Four Days in Havasu Canyon - Early April 2007

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Back to Index Page Written by Big John, dedicated to the Havasupai Tribe

Day One, or "Down the Drain"

I've been kicking around the southwest U.S. most of my life, mostly on a mountainbike but also on foot. People keep telling me that Supai is a great hiking destination so now it's time to see what the shouting is all about.

Supai is the one and only town of the Havasupai Tribe, numbering just a few hundred members. While their isolated location once required long difficult desert travel to reach, that same location near the Grand Canyon is now considered extremely nice to visit and the natives take full advantage of the fact. Several decades ago you could just go there for free, but the volume of visitors these days necessitates that I get a reservation (no pun intended) before making the trip.

I heard an old Kingman local relate how there was once an 'incident' at Supai, and it's said that this incident motivated the tribe to begin requiring reservations for visitors. It seems that in 1973 the hippies decided to have a 'love-in' at the main camping area, less than two miles from the sleepy, innocent town of Supai.

Well sir, sixteen hundred of them drug-addled Phreaks showed up, parading thru the town on the way in and out, not to mention what must have occured at the campground just downstream. The mind boggles.

Anyway, regardless of the actual cause the Havasupai currently charge a $35 USD entrance fee and $17 per day per person. There's also a $5 fee for trash removal but it's refunded if you tote out a bag o' trash when you leave. These fees don't seem excessive considering the glowing accounts I've been hearing about the place. We'll see.

No road can reach Supai deep in Havasu Canyon, but a paved road does exist that comes close. The preposition "close" in this case refers to a ten mile desert trail between the trailhead at Hualapai Hilltop and the town proper. It's not at all steep except for the first half mile, where it drops 500 feet qute rapidly. The rest of the trail has only a moderate to gentle slope, dropping a total of 1500 feet. I figure these wimpy grades will not matter nearly as much as the heat index, and the weather is still fairly cool so it's "all systems go."

Being close to the Grand Canyon always means some pretty spectacular scenery is in store, and I've been anticipating this early April trip with great impatience. Finally the date arrives and the 120 mile road trip from Kingman Arizona goes smoothly.

At the end of the Supai highway appears the oddest parking lot I've ever seen, perched high on a ledge above immense Hualapai Canyon. This "mere" side canyon connects directly into Havasu Canyon and apparently affords the closest road approach to Supai. However, you wouldn't know that from the look of the dry and extremely empty gorge yawning below the parked cars. I have to take it on faith that the clearly visible trail down really does lead to a town called Supai and not off into nothingness as it appears. This leap of faith is not terribly difficult while viewing all the hikers and Havasupai wranglers heading up and down the trail. The feel is similar to Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon but there's a much less majestic steep section to deal with this time.

It's a very long road haul to the nearest big town from here so any old cars that break down in the lot tend to stay in the lot. The alternatives are either a pricey tow job or running the junkers over the cliff. I sense that there would be "opposition" to having a big pile of wreckage in full view of the passersby, and like people everywhere the Havasupai are great procrastinators. Thus the sad old abandoned vehicles molder quietly, lurking here and there about the lot. Someday "critical mass" will occur and they'll all be dragged away, no doubt initiating another long period of junker-collecting.

Anyway, daylight is burning up so I clap the pack on my back and begin dropping towards the floor of Hualapai Canyon. I've eschewed both the indian pony rides and the regular helicopter ferry that operate near the parking lot because they cost too much, and besides that there happen to be a couple of 'fatty zones' that need a reduction.. um, locally.

Hualapai Hilltop is where the US road network meets up with the Havasupai trail network, and the juxtaposition of working cars and working horses at this one point is fascinating. The cars can't make it down the cliff and the horses take too long to get anywhere else, but together they link Supai to the outer world in a difficult but acceptable way. (the 'copters are a tourist luxury and cannot cheaply transport the same tonnage as do the wranglers and their ponies)

The descent to the bottom of Hualapai Canyon is no big deal and the easy walking continues as the trail follows the main watercourse down into a deepening cut. Some sand and gravel is evident here but it's minor and not worth worrying about. I can see tho that in the cruel heat of summer this walled-in slot canyon would be a lot like an oven during the day. Be warned.

Three or four miles go by as the local cliff walls get higher and higher. Occasional pack trains go by as well as hikers headed out. It's rather long and boring here, but it is quite pretty at least. The West is famous for incredible scenery, and incredible travel distances too. Out here we're accustomed to long long stretches of sand, rocks and gravel at all-too-regular intervals, so the Supai Trail makes me feel right at home. Sure wish Kingman was this awesome to look at tho...

After a while I feel it's time for lunch and settle beneath some nice shady trees for a strengthening repast. While seated there, a sudden sound of hoofbeats is heard echoing off the walls and I scan up the canyon for the cause. Seconds later an Indian (who seems to be in a big hurry) flies by, hustling his two pack ponies along at a canter. I bet they don't run in the daytime when summer comes!

With the inner slot canyon now cutting more than 100 feet down into the red rocks, a small section of moss-filled water basins appears on the trail. With all that four-footed traffic going past the waterhole I'm sure the local aquatic ecology is healthy, indeed perhaps a bit too healthy. That's okay, let the ponies have their fill. I'll subsist on my sequestered H₂0, thank you very much. Maybe someday when I'm dying of thirst...

Now the walls get even higher and the canyon bottom flattens out to a sandy/gravelly slog that eventually joins up with the main watercourse of Havasu Canyon. At the confluence with Havasu Canyon a running creek is evident and the serious sand action begins. Much of the time there's trailside berms to walk along but as the town gets closer the sand gets more prevalent and hard to avoid.

It's clear that Supai gets its water from this location far up the creek, as evidenced by the half-pipe waterway constructed parallel to the creek and running along near the trail. The creek is said to emerge from below ground just a short ways upstream from here, and I guess it does make sense for them to get their clean water at the source. Walking along, it's obvious that a lot of hard effort goes into keeping this water conduit in good condition.

A couple more flat but sandy miles brings a very wide area of the canyon into view, where Supai nestles between high redrock walls overlooked by its guardian rock spirits, the Wigleeva. There's enough room here for hundreds of Havasupai to spread out and raise their horses, which they do in great numbers.

The locals don't care to be photographed and there's even a rule against taking pictures of Havasupai children without the parent's permission. With all the camera toting visitors it must be like living in a fishbowl so who can blame them? I respect their wishes and don't show any such pics other than distant ones of the rough tough Indian wranglers working the main trail.

Passing down the 'main drag,' I spot a nice school and a public eatery. There's also supposed to be some rooms for rent, but I've heard these are very "rustic." Hardly surprising considering that all materials must be packed in on ponies or airlifted via helicopter. By the way, the copter ferry is coming and going fairly often and the noise is less than soothing. The landing pad is right in the middle of everything too. Oh well, I guess people can get used to anything.

There were supposed to be lots of dogs here and I do see a few, but they're not really interested in harassing visitors it appears. Probably the meaner ones are eliminated by the residents as being bad for business. Some minor litter is seen as well, but I bet most of it comes out of the pockets of inconsiderate tourists.

Some folks on the web have expressed dismay at what they found here, and it's true the houses are shoddy and there's some litter and dogs. It's possible that such views are the result of a sheltered life of pampered luxury, but from the language they use, these people are primarily upset that such a wonderful part of the Grand Canyon is not being "managed" very well.

I'm sorry for the bad experiences these folks have here, but I would also suggest that the fault is not really with Supai but with their own preconcieved ideas. Supai isn't very different than most other tiny burgs you find in the southwest; seedy, dusty and a bit squalid. It's a town, people, and the residents have been here much longer than most other towns in North America. Certainly long before Teddy Roosevelt had ever heard of the Grand Canyon.

Still, Supai does have a modern trash problem. There's just no easy way to get rid of it! Burning only works on paper and wood, but even then the smoke just lingers between the high walls in a rather nasty way. Campfires are forbidden for this very reason. There was a landfill here once, but a big flood decided to "redistribute" the garbage along the canyon. The campsite downstream apparenty absorbed the brunt of the man-made sediment and this impact on tourism raised quite a stink locally (sorry).

Horse-packing the trash out is not glamourous or lucrative work and the helicopters are rather expensive for that purpose. Thus visitors are paid cash money to carry out that bag o' trash. For the locals it must be an endless struggle against a rising tide of plastic wrappers...

There's slightly less than two miles left to go after leaving town, but a lot of it is sandy. Finally the top of Havasupai Falls appears with an impressive blue plunge pool at the bottom. The urge to jump is strong, but the drop is 100 feet and a hit like that would leave a mark. Plenty of others must have jumped in the past tho, because while I stand there a couple of rent-a-cops arrive riding an ATV to patrol the cliff edge above the pool and keep potiential organ donors from taking the final plunge.

Down below there's wads of people, mostly teenagers having a blast. And why not, I ask? The setting is magnificent and that's no exaggeration. High side walls hem in the canyon bottom and with the bright blue waters and green cottonwood trees it looks pretty darned good.

The intense blue color of the water is the result of white travertine rock lining the bottoms of all the pools in the canyon. This lime-based mineral is dissolved by underground water far upstream and gets carried along in the creek, tending to precipitate on any wet surface, particularly where it's exposed to evaporation. The end result after many millenia is a long series of bowls having built-up travertine edges that hold in the water. Try to picture hundreds of beautiful natural swimming pools interspersed with spectacular tall waterfalls amid towering cliffs and you'll get some idea.

Anyway I'm really tired from all that sand and it's time to look for a campsite, but all the ones near Havasu Falls appear to be full. Walking along, I discover that this stretched-out camp is a full half-mile long and hundreds of others are camped all along its length. Finally at the far end near the next falls I spot some marginal sites and claim one. I say marginal, but in this wonderland it's all pretty darned good.

After pitching the tent I wander down a ways to see Mooney Falls, but it's getting dark and there's plenty of time tomorrow.

Day Two, or "Lost in Paradise"

Next day the plan is to free-hike down the canyon to Beaver Falls at the Reservation edge and back up, just six miles in total. First tho, Mooney Falls must be negotiated to the bottom and it's more than 200 feet straight down. Here above the falls the side walls are about 300 feet high and mostly vertical too. Between them and the cliff forming the falls there is no natural route down at all, other than the way the water goes, ouch. In the past, the Havasupai used to follow a very long roundabout trail to get further downstream. The early white miners who came here looking for gold didn't know about that trail and so worked to force a descent trail into the overhanging travertine cliff itself.

It was while working on the trail that one miner named Mooney fell to his death, leaving his miner buddies no way to recover the body. Finally they asked the Indians and were shown the long indirect route. Even so, the miner's trail was completed and the falls named after you-know-who.

At all the big falls the travertine forms long vertical sheets hanging down from the cliff edges. The point on the cliff edge where the water goes over apparently does move sideways over the years, and the old travertine sheeting left behind when that happens then oxidizes to a medium-brown color.

At first the descent trail goes to the left side-wall and zig-zags steeply in the open, but that only gets me about fifty feet down the cliff. At that point the trail dives directly into the solid rock itself, slanting down sharply on slippery steps carved into the soft travertine tunnel. That's a bit scary, but not as scary as when it re-emerges thirty steps down, actually behind some of that overhanging travertine sheeting. The bottom is still 100 feet away and it's literally a vertical drop from this narrow ledge. I'm sure everyone is extremely grateful for some recently added iron posts and chains that hopefully prevent any little "accidents" here. Those miners must have been absolutely fearless!

Then it's back into another tunnel for yet more spooky, dark and slippery stairs. That tunnel then debouches into the open air about fifty feet above the pool, and the slope is no longer vertical. If I slip now there will definitely be a few bounces on the way down.

Again I find many iron posts and chains hung about strategically. Without them this trail would be extremely dangerous indeed, due to the way travertine becomes glassy smooth under heavy traffic. Plenty of kids and adults are going up and down and everyone is moving very very slowly, particularly when passing is necessary. No need for safety warnings; we all know what the deal is here, oy!

I'm not really bothered by heights but can't resist a deep breath upon reaching the safety of the plunge pool below the falls. The view of that pool while descending is heart-stoppingly beautiful, and it's even better standing near it and feeling the roar of the creek as it smacks down on that flat water. Fine spray is everywhere and so are a lot of wild kids scrambling all around. The big campground is only a short distance away but it feels like a completely different locale down here. For one thing the candy-wrapper litter in camp is almost completely missing, and only brave/foolhardy individuals can even make it this far.

Now it's off down the trail, passing yet more wonderful pools and low waterfalls. The day is gloomy with gathering rainclouds but even so I'm having a great time. Several times the trail crosses the creek and it can be tricky to see just where it does so. At one point I miss a crossing and go into an area of connected water bowls. I have to 'tightrope' along the high bowl-edges for quite a while, bracing with poles to insure the ankle-deep water rushing past doesn't sweep my feet away. It's slow going, but what a fun thing to do! I'm almost sorry when the main trail reappears again.

Large parts of this canyon section are choked with wild grapevines and the trail has to cut thru the waist-deep tangle. The impression of greeness combined with towering cliffs all around is overpowering, almost like being in a great natural cathedral. The soft cloud lighting creates an eerie out-of-focus mood, similar to an old Chinese painting.

Before reaching Beaver Falls I'm forced to climb up a short, difficult pitch using a thick hanging rope. I'm told this wasn't necessary in the past, but some flood must have shuffled things around so now only the very fit can get up the rope safely and continue on downcanyon. I look in vain for more huge waterfalls but Beaver Falls just can't stand up against the competition here. In any other place they would be most impressive.

Soon the Reservation boundary appears along with a sign indicating I'm entering Grand Canyon National Park. From here it's said to be seven or eight more amazing miles to the Colorado River. I'm not prepared to do that during this trip, but next time for sure!

So now it's back up the trail, with a light rain beginning to patter down. Normally I don't care for rain but this one cannot wash the smile from my face. Today has been something really special. No wonder so many people trudge so far to see it!

By the time I reach the camp the rain is beginning to taper off and soon enough everything dries out again. I try to make some friends while lounging in camp but ironically the crowding seems to prevent the easy camaraderie I've experienced in other remote camps. Oh well, can't be helped I guess.

Day Three, or "Burroing Out

This day I planned to go upcanyon and then out to the side somewhere, scouting for potiential future expeditions, but the allure of Mooney Falls is just too great and again I return there. To 'kill time' I test out the rope swing located just downstream from the plunge pool and discover that my inner child is not quite dead yet. I feel like I'm living inside a beer commercial! Wow.

There is said to be a cave directly behind Mooney Falls, but the very narrow water-level ledge leading around to it stops short just before reaching the cave and I don't feel like braving the deep and violent water near the point of impact. Besides, that water's cold! Too bad it's not summer yet...

Now it's time for another easy saunter down the canyon for a ways, and on returning there's a guy with a tripod trying to keep the mist off his gear long enough to get a good shot of the falls. He must be very dedicated to have toted that big tripod and camera all the way down here!

This particular falls is a difficult camera subject, in a very deep cut and facing north too. Once you get far away the huge walls leaning over it make the falls look small, but close up you get a very wide-screen view. It's definitely preferable to experience it in person if at all possible.

I do want to check out some side routes before dark and so head up past the camp and Havasu Falls to hidden Navaho Falls just below the town. Here there's a difficult-to-find route at the base of Navaho falls. The path goes along the bowl edges below the falls to the far side (west), where there's a solid rock chute that climbs up and out of the inner gorge. It's only a few minutes easy rock work up the route to a spendid wide canyon view. The lowering sun is spreading a golden glow over all the high points off into the distance and the inner gorge is a smallish dark crack down the center of that sublime golden-hued desert valley. It seems a shame to camp down there in the crack with all light and serenity up here.

A scratch trail certainly does run along this bench and it's supposed to travel above the gorge all the way to Beaver Falls. Looks like a great six mile round trip, but there's no time to do it today. I do however meet a young couple there who say they're going down to the Colorado and back tomorrow. Whoa, twenty semi-difficult miles! They do look very fit tho, so no doubt it will happen just as they say.

As we're chatting, one of them notices there's a couple of burros standing way up the debris slope above us, so we climb up there to say hi. The burros say nothing and actually look rather bored, so we leave them to their grazing and go back down into the gloomy gorge.

Tomorrow is exit day, alas.

Day Four, or "Paradise Lost"

In the wake of the mild weather front just passed, the temps are climbing and it's best to do the bulk of the trip out in the cool of the morning. Therefore the alarm goes off at a very ungodly hour. I'm not the fastest packer-upper in the West and don't reach Supai until 8AM. In the center of town the corral fences are continuous along both sides of the narrow street and I encounter a frisky young pony having an exciting time galloping around loose in that busy thoughfare. Other towns have stray dogs, but here it's stray horses. So where's the horse-catcher then?

The town's diner has opened for breakfast and since the temps don't seem too extreme I decide to hang about long enough to sample the local cuisine. It's actually pretty good stuff in an informal sort of way, and not at all expensive.

The building is very plain except for the inside of the front wall which has a big mural on it. Well, it's actually part painting and part sculpture, depicting the canyon walls around the town and featuring the two Wigleeva/standing columns high on the west canyon wall. I find it fascinating how the artist has personified those inert-but-balanced masses with 3-D faces and even cupped hands releasing the waters of the creek.

The Havasupai legends say that if the Wigleeva ever fall the canyon walls will close, ending local history for good. Geologists may consider the Wigleeva epheremal objects but to us short-lived organics they're practically eternal, barring a huge earthquake. In that case maybe the walls would close, mmm? Luckily this region is mostly free of the big quakes so common a few hundred miles west of here.

I'm told the sun-face over the door is actually a life mask made from the face of a respected tribal elder before he passed on some years ago.

Having loaded-up at the diner, I hit the trail hard. Well, that's not strictly true, since it's impossible to hit sand very hard at all. Anyway the miles begin to flow by and the morning is most enjoyable. Somewhere around the fourth mile a small hiking party comes along and a thirtyish woman with a few extra pounds plaintively asks how much farther it is to Supai. It breaks my heart to utter the words "You're about halfway," and the wretched look on her face confirms my fears. Well, at least she'll really enjoy it once she finally gets there, right?

Again the trail is busy with many hikers and pack trains, and once a couple of pack ponies trot by with an Indian running along behind! I query the reason as he goes by and he replies that there wasn't room for him to ride. I stand in awe of these Havasupai wranglers and the job they do, rain or shine, hot or cold, year in and year out. Wow.

The rest of the trip out is uneventful if just a bit on the hot side towards the end. That final switchback climb is pretty brutal and faces west too, so in summer a late afternoon encounter with it could become a real death march, especially after a long hot hike up from the sand.

Overall I enjoyed Supai immensely and will undertake more trips there in the future.
Just not in summer, that's all.

;-)

Big John
April 2007