We Survived Havasupai!

A week ago Trent and I left the kids with my parents and headed to Arizona to hike into Havasupai. Being with the kids 24-7 I was ready for a break. Imagine my surprise then, when I started missing them 5 miles down the road. Darn kids.
We drove straight through the 12 hour drive taking turns resting and listening to books on tape. We passed over the Hoover Dam--neither of us had ever been to see it-- and were amazed by the new bridge they have constructed there. It was so big it made us dizzy to look up at it.We got to the trail head at about 11 pm and slept in the car so that we could get an early start in the morning. We started our hike down around 8 am. The sun was just lighting the sky and it was cool. It was my first time backpacking so the first couple of miles I had to get used to the 30 lb pack on my back. My arm kept going numb. But eventually I stopped noticeing the dead arm as my feet and butt and legs started making protests. By the time we reached the village I was done. I think we both were. It was just past noon and the sun was hot. Too bad we still had 2 more miles to camp. They were the longest 2 miles EVER! But at the end was a most beautiful waterfall, and more importantly, camp. We set up the tent and I collapsed for a few hours while Trent went exploring. Needless to say, the place was worth the hike. The campground was surrounded by streams of clear, blue water on both sides and it was between the main falls and, further down, another waterfall. The canyon walls shaded the camp nicely and we were right by the natural spring that supplied drinking water. We had a nice dinner of freeze dried spaghetti and went to bed around 8 pm. The next day we played in the falls. Our favorite was Rock falls. Trent, against the advice of his loving wife, jumped off the top of the falls.

His most daring wife jumped through the falls from behind. It was paradise. Later in the day we hiked down to Moony Falls. We almost died. The hike down was almost straight down at points with nothing keeping you from falling to your death other than chains attached to the mountain. You also had to go through tunnels and down some sketchy ladders (missing rungs and not secured to anything). But we made it and it was sooo worth it! Moony falls is breath-taking! It is so tall and standing at the bottom, it just mists you. The water is a light blue, and against the white bottom (from lime deposits), it looks like blue kool-aid. The next morning we got up at 4 am, ate a quick breakfast, packed up camp, and got on our way. We hike for a few hours with head lamps and then the sun started coming up. Trent had gotten 7 big blisters on his feet on the way down so he was having a pickle of a time hiking back up. His feet were killing him. I was so determined to get out of that canyon before the sun hit us that I cruised as fast as I could. We only hit sun the last 2 miles but still wished that we had left earlier in the morning so we didn't have to hit any. 10 miles and 5 1/2 hours later, we made it out of the canyon and have never been so relieved to see our air conditioned car sitting there. We are now proud to say that we survived Havasupai. It will be a while before I strap a huge backpack to my back again. Thanks for the adventure, Trent!