HAVASUPAI

2/22/18

The last 3 days have been amazing! For a few years now I have dreamed of going to Havasupai Falls in Arizona. It's a waterfall in the desert. It requires a 10 mile hike in and 10 miles out. It is located on the Hualapai Indian Reservation and so the only way to get in to see the falls is with a special permit. Permits go on sale February 1 at 8am and typically sell out for the entire year within a few hours or by the end of the day.

I forgot, of course, about that blessed time frame... so I figured when I looked on February 3rd that there would be absolutely no permits left. When I logged on, however, there were a couple dates remaining in February! (I guess people didn't feel so inclined to backpack in February...)

Backpacking and camping in February? Are we crazy!?!? Well, it's a once in a lifetime (maybe twice) experience. So, I did the impulsive thing and bought permits for Ryan and I with only a week or two notice to jump into this adventure.

We took off work and spent some time in Arizona. It worked out well because a huge storm hit Utah on the 19th and it was only 10ºF when we left for our trip a little more down south.

We're missing the freezing cold! Yes! (or so we thought...)

We've been so blessed already in our travel. It's about a 1o to 12 hour drive to get to the trailhead for the Falls from our home, so we broke up the drive over 2 days. 12 hours can feel like a really long time to be in a car, but Ryan doesn't make it feel so long ;)

He's a wonderful travel buddy.

We drove 4 hours to St. George (which actually took us about 5 hours in reality, despite what google said, because of the huge snow storms). It snowed our entire drive down. We kept wondering when it would stop, and got kind of worried as we reached St. George because it was still snowing. (St. George doesn't usually get much snow). Would it be snowing in Havasupai? We hoped not!

We were also worried that Beaver might be closed because of the weather, and that is the only way to get to St. George. The roads were VERY bad! We saw several cars that had slid off the road.

I was grateful we had decided to drive our Toyota RAV4 which had 4wheel drive instead of Ryan's Pontiac. 4wheel drive has made all the difference for our safety!

We hit a little patch of ice, but it didn't shake us out of our lane.

Hooray for 4wheel drive and careful driving!

Heavenly Father has watched over and protected us.

We stayed with our dear friends in St. George the Capiks. They were so sweet to host us. I miss them being our neighbors. The Capiks were so cute and packed us little lunches and snack baggies for our travel the next day.

In the morning we left and drove to Vegas. We stopped in Vegas the to see the Titanic exhibit. What AMAZING lessons we learn from the historical and sad sinking of the Titanic. There were so many warning signs and yet the Titanic went on. Many people ignored the warning signs because the Titanic was unsinkable. I think there are so many messages for our lives in this real world event. Heavenly Father is sending us signs, messages, communication all the time. If we ignore the promptings that He sends us, then there can sometimes be disastrous results. We shouldn't push forward in pride convinced that we're unsinkable.

At the start of the exhibit we were given a "boarding pass" with the name and story of someone who was on the Titanic when it embarked and eventually sunk. My woman was from India, traveling alone, coming to visit her sick mother in the Americas. She was hoping to see her mother once last time before her mother passed away. This woman was Miss Annie C. Funk.

I felt connected to this woman as I learned about her. She was a forward thinker. She opened a school in India for girls to educate them when she realized that they had little to no educational opportunities. She taught them herself. At the end of the exhibit there was a wall listing all the passengers names and whether they survived the sinking or not. Annie C. Funk did not survive.

Ryan also received a boarding pass with a man by the last name of Straus. He did not service either, neither did his wife or his manservant that were with him, but his maid did survive.

It was so sad to finish the exhibit and see all the lives that were lost! So many families and many needless deaths. A lot of crew members and 3rd class voyagers were listed among the deceased.

One thing that shocked me in the exhibit was all the craftsmanship of especially simple, seemingly worthless items. 80 years after the sinking of the Titanic, divers began pulling up her artifacts from the ocean floor. People on board the Titanic had their own custom handmade bags, decanters, tea sets, beauty and jewelry boxes, cuff links, dishes, etc. It's odd to think that in that day you would pack your dishes or your tea set; I would never put those in my luggage today!

Today these items are so common, mass produced, and ordinary that you wouldn't value them as expensive items. They were, however, for these people; and clearly they were prized possessions.

The museum was set up in such a way that you felt like you were on the Titanic. You could stroll along the deck underneath the stars in 1st class, climb the grand staircase, see the 1st and 3rd class bunkers, and they even simulated the noises that you would have heard had you been aboard the Titanic. There was even an iceberg that you could touch, with a plaque below describing how the water would have been colder than the feel of the iceberg because it was salt water. (Meaning temperatures have to be even lower for the water to be able to freeze into an iceberg). It was cold.

Many people died of hypothermia instead of drowning.

There was a piece of the ship called the Big Piece that they had pulled up from the ocean floor using cranes. The first time they tried to pull it up it was so heavy that the chains broke and it fell 2.5 miles back to the ocean floor. It was amazing to see so huge and heavy MASSIVE cranes that were used to pull it out. The Titanic was intricate and painstakingly designed.

There was another beautiful blessing that we were blessed with to see the Titanic exhibit. We were able to park for FREE because Ryan is military. I didn't particularly love Vegas (as I never do) but the exhibit was awesome.

Vegas is a place where people go to lose themselves. In Havasu I felt I could really find and connect with who I am.

We left Vegas and continued our drive, which is BEAUTIFUL through the canyons. We passed Lake Mead, drove across the Indian reservation, and stopped at Peach Springs for our final gas stop (it is the last one available before reaching the trailhead. You don't want to get stuck out in the middle of the desert without any gas). From Peach Springs we drove 60 miles to the trailhead.

At one point we walked into the gas station on the reservation and school had just gotten out so lots of kids and teens swarmed the store to get snacks. We felt like the odd ones out and got quite a lot of stares. I think it's important to venture out into other cultures and to experience being a minority, especially since I don't know what that feels like most of the time.

Once we reached the trailhead we car camped in the parking lot up above the canyon and OH MY GOSH!!!! IT WAS FREEZING!!! Coldest sleep of my entire life.

Literally, at one point we were scraping ice off of the inside of our car. We literally slept inside of a freezer. Around 2am I woke up because... well, nature calls... and yeah, that was cold.

Lots of cold experiences here!

When we looked at our temperature gauge it was about 18-20ºF, but it felt so much colder because of the incredibly violent winds. Come morning, we were READY to get moving.

I cooked up some oatmeal for breakfast with our pocket rocket, as well as a smoothie mix and some trail mix. We geared up and off we started!

Down the switchbacks all bundled up because its as still freezing in February. This has been the most amazing and gorgeous sightseeing experience. I've never seen anything so beautiful and all 10 miles were like that!

There wasn't a dull spot.

It was all gorgeous. We were so blessed to be there. I only made one poor decision... hiking in my Sorel snow boots. I ended up with some gnarly blisters. I had hiking shoes but I left them in the car because it was so cold I thought I would want my boots the whole time. Once we actually got down in to the canyon, though, it warmed up quite a bit. My feet got too hot and sweaty.

We passed a few of the mule trains and lots of wonderful people on our way in. The most wonderful people in the world are dog people and backpackers!

One band of Mexican brothers who passed us was hilarious to overhear. I overheard them in their Spanish accents as one of them said, "Hey bro, can you imagine coming here in the summer? Man, you hike this in July... you'd have to hike naked! ... with an umbrella..."

We loved our hike and the water at Havasupai was so blue. Once we reached the falls my feet were tired and my knees were hurting. We stopped at Navajo Falls and I made us some smoked salmon burrito wraps. They were so delicious after that long hike!

Everything tastes better when you've just worked for it.

We were so blessed by beautiful scenery and it wasn't too hot. People even took photos for us along the way. At times we didn't see people for an hour or two while we were hiking, but it never felt crowded.

We loved getting fried bread at the bottom of the canyon. Dinner in the campgrounds was lovely and we were grateful for flushing toilets in the village.

We took 6 hours to hike in and 5 to hike out. My pack was about 35-40 lbs, hefty but doable. (When you're a little person like me this was about 1/3 of my weight so I couldn't carry much more). It was too chilly for us to swim in the waters at Havasupai, but they were beautiful to look at and enjoy. Some people took polar plunges, but not us.

2/24/2018

On our way hiking out we packed with a gentleman from Boliva named Javier for a little while. He was so kind to us and got some cool pictures of us coming up the switchbacks which he shared to us. Another little blessing! He was so much fun to chat with while we walked.

This has been a wonderful getaway. My body definitely feels like I've been hit with a semi-truck (curse my bad knees!), but it was all worth it.

I can't believe the pain in my calves! It was only 20 miles, but I've been walking as if I got off a horse all day. (Granted, it was 20 miles with a heavy pack with some uphill and downhill, which my body isn't used to, but still!)

The switchbacks were KILLER--about 2 miles of straight uphill at the very end. You can see the little office at the hilltop and you think, I'm almost there! But then there's a long push with intense effort at the very end. All worth it for the beautiful sunset.

Our hike got me thinking a lot about enduring to the end. Even though there are parts of our journey that will be more taxing or challenging that others, even though some stretches of our lives may require greater or slower speed, the journey is beautiful and it's not only about the destination. I think we all can improve on enjoying the moments and being less future fixated.

It's sometimes hard to focus being happy now when we're so focused on being happy then--at some point in the future. There is so much to be happy about now. The final destination is important, enjoyable, and worth looking forward to, but this life is not only about reaching our final destination. It's also about enjoying the path that gets us there.

When we made it out of the canyon, we started to drive towards flagstaff. Our hope was to car camp and then spend 1-2 days seeing the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately... there was satan snow (the kind that slowly plunges you into hell). It hit the roads and we froze. We didn't really feel like sleeping in a freezer again... so we pulled off the road and stayed in a little motel on Route 55. It was so quaint and cute.

It felt sooooo good to shower. Boy, was I stinky from all that hiking! I got quite a laugh out of the dollar tree cashiers when I ran from our motel across the road in my PJs, towel still wrapped around my wet hair, to the dollar tree to quickly buy some lotion before they closed.

Before heading out the next day, we stopped in at the Road Kill Café and oh. my. gosh. That was the best hamburger and hot chocolate I've ever had in my life. (Probably because I was also famished from hiking so much, but man, it hit the spot).

The next day we tried to drive to the Grand Canyon, but got stuck in hours and hours of traffic due to all the snow. There was several feet of it.

So, we had a snow day. (We did eventually make it to the Grand Canyon)

We stayed in a hotel in flagstaff and just relaxed. We watched the movies Holes and Cars. (You have to watch Cars on Route 66, right?) We ordered some Thai food that we had delivered to our cozy room. I ran to Walmart just to buy a few essentials, and so many things had been bought out! There were incredibly bare shelves it looked like the apocalypse or something.

I had fun doing some people watching. (P.S. that's the thing to do at Walmart). I saw a dad sneak up on his wife and daughter and scare the beegeebees out of them. It was hilarious. Then there were lots of families together, walking around pursuing how to best spend this snow day. I saw one family that was rushing out of the store to try and get to their car with their shopping cart, but they couldn't even get it across the parking lot because there was too much snow! The cart completely halted and would not move. They had to pick it up and carry it across the lot!

This morning we've enjoyed our lovely continental breakfast and are now driving to the Grand Canyon. It's 8ºF, so it's gonna be cold, but at least it's sunny and it's no longer snowing!