Havasupai

Fall, 1999
September 22-26

We had a fantastic time on our hike down one of the Grand Canyon's tributary canyons. We started from the Hualapai Hilltop and hiked the eight miles to the Havasupai village and then another two miles to the campgrounds near the Havasupai falls. We spent two days down in the canyon, and then hiked all the way back out under the hot Arizona sun.

Before we even left, Moses and Devon collected a bunch of bibliographies, and we found this article at azcentral.com, not to mention the Grand Canyon Explorer.

Jason also put together a couple of topo maps for our hike. The red line indicates our trip from Hualapi Hilltop down to the campgrounds at Havasupai Falls and the yellow line indicates the path from Havasupai Falls to the Havasupai Rapids on the Colorado River. However, I don't think that anyone went all the way to the river.

Photos courtesy of Jason Barnes.
Photo Gallery
We got our gear ready to go and got our first look down into Havasupai Canyon.
We got our gear ready to go and got our first look down into Havasupai Canyon.
Andreas gave the first talk before we headed down.
We hiked further down into the canyon under a fierce Arizona sun.
We later found some shade to eat lunch under and had another talk.
We took a rest and had a science talk.
We got into Havasupai village around dinner time, and had some food at the Cafe there. Then we hiked the last two miles to the campgrounds. However, we got there after the sun had gone down, and ended up having to cross the river to get to our campsite. Here's a picture from the next day of Dave going over to the campsite.
The next day we went to the Havasu falls.
The water was a beautiful blue-green, and canyons were spectacular.
Down at the bottom we had some more science talks, and then just explored the area.
There was a precarious path that wound back and forth between the travertine deposits that led down to the bottom of the waterfall, and the last step was a doozy.