming hole functionality, but the aesthetics and sunny weather were enough for me to consider today a success. In other words, to follow up on my earlier statements, today was good enough to save the trip from being "just okay".
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Day 4:
My left knee was hurting when I got up on Friday morning. It was different than previous knee pain that I have experienced after long hikes. Normally the area just above the knee hurts, but today it was hurting underneath the knee cap and just below the knee. I remember feeling something pull in one of my legs yesterday when I kicked back too hard while swimming at Rock Falls or New Navajo Falls, so that may have had something to do with it. I was hoping it would feel better once I got up and moved around. The back of my throat was also feeling sore and scratchy, the way it does when I have a cold coming on. Cade suggested it might just be the dry desert air.
We ate breakfast at the café and headed back to our room to get our stuff and check out, and my knee didn’t feel any better. There was a line of people waiting for the helicopter, which only flies on certain days (Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and Monday, I believe), but I thought I could make it on foot. I have heard stories that the helicopter service is less than reliable, as they sometimes stop flying midday if the wind picks up. Plus, the service is mainly for tribal members and people who have official business in Supai, so tourists get lowest priority. I didn’t want to wait around and then have to start hiking in the afternoon if we got screwed out of a ride, plus it costs a pretty penny to use the chopper, so I figured I could make it with my hiking poles. Part of it was ego, though, as the helicopter seemed like the lazy way out (not that that's ever stopped me before).
I limped the whole way, using my poles sort of like crutches to take the weight off my knee. We took a lot more breaks going up than we did coming down. I finished off most of the bread and jerky we had brought down, but I saved the last little bit for the car so I wouldn’t get too thirsty before we got to the top. Also, today was the warmest day so far, with temperatures in the mid 80’s and no cloud cover, so it got hot as soon as the sun rose above the canyon walls (I kind of wished we could have traded today's warm sunny weather for Wednesday’s cool overcast weather). It was a pretty miserable slog through the desert as the canyon became shallower.
The helicopter was flying over us about every 10-15 minutes, and I would shout “lazy bitches!” each time it passed us. I have no idea how people do this in the middle of the summer when temperatures are in the 100’s (I hear they start hiking at 4 AM to avoid the midday heat). I could now see why the people we had passed on Tuesday looked like they were having none of it.
The worst part was the long, straight ascent from the center of Hualapai Canyon toward the switchbacks to the parking lot. The area was completely exposed with no shade, and the grade was pretty relentless for a hurt knee. I didn’t have as hard of a time with the switchbacks because Cade was feeling sick and had to stop frequently, and the switchbacks were partially shaded. There was a middle-aged couple who we kept passing. I remarked at one point that this wouldn't be that bad if my knee wasn't hurting. The wife said something like "join the club," and I noticed that the husband also had a hurt knee and was wearing a knee brace. We encountered quite a few mule trains here, and some of the mules looked weary and were having a hard time keeping pace. It also looked like quite a few of the mules had the skin chafed off the spots where the harnesses cover their rear-ends. I had heard about this kind of thing when researching this trip, which is why I opted not to use the pack mule service to carry my bag down.
As we were getting close to the top, a younger couple stopped us and asked about the hike. We asked if they had reservations, and they said no. I told them they should probably check with one of the rangers in the parking lot before they made the hike. They said they asked one of the tribal men on a horse, and all he told them was that the helicopter would take them down for $50. We explained that the rangers were pretty diligent about checking permits on the day we had hiked in, and that they would probably get turned away once they got to the village. We continued up the hill and left them to deliberate. I heard the guy trying to convince the girl to just keep going and see how far they could make it, but I don’t know what they ended up deciding to do. All I cared about was getting to the car. Just before the parking lot, we looked down at how far we had come. When we were at the bottom, the people on the switchbacks looked like tiny ants, which was less than encouraging. Now, the people and horses at the bottom of the canyon looked like tiny ants.
We reached the parking lot shortly after 1:30 PM. The hike had taken four hours and twelve minutes, according to my fitness tracker, which was forty minutes longer than it had taken us to hike in on Tuesday. I asked Cade to take a victory picture of me, but his first attempt was too early, which resulted in me looking like I’m about to pull out a pair of katana hiking poles to do battle.
And the victory shot!
After beating the dust off of our shoes and picking up a cold bottled water at the frybread tent, we headed back down Indian Road 18. I finished off the bread and jerky now that I had replenished my water supply. As we drove down the road, there were large grasshoppers all over the place.
When we passed back through Kingman, we stopped at a gas station to use the restroom, and standing up was agonizing. While we were there, I got a cotton candy crunch ice cream bar and some Laffy Taffy. As we approached Las Vegas, we stopped by the Hoover Dam and walked out on the large bridge that spans the gorge below the dam.
When we got to Las Vegas, we checked into The Palms. I wasn’t really planning on doing anything in Vegas, but Cade wanted to see the strip, and he thought this hotel would be nearby. It ended up being kind of far from the strip, and the casino was not exactly a happening hotspot. There were a few senior citizens and methy-looking people playing the slot machines and whatnot, but that was about it. The guy at the front desk “upgraded” our room from the one Cade had originally picked, which was supposed to be strip-facing, and our new room did not face the strip, which was kind of disappointing, although I was mostly too tired to care. We ended up just taking hot showers (at long last), eating at one of the restaurants, and going to bed. This was the first place we had stayed where the beds were actually comfortable (although not the pillows), but I woke up in the night because it was too hot, despite the thermostat being turned all the way down.
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This morning, we got breakfast, and Cade dropped me off at the airport around 7:45 AM (his flight didn’t leave until later). The flight back was not too bad; it was not full, so I had a window seat with an empty seat next to me.
My knee still hurts, and I am coughing with a stuffy nose, so I am pretty sure this is a cold and not just the dry desert air. I'm guessing I caught something on the flight to Las Vegas, and then the combination of over-exertion and repeatedly getting into cold water wore down my immune system. I kind of wish I had swallowed my pride and just forked over the money for the helicopter. I know Cade would have been up for it, and I'm sure my body would have thanked me later. I definitely did myself no favors by taking on that hike with the shape my knee was in.
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So, reflections. I was a little disappointed with the weather on the first half of the trip, but it was not enough to ruin the experience for me. I would much rather have had so/so weather and blue water than have it be warm with muddy water. The overcast weather on Wednesday did have the silver lining (so to speak) of allowing us to get some good waterfall pictures, which is difficult in the harsh contrast of light and shadow when the sun is out. I kind of wished we had gone in late May as initially planned, although I think high 70’s/low 80’s are typical for late September, so the weather we experienced was probably due more to an anomaly than the time of year we visited. However, most of the falls face north, so we probably would have gotten more sun time in late spring/early summer near the summer solstice. From a visual standpoint, I guess Havasupai was everything I hoped it would be, although I have seen so many pictures and videos of everything there that nothing was really surprising. Before the trip, I was slightly concerned that Havasupai was going to be so amazing that all other swimming holes would pale in comparison, and that I would be so “spoiled” by it that I would not be able to be impressed by any other swimming hole. In hindsight, I doubt that will be the case. While I’m not sure anything could ever be as epically gorgeous as the juxtaposition of the turquoise water and lush greenery against the red-orange canyon backdrop and exquisite travertine cliffs, the main appeal of the swimming holes themselves is the way they look. In terms of functionality, most of the pools I checked out are fairly shallow and not really suitable for jumping, and the high canyon walls block the sunlight for most of the day. Hidden Falls and Beaver Falls had deep swimming holes, but Hidden Falls and lower Beaver Falls had fairly strong currents. In my opinion, the best swimming area we checked out was the upper portion of Beaver Falls, which was basically a water playground with plenty of things to climb and explore. I regret that I didn’t get to spend more time there. If I ever come back, I would devote more time to Beaver Falls, and exploring the cascades and pools just upstream, as it looked like there were some good ones. We had also entertained the idea of hiking all the way to the Colorado River, which is 3-4 miles downstream of Beaver Falls, but we decided against that after the energy required just to make a round trip hike to Beaver Falls. However, I might try it in the future if I were staying at the campground, which is 2-3 miles closer to the river than the lodge. I’m not sure a return trip is high on my to-do list for the near future, as I have "seen it" at this point, but I would be up for going back as part of a larger group. The camping groups who were there mostly kept to themselves, but it seemed like a great setting to meet new friends and connect with people who share similar outdoor interests, sort of like an epic version of summer camp. I’ll admit that when I saw camping groups hanging out and getting to know each other, I kind of wanted to get in on that, being an extrovert and all.
I was expecting the area to be crawling with tourists, but it seemed like the place was well below full capacity (granted, this was during the week and at a less desirable time of the year). My guidebook (Exploring Havasupai: A Guide to the Heart of the Grand Canyon by Greg Witt) said that the crowds thin out after Labor Day, but that book was written before social media was quite as pervasive as it is today, so I was expecting the lodge and campground to both be booked solid at all times during non-winter. We also noticed that while there were people of all ages there, the majority of the tourists seemed to be middle-aged and/or international.
It’s difficult to reflect on the quality of this trip based purely on the swimming holes. Unlike your average swimming hole trek, this was a multi-day adventure in a remote canyon on a Native American reservation, which in some ways was like being in a neighboring country that has some but not total cultural overlap with your own. After reading other people’s trip reports about the non-existence of customer service and the tribal members being rude and unwelcoming toward tourists, I was worried (albeit somewhat mentally prepared) that I might be viewed as intrusive while I was there. However, I didn’t perceive any hostility or resentment from the tribal members. They seemed more or less indifferent toward tourists, like they were just doing their thing, and there happened to be tourists passing through town. I’m thinking many of the people who make them out to be rude or hostile are entitled pricks or people who are accustomed to “southern hospitality”, where not acting enthusiastic to be making pointless smalltalk about the weather is viewed as rude or anti-social. Many of the locals would nod or quietly say “hi” in passing, but none of them really seemed interested in getting into conversations with random strangers, which is understandable. I didn’t feel unwelcome or intrusive as I had feared, but more that my presence there was simply incidental. I guess the best way of putting it is that it was like being in a village of introverts who don’t pretend to be extroverts. Other things that seemed to be exaggerated in other people's trip reports were complaints about graffiti, stray dogs everywhere, panhandlers, etc. We never got panhandled, and there was some graffiti here and there (mostly on signs), but not in the natural areas. There were a few stray dogs (although it was unclear if some of them were just off-leash pets), but they were docile and almost never approached us. I wasn’t quite ready to leave, as the setting was starting to grow on me, but it was probably for the best that we headed out yesterday, given that my body and immune system seem to be jonesing for some R&R.
I can’t think of a better grand finale to swimming hole season than the ultimate swimming hole trek, so I guess that about wraps things up for this year. I definitely feel like I went out with a bang. I guess it’s time for me to go into hibernation so that my body (and my poor, poor wallet) can recover in time for next summer.