Havasu Canyon

I was sitting at home one day looking at a three day weekend coming up and decided, why not take a day off, make it a four day weekend, and go to the Grand Canyon?  The best trips start with a question.  How about ___________?  And if the answer makes your heart pump harder and the rest of the day and week go smoother because you know where you are headed, then you have to do it!

I teach.  I teach at a public high school in California, in the Bay Area.  It’s always hard to take days off and leave your kids to a substitute because nothing gets done, even if you leave a detailed plan and make it really easy.  I say it’s hard, but I do it all the time.  I have to, because going to beautiful places is just as big a priority to me as teaching, and I hope to someday podcast full time and teach part time.  Someday.  My kids always ask me “where did you go?” or “how was the Grand Canyon?”  and I tell them about it.  Then, a few months later I show them the show.

So as I was looking at all the trails into the Canyon, I remembered an article in Backpacker a while back about a beautiful canyon on an Indian Reservation.  I had read there were some murders there.  I wasn’t so concerned about the murders.  That happens in my town as well.  So I looked it up and saw a few pictures of Havasu Falls, and I had to go.

I arrived at the trailhead, which is actually a helipad, a horse stable, and a parking lot, a few hours before dawn.  I slept in my car until the sun woke me up, shot a few shots looking down the canyon, and got on the trail early to beat the heat.  As I was walking down the trail, I heard barking and hooves.  Up came a train of horses packed with loads and dogs herding them up the trail.  No riders or people.   A few minutes later a few Native Americans on horses slowly rode up the trail.

The trail takes you down through a narrow canyon that is a spur off the Grand Canyon.  The picture above shows you what you walk through.  It’s a long haul, about 10 miles, but downhill.  There are plenty of places to take a break in the shade on the way down, but no water anywhere.

One negative to the hike is that the trail is completely trashed.  I was upset at my first sight of a Coke can on the trail.  “What the hell is wrong with people?,” I yelled as I ran over and picked it up.  I always pick up trash when I’m on a trail and collect quite a bit on my average hike.  The collecting got to be too much on this trip, and I even found bags of trash on the side of the canyon where I stuffed my collection in, hoping maybe one of the horse caravans would pick it up.  As I hiked, a couple Native Americans from the reservation came riding by and one of them was drinking a Coke, the same as the five or six I had picked up.  As he rode past, a tear developed under my eye as I watched him ride away…  The tear didn’t really happen, but I thought about it and the anti-littering commercial I saw as a youth.  Oh well.  The village was just like my town or any town.  Some yards and areas were well kept, and some were trashed.  The lesson is that people are people, and some are slobs and some are not.  Even Native Americans.  Another childhood myth shattered.

As I passed the village, the trail became nicer and I rounded a corner to see the most amazing waterfall in existence, Havasu Falls.  I’ll talk about Havasu Falls in my next post.

Thanks for reading,

Tony