Havasupai is a not-so-well kept secret when it comes to the hiking community. The reservation system is notorious, so in the end, getting reservations to do the hike is more commendable than actually doing it! On a February morning in 2019, a group of us sat down at 6 AM to conquer the reservation system. Two hours and hundreds of refreshes later, all of us had given up except for SB. She kept at it for another hour and finally scored a reservation, albeit for a whole year later, Feb 2020. Now that we’re done with the prologue, let’s head on to the main story 😀
When I looked at the pictures from Havasupai on the internet, I was pretty convinced that it had to be photoshopped. I mean, turquoise blue waterfalls with a backdrop of striking red canyons? How was this place not on every person’s bucket list if this were real?! The fact that you need to hike around 11 miles to get to the campsite and the terrible reservation system seemed to be the two biggest deterrents. If you’re in decent shape and have a sea of grit, determination and patience like SB, you’re truly lucky to witness this otherwordly beauty!
Day 1:
The easiest way to get to Havasupai is from Phoenix, AZ. It’s a 5 hour drive from the airport, so we stayed overnight at Grand Canyon Caverns Inn and started the drive around 5 AM in the morning to reach the Hualapai Hilltop. We parked our car, gathered our gear and started our hike around 7 AM. The first time I laid my eyes on Havasu Falls, it really took my breath away! It was indeed as glorious as it looked in all the pics on the internet plus more! We had to hurry to set up camp, so we vowed to return soon and continued walking. With decent amount of rest stops and owing to our not-so-fast pace, we reached the campground around 4 PM. The campsites here are first-come-first-serve, so by the time we were ready to set up camp, all the good ones had already been taken. We picked a campsite at the far end of the campground, which was basically an island connected to the main campground with a log of wood 😀 What my friends did not know was the fact that Mooney falls was a mere 0.5 miles away and a flash flood would send our tents 200ft down. I kept this precious piece of information to myself since there were other tents set up at the same level of precariousness and spent the night listening to any indication of floods a.k.a sleepless 😀
Day 2:
The second day we started off in the morning to go explore Mooney falls and Beaver Falls. Like I mentioned, Mooney Falls was very close to our campsite. Once all my friends got to know this, our first priority that night was to shift our camp to a safer spot 😀 We climbed up through a very narrow cave on the side of the falls to get a side view (coz why not) and spent a few hours here. Then we continued our hike through red canyons to beaver falls. Once you get to the campsite, there is no place you can go which is not scenic, because the turquoise waters follows you EVERYWHERE and you can never grow tired of it. The landscape throughout was completely unique – Full size Date Palm trees jutting out of red canyon walls with turquoise waters serving as the backdrop. It was a treat to the eyes! And just when I had thought this landscape couldn’t get any better, Beaver Falls proved me wrong. The sight was reminiscent of the salt pools in Pamukkale, Turkey but better because of the red canyon walls. This was compounded by the fact that these are freshwater pools where you can wash down your worries and there are hardly any people around you. We spent a good amount of time walking around these pools and taking a million pictures from each angle because we just couldn’t get enough of it.
Day 3:
We started this day with just one plan in place – spend all day lazing around Havasu Falls – and executed it to a T 😀 Since we went in February, the water was too chilly for my liking to dunk myself completely. So I spent the day immersing myself to a comfortable level (knee deep :D) and sitting by the banks admiring the views while chewing on granola bars. The last time I saw such turquoise waters, I had to travel half way around the globe and go canyoneering through a tropical forest in the Philippines to get there. This place is much more accessible and offers almost the same experience* (*if you manage to get a reservation that is) for a fraction of the cost and effort. We also hiked out a little farther to check out some smaller waterfalls like Fifty foot falls and Lower Navajo falls which were your average Joe after seeing the magnificence of Havasu. This was our last full day in the canyon since we had to hike out the next morning, so we packed our stuff and called it a night.
The last day was basically just hiking out the 13 miles back to our car. Lucky for us, they had a helicopter that was going out of the canyon that morning and they agreed to take us along for a fee, so a couple of us took that option. It was a fun ride through the winding canyon walls, which took about 30 mins tops as opposed to an entire day of hiking out in the sun with your backpacks. Back in the car, we napped till the ones who were walking back by foot joined us and bid farewell to this hidden slice of paradise!
P.S We hiked out on March 2, 2020 and we were the last set of people to do the hike until 2023 when they finally opened it up to public. After we got back to land without having any connection to the outside world for 5 days, Corona had blown up the world completely and changed the way we lived!
Until next time,
Mal
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