This trip is one of those “Once in a Lifetime” trips… We booked this trip with our great friends Jill and Justina. We flew to Phoenix, where they picked us up at the airport. We spent the afternoon hanging out with them and then we drove to Sedona where we had a great dinner and took in the breathtaking views.
We knew we needed to be up pretty early to drive to the Havasupai Trailhead to meet up with the group. We were there bright and early as we knew we had a 10 mile hike into the Falls. It began at about 8am and we were off… boy were we in for a treat.
Honestly the 8 miles into the village did not seem like 8 miles, the first 1/4 of the way was downhill and the rest was pretty flat through the creek beds and beautiful picturesque landscapes.
Can’t help but share these amazing photos of the landscape!
We made it to the village where we stopped and checked in with our group, BG Wild, who we would have dinners with, hike with, hangout with. It was a great group of folks who we got to know very well throughout the trip. From the village, it was another 2 miles or so into camp. This was still mostly downhill/flat area (we thought to ourselves, it was a good thing we got the helicopter ride out of the canyon). We came upon our first set of Falls and couldn’t believe what we were seeing. This was beautiful turquoise waters…
Right before our camp, Havasupai Falls showed all its glory to us. What a beautiful site this was..
We made it to camp and found our spot to set up our tent. This is a first come, first served area. BG Wild does have a group area where we all congregated for meals (#1 camp in Supai). The guide, Mikey, is a health nut who has his own Paleo food company, so he provided us with scrumptious breakfasts and dinners throughout the trip. The downside was that lunch was not provided, but when you are out on the trail all day, it is hard for them to provide you a lunch when you don’t all stay together. They do provide you with lots of snacks to take with you. The next day, we decided to take a long hike to Mooney Falls and beyond to Beaver Falls. When we arrived at the steps to descend to Mooney Falls, we didn’t realize that you would be descending down through rocks and ladders held on by chains. It was quite intimidating at times but was surely worth it to see the breathtaking views…
Once we made the full descent, we waded in the beautiful waters and got to know some of the other peeps in our group. We met two awesome chicks from San Francisco, Julie and Sophie and met an awesome couple, Jessica and Andrew from Colorado, along with a few others that were traveling as couples and as singles. Mikey our guide was a hoot, along with Marisa, the massage therapist.
We then continued on through the plush trees and landscapes that took us to Beaver Falls. We would have never guessed this amazing landscape could be in the middle of the Grand Canyon Basin.
Jill and Justina!
The evenings sitting around chatting with our new friends was surely a highlight of our trip. Getting to spend a few days with Jill and Justina and getting to know many new people was a treat. We listened to great stories and it was so nice to meet people from all over the US, who have now become great friends of ours.
The last evening, we thought it would be great to go take some night shots of Havasupai Falls. Come to find out, Ricky planned to propose to his long time girlfriend at the Falls that evening. Scott took some amazing night shots of the Falls.
Night Timelapse
Our last day was an early morning. We decided before the trip, that we would take a helicopter out of the canyon instead of hike back out. Come to find out, it is a first come, first serve to get a helicopter ride. We were up at about 4am to make the 2 mile hike to the village where we would stand in line to sign up for the helicopter (helicopter ride out of the canyon is approx 10 minute ride). We were pretty close to the front of the line when THE local that you sign up with showed up. This is when everyone swarmed him and that is when we realized that it is a free for all and there is no line. We ended up 4 pages back on the sign up sheet. We expected to be the 5th flight out, at most the 10th flight out of the village since we were so far up in line. It was a cluster and the biggest shit show ever. We ended up sitting around ALL DAY and not getting out of the canyon until about 3:30pm.
We still had to drive to Phoenix to make a flight back home. We ended up missing our flight but we were able to get on the later flight, thank goodness. The upside of missing our flight, we were able to hang out with Sophie and Julie at the airport for bit before our flight.
All in all, it was a great trip with great friends. Word to the wise…. Hike out of the canyon next time, you will make it faster than the helicopter, wear moleskin on your feet so you don’t get blisters and wear the best hiking boots possible so you don’t lose 3 toenails.
UPDATE: It is now November 2017 and my toenail has not fully recovered and is still growing back :/