Havasupai was amazing! we left thursday after aaron & jen got off work. so it was about 3:30pm. we drove to kingsman and were going to stay in a hotel there, but decided to keep driving and ended up staying in peach springs. the hotel there was seriously over-priced but we didn't know of another stop before the trailhead (hualapai hilltop)
we woke up around 4:30-5am friday morning and drove the rest of the way to hualapai hilltop. the hike in was amazing. it took us about 8 hours (we figured cause we didn't have a watch & lost service on our phones) to get to the campsite from the top of the grand canyon, but it was amazing. pictures are posted on facebook.
from the top of the trail to the village is roughly 8 miles. you have to hike in and pay your fees at the village and then hike about 2 miles to the campgrounds (saturday morning they actually had a ranger come and check tags) we were all pretty beat from an all day hike so for the rest of friday we played in the havasu falls and then played blackjack until the mosquitoes ate us alive. and we went to bed about the time it got dark.
saturday morning we woke up with the sun and went hiking (without our packs) to the different falls. we did about 6 miles round trip with visiting mooney falls and beaver falls. if we had wanted to go another 8 miles, we could have made it all the way to the colorado river and back. somehow we just didn't want to do that :)
i couldn't believe how green and rain forest like it was in the middle of the desert. everywhere the river and falls were, it was green and jen said it looked a lot like hawaii. there were some spots where we had to take off our boots to cross the river to stay on the trail. it was beautiful. again pictures are on facebook. i know i need to just get some on here, but i can't figure it out... something about being technology handicapped...
anyway, when we got back from hiking on saturday, we were all pretty beat again, but didn't want to stay outside our tents cause the mosquitoes. it seemed like the more bug spray we sprayed, the more mosquitoes would come and eat us. so we didn't hang outside our tents a whole lot. we ate dinner and went to bed. we woke up about 3am sunday morning and packed up camp. we wanted to not get stuck hiking in the heat as we had coming in. it took us about 5 1/2 hours to hike out. we got to see the sun rise and were so happy to see the jeep.
there was a point on the last 2 miles ish out that zach & i got stopped by cows being herded in. the cows wouldn't move, so we had to wait to hike up the trail cause the cowboys couldn't get the herd moving. it was irritating, but i was kinda grateful for the delay cause i was getting worn out. i should mention that the first part hiking in is all switchbacks down. of course cause you have to get into the canyon. so that make the last part hiking out all switchbacks up. not easy switchbacks either... ones with big wooden steps and fairly steep. not to also add to the equation your packs which weigh between 30-45 lbs. it almost killed me. but i survived!
next time we go, i think we will save a little more money and pay to ride a horse in or helicopter in. but if you helicopter in, you miss a lot of the view. so i think i will pay to ride a horse in. there is a spring there to get fresh water from. they do recommend filtering it, but we didn't and all of us seem to be fine. the port-o-johns weren't too bad, but they did smell like an outhouse. all of us got blisters. i don't think it matters how broke in your hiking boots are, i think if you hike that long with that much weight on you, you will get blisters. i would also recommend taking as little as possible or things that don't weigh much. we over shot a little and ended up hauling out a fair amount of our food. we just didn't eat as much as we thought we would. i think it was the heat. you don't eat as much when it is hot outside.
all in all it was an amazing experience and i would do it again for sure. i do recommend starting on the hike as early as possible and make sure you have enough water to get in and out. there is no water at the trail head, and there is only the spring in the campground and a faucet at the check-in. depending on the time of day, there is an indian that sells cold drinks and snacks at the trail head, but if they aren't open, you are out of luck. not to mention it is expensive.
so that is pretty much all that has been going on here. not a whole lot else has happened. i finally got a work uniform shirt. i feel like it is more like the old school star trek shirts the women wore. but it is light weight and i don't have to wear a tank top under it. (i did with my school shirts cause they were too short) i've had some really stinky clients. and by stinky i mean smell like chain smokers and bad body odors. i about threw up on one client cause he smelled so bad and wanted aromatherapy on top of it. mix b.o., cigarettes, and aromatherapy....equals barf on client. it wasn't a good night. thankfully i didn't puke on him, but i really came close.
then i had a lady who i think had digestive problems cause when i started working her muscles, the unmistakable smell of poo came out of her pores. and i had another client who just had really bad body odor and really bad breath and wouldn't breathe through his nose. it has been a weird couple of work days since i got back from only taking a week off of work. i usually work monday, wednesday, friday, and saturdays. and boy oh boy was i glad i took the monday after havasupai off. i couldn't hardly walk. well, i can't think of anything else right now so i will leave you until next time :)
