Navajo and Rock Falls

Saturday was a little more mellow. Our hike was only about two miles. We went up to Navajo Falls. The pools that used to surround the falls are gone so there wasn't much swimming. But it was pretty.The spray and the wind from the falls were so cold, I couldn't even get that close. This is how I enjoy the falls....brrrrrr:I'm in the sun, it's 100 degrees and I'm still cold!


Later, I did brave up and go in further down the river, away from the wind and spray of any waterfalls! A photo to prove it:
(I got out almost immediately. I'm a wuss. Brrrr)

We were stopped for lunch after Navajo Falls, when we saw this guy jumping off Rock Falls. Um...buddy? Didja see the sign??

Never ones to be out-done... Craig, Dan, Chris and Christy all took the plunge. This picture is of Dan. I didn't manage to press the camera button correctly (it's a difficult task, you know) when Christy jumped, so she has no photo of it. Oops.
There is a ledge behind the waterfall that you could walk on - it was pretty awesome. Aimee is jumping and Christy is diving out of the waterfall:

I did this twice. I am scared of water and I wasn't really keen on jumping out of a waterfall, but I hate when people can do things I can't...and really how often do you get the chance to jump through a waterfall?? So, I did it. It was terrible. The weight of the water crashing down from the upper falls is so heavy that it pounds you deep into the pool. I hated it. But I did it again, so I could get a cool picture like this one. I jumped simultaneously with Aimee and Christy. Our timing did not match the photographer's though and there is no picture. But I did manage to land on Aimee and get tangled up with her under water, so it was doubly scary. Nope - not doing that again!

We stopped by Havasu Falls on the way home to cool down again. It was really, really hot.

I have no pics, but Aimee and Christy were very excited that one of the girls had some biodegradable soap and they were able to bathe! Me? Not so much! Have I mentioned how cold the spray and the wind from waterfalls are? Brrrrr!!!!

A Photographic Journey from Mooney Falls to Beaver Falls

Alternate Post Title: Holy Crap, This Post Is Long!!

On Friday, the group's mission was to explore Mooney Falls (1 mile from camp) and Beaver Falls (3 miles). Mooney Falls is at the far end of the campground. At the end of the campground you descend some natural stairs that leads into a little cave. This picture cracks me up because we are in this cool little cave, but Aimee, Christy and I are all more interested in our cameras.
Outside the cave, you come to a 200 foot cliff that overlooks the falls. Looking down...a very long way down.
Mooney Falls.And the only way to the falls is straight down. Let me rephrase that. It is Straight. Down. It starts with a tunnel entrance (I hope you're not claustrophobic) and a sign telling you that what you are doing is pretty stupid, but they know you are going to do it anyway, so you'd better be careful!

When you emerge from the tunnel, you're on a narrow ledge on the side of the cliff. And then, another tunnel and more Straight. Down. There are rebar hand-holds and chains to grab onto.

But, seriously, the descent is Straight. Down. At the end there is a ladder.It was super-fun!

Some of our group jumped directly into the pool surrounding the falls to cool down. The rest of us headed down the river to Beaver Falls, planning to swim at Mooney on the return trip.

The hike down the river was the absolute coolest hike I have ever done. There were many, many little waterfalls that mandated many, many river crossings to keep progressing. Some parts of the river were shallow and easy.
Other parts were deeper and faster and required lots of balance.
This looks like Christy and Aimee are playing hide 'n seek. :)

In some places there were a few different options to maneuver around the falls. This time Jess and Chris had the right idea, while the other seven of us took a more difficult route.
Posing with our new friends, Rob and Monica.
Rob was our "tall guy" that we'd send ahead on all river crosses to gauge how deep the water was.


We stopped at this waterfall/pool for lunch. There was a little cliff on the canyon wall where we sat to eat. While we were eating, the rest of our group caught up to us and we all swam and played in the waterfalls for a while.
After lunch we continued down the river. It seemed as if we had gone way past the two additional miles that Beaver Falls was advertised to be. The river was getting harder to cross. A lot of people had fallen in, getting cuts and scrapes, but no major injuries yet. Dark clouds were coming in, indicating a potential monsoon (or an isolated thunderstorm, Aimee!). There was some debate as to whether Beaver Falls still exists after last year's flood. Most of the group decided to turn around and return to camp.

Six of us continued on - me, Christy, David, Iren, Co-worker Nick and the lone non-Arizonan, Tom.

We kept going for an additional forever. It was beautiful.

Eventually we ran into some people coming up the river. We asked if we were getting near Beaver Falls. Their answer was yes and they let us know to cross the river one more time and then look for a palm tree. "Go under the palm tree and then you have to go up a rope." He looked us over and deemed us all in good enough shape to continue. He wished us luck.

We didn't cross the river soon enough and our "trail" went up, up, up and then we reached this dead-end on a cliff.

We went back down and crossed the river - this time it was at a pretty high, fast moving waterfall. I was a little nervous, but we all made it. And there was the palm tree! The only one in the canyon. And we went under it...and there was the rope.

Up the rope we went. I felt like we were making Goonies II. After the rope we went up this steep incline.

We traveled along the top of the canyon wall for a ways and finally saw this:
Beaver Falls!! It was still there, though more like 4 miles from the campground! It took us some scouting to find a safe way down the canyon wall, but eventually we got there.

We climbed on and in the falls and swam in the pools for awhile. It was awesome! We were very proud to have made it.




It was getting late in the day and though the sky seemed less threatening, you just never know during monsoon season in Arizona...so we left the falls and headed back to camp.

Back up the canyon wall...

Back down the rope...
We decided to take the trail rather than the river back.
We saw these...ummm...critters...?? across the river. I should really know what kind of animal this is, but I don't!
Parts of the trail were very tropical.

Seriously tall foliage.

The trail crossed the river a few times and was sometimes difficult to find again. At one point on the river we came to this waterfall. We knew the trail was at the top of the waterfall from our outbound trip. The most direct way back to the trail was to climb up the waterfall:

We finally made it back to Mooney Falls. It was too late for any more swimming, but we did get one last photo.

The Perils of the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon trip was not without its share of perils. Maybe this? Those horns could really hurt!!
Or maybe this snake slithering around right by our portion of the creek?

Nope! Those things are not dangerous at all! The REAL perils of the trip are these - a backpack, peanut butter and jelly, sand and pretty waterfalls!

The excessively EVIL pack:
The very dangerous PB&J:

Heavy packs loaded with too much PB&J caused hip injuries such as this one (my injury wasn't quite so visible, so here is Aimee's):

Public Enemy #1: Deep sand!

The really deep sand kept getting into my shoe as I shuffled along the trail. I knew I was getting a blister as the sand got caught in my sock and kept rubbing against the side of my heel. But I had no idea I was going to get TWO blisters, one large, one small - right on top of each other. Ouch! Frickin' sand!

And aren't these little tiny waterfalls pretty? Cute as a button? Don't be fooled. DANGER AHEAD!

If you slip while crossing (which these 3 girls did), you will end up with a scraped and bruised left knee!

I also fell while crossing the falls, but I injured my right calf, so I didn't get to be in the picture. My fall was pretty spectacular though. One false step and I went plunging chin-high into the water, submerging my camera. I got out quickly enough that the water didn't penetrate the case though! I was a little shaken up from the fall and on my next step, fell in again! :) Waterfalls are dangerous, I'm telling you!!

The Adventure Begins...(it's just a big hole in the ground, right?)

The Grand Canyon trip started at my house, short four people. Two people were meeting us in Seligman and two people missed their flight from Newark. They spent the day in the airport shuffling from stand-by list to stand-by list, finally making it into Phoenix 12 hours late.



The plan was to leave Phoenix at 3:30 pm. Yeah, right...get a group of 18 16 people to leave on time? Ha! Well, you might think that until you experienced this particular group of people. We left closer to 3:00 pm! AHEAD OF SCHEDULE! It was pretty much a sign of things to come. I cannot believe how cooperative and easy-going this group of people was for the entire trip!

On the way to Seligman we experienced some typical Arizona monsoon weather - rain, wind, etc. Our car also experienced this very atypical tornado? Alien dust devil? Microburst? I have no idea what it was, but the picture doesn't do it justice. It glowed like a reflection on glass (which is what I thought it was at first - just an optical illusion from my window). It went from the ground all the way up to that black cloud. It was bizarre.
We stayed at the Canyon Lodge in Seligman. If you ever do this trip, you should stay there. The owner guy was very accommodating (he opened up the continental breakfast til 10:00 at night so we could stash some food in our room) and the beds were really comfy. He also recommended a yummy restaurant that would give us 10% off. This is the grown-ups table:

And this is the kids table:

We were scheduled to leave at 4:00 am on Thursday morning. Aimee got up at 3:00, Christy at 3:15 and I got up at 3:30. I figured there was no need for a shower just to get really dirty for the next four days! We were entirely too cheerful for 3:30 am:

The drive to the trailhead was approximately an hour and a half or so. We parked and started to load up. This process took a little longer than necessary, but we still started the hike on time. Finally, all 20 of us together:

(front: Rob, Kris, Aimee, Monica, Jess, Tom
back: Laura, Iren, David, Dan, Liz, Kate, Marianne, Justin, Nick, Christy, me, Craig, Jeff, Chris)

I won the award for highest pack weight to body weight ratio. It was really terrible. I went through my bag the night before and took out a bunch of food and half my clothes and my pack still weighed 45 pounds. I was starting to wonder if I really needed so much water?? This picture is not just of my pack...look closely and you can see my little head. This was me trying to put the pack back on after my last nervous-pee stop. Instead of anyone helping me, they just took pictures, pointed and laughed.


The trail started here:I don't have any pictures of Christy and I starting the hike, because I was too impatient to get going. Christy, Aimee, Dan and I were the first to depart. Within minutes Christy and I ditched Aimee and Dan (sorry, guys) and within minutes of that were overtaken by Craig and Nick. With the exception of those two boys, we didn't see anyone from our group for the next four hours.

The hike was so very painful. My pack was too heavy and just a tiny bit too big. It didn't sit right on my hips - it was just a little too low putting too much weight on my hips and legs. I felt like I was wearing a hip corset. I could barely lift my feet. Shuffling was really the only option. Any time I had to take a step higher or lower than six inches, I got searing pains in my hips and my legs protested. It was miserable. Christy had the opposite problem. Her bag was not really a backpacking backpack and she had to carry the whole thing on her back with none of weight on her hips and legs. Yet, despite our pain, we kept up as fast a pace as possible. We were lucky that the day was overcast, so it wasn't too hot.

The worst part about the bags was that we were unable to look around while we hiked. If I looked up, I would tip over backwards. If I looked to the side, I would tip in that direction. So, pretty much we only saw the dirt and rocks we were walking on. We didn't take hardly any pictures - it was just too painful to stop. Eventually we caught up with Craig and Nick who had stopped for a snack. We took the pain and took this picture:
This is the only other decent picture I managed to get on the way down. Since they were below me, I didn't have to look up to take it. :)

The trail kept going and going. I thought we'd never get there. We eventually got to the village (8 miles in) where we stopped to pay the camping fees and, most importantly, immediately booked a mule to carry our bags out of the canyon on the return trip. I was determined to see this big hole in the ground and it obviously wasn't going to happen with my backpack on!! Hurray, mules! My new favorite animal!!

The campground is two miles past the village. These two miles were the worst of all. The sun came out, bringing with it the heat. The trail was super-thick dirt. I was getting a blister. My hips were screaming at me in protest. Christy's back was screaming at her so loudly, even I could hear it. But we kept going...and going...and going to the refrain of "Owie. Owie. Owie." and the silver lining refrain of "Yay, mules. Yay, mules. Yay, mules."

And then we round a corner and we see this:
Holy God! It was so amazing. I wanted nothing more than to jump in that pool and never get out. But sadly, we had to trudge past it to get to the campground. We were still with Craig and Nick and we sort of celebrated our victory of being the fastest hikers down. Including the half hour we spent in the village waiting to pay for the campsite, the trip down took about four hours. Most exciting was that Christy and I didn't die from the pain! What troupers we are!! Yay, us!

We picked a decent campsite, ate lunch, set up our tents and waited for the rest of the group. Within an hour, most of our folks were there. Eventually, we all took off to swim and explore Havasu Falls. Dang, it's beautiful!!Swimming was my intention, anyway. The sun had gone under again and the spray and wind from the falls were so frickin' chilly (this is how swamp coolers work in the desert!) that I couldn't bring myself to get in the cold, cold water. I'm a wuss. Everyone else swam and got clean, though.
After Havasu Falls, most of the group went back to camp and relaxed. Christy and I aren't so good at the relaxing thing, so we decided to go hiking. The 10 miles we'd already done apparently weren't enough. We went back up towards the village and checked out Navajo Falls (in the background) and the newly formed Rock Falls in the foreground. You can see that the tribe is still doing a lot of clean up work from the big flood last August.A closer look at the new Rock Falls, which were created by the flood. They aren't even listed on the Havasupai website yet. We only know the name because there is a hand painted sign posted at the top (you can see it behind my butt):
We didn't explore too thoroughly because we knew we'd be back to spend a day doing just that, and when you're stuck in a big hole in the ground, you need to divvy up your entertainment carefully!

This doggie was doing some thorough exploration:
There are lots of dogs wandering the trail, the village and the campground. They are nice dogs, but they aren't really very interested in people. They pretty much just co-exist with the campers. It was comforting, however, to have lots of dogs nearby! Felt just like home!