So at the beginning of June 2010 Mark decided to skip a day of school to make time for us to hike Havasupai Falls before we moved to Washington. He talked two girls from his school into watching Seth for us while we did the hike. Monday night we took Seth to Kaitlyn's house so she could watch him over night and most of the next day than she would hand him off to Leah who lives in an RV. A lot of people from Mark's School have been kind enough to look after Seth for us when ever we have needed it.
Once again I drove the whole way there while Mark Studied on his laptop. It was a little hard to find in the dark but we managed to find it ok with some of Derek's helpful tips. As we drove on the 60 mile reservation road in the dark we hit a lot of pot wholes,so I was inclined to drive more slowly despite Mark's nagging me to go faster. I slowed way down because of a pot whole and as I turned my head to the right I saw this huge elk or deer. I swear its chest was up to our window and it had the biggest antlers I have ever seen in person. Mark saw it a second before me and it seemed so close to our car as we drove by it that it made my heart jump. After that I was really straining my eyes to see anything that moved because the last thing i wanted to deal with is recking the car in the middle of no where because we hit a huge deer or something.
We finally got to the parking lot at around midnight, and for a weekday it was surprisingly full. Tons of people were camped along side the road just out side of the parking lot, but decided to drive through the parking lot anyway to see if we could find a close spot to the trail head. Lucky for us we did find a spot next to a coned off area. We couldn't have asked for a better spot than that because it was right at the trail head. We put the seats down in the back of our jeep and just slept for a few hours because we had to get up at 4:00am to start hiking.
It was a little cold when we woke up so I was a little slow at getting ready. We ended up starting to hike at 4:50. 20 minutes later than we had planned, but still not a bad time to start.
We basically ran down and passed all the hikers that left at 4:00am, so I guess we made up for lost time by running down so fast. Once the ground leveled out we kept a nice quick pace with no breaks. I made Mark stop now and again for pictures,but other than that we just pressed on.
We passed a lot of Indians on horse back leading a train of pack mules fairly often on our way down and I thought that was kinda fun to see. Mark and I made it to the village in 2 1/2 hours and decided to get some cool treats at the store down there. One interesting thing they also had was an LDS Church.
I asked a local how many people lived in the village and he said about 600 or so and so I asked him if he knew anyone that went to the church and he had no idea. One would think that in a small place like that everyone would know everyone, but I guess not.
After our little Slurpee break at the store we continued to hike to the falls. They were awesome! the color of the water by itself was so cool.Pictures hardly capture the awesomeness of it all!
We kinda passed up the first water fall to get to Mooney Falls first, because it was the furthest away. Both Water falls are awesome in their own ways, but the cliff we had to go down to get to Mooney Falls was pretty freaking sweet! Plus Mooney Falls was way bigger. We climbed down the chains on the cliff and swam in the falls for a while before we decided to hike back up the cliff.
This is Mooney Falls.
This is the cliff that you climb down to get to Mooney Falls.
That is how dirty my feet were by the end of the hike.
We left at 12:00pm and were so sore from the way down that it was a real struggle for us to keep a fast pace on the way back. The other thing was the fact that we left at noon we were battling the heat. It took us 6 hours to hike back out. We had blisters on our feet and we were so sore it hurt to move. Mark was a real trooper and practically dragged me up the last part of the switch backs. At one point he took my hand and said, " come on Sam lets hike all the way to that shady spot over there." Just as we reached it Mark jumped in a panic. I couldn't see anything but quickly used up a lot more energy than I wanted to and jumped on a big rock to get out of the way. It was a little snake that was black and orange. I figured the colors were not safe to mess with, so it was a good idea to get out of its path. When all was said and done I was glad to have Mark drive home because I was so tired and hot. I sprayed my face with water and suddenly my eyes began to burn because of all the lime from the river combined with the salt from my sweat. I was so sore from the trip it took me a few days to recover. If I had a wheel chair I would have used it. It was totally worth it!
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