My buddy Greg came to visit me in Arizona and we thought it would be a good idea to go and see what this great state has to offer. With about 5 minutes of planning (which consisted of Mapquest-ing our two destinations), we packed whatever supplies we could think of and hit the road.
2 Friends, 3 Days, 400 Miles.
First Destination: Sedona
Sedona is situated in a unique geological area that is mesmerizing to say the least. This picturesque city is surrounded by majestic red-rock monoliths named after the massive shapes they resemble. We only scratched the surface by hiking two of them: Cathedral Rock and Bell Rock.
The hikers we met along the way were so unbelievably cool, everyone was eager to talk and share information like they haven't had human contact in days. Some were normal while others were more spiritual (a.k.a. tree hugging hippies). We met two girls on one side of Bell Rock that claimed to be sitting in a Vortex: a channel of energy that was supposedly generated by the large amount of iron in the mountains. She swore she could see and feel the "spirit of Mother Earth" around her but I figured she took something really good and it just kicked in.
Greg thought it would be a good idea to ask a Navajo Indian woman selling jewelry on the trail where the nightlife in Sedona was. She didn't like the question and gave him a cold blank stare like he had just asked her, "Hey red face, where's the firewater?" It turned out Sedona didn't have much to offer after the sun went down so we found a restaurant that served us up some deep fried rattlesnake and called it a night.
As grand as Sedona was, I read about another certain place which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful natural wonders in the country, a literal paradise in the desert. Unlike Sedona, this wasn't a place we could drive to, ol' Thelma [My '97 Nissan Altima] was going to take us as far she could go until we had to get out and hoof it. We were determined to reach this mystical place, however, neither of us had any idea how arduous our journey would be.
Second Destination: Havasupai Falls
The Havasupai Indian Tribe consists of 650 people and have lived in their remote village for over 700 years. They are very traditional in some senses: farming is still a dominant way of life, they prefer to speak in their own language, and you can't take their picture because they're afraid it will "steal their soul". Some of the luckier tribesmen, however, do enjoy modern amenities like television (Direct TV is the only signal that can reach out there) and get to tote around their dirt roads on golf carts. There wasn't any public access to phones (don't even bother bringing your cellular) and any major supplies had to be flown in by helicopter. Overall, their standard of living was very poor and simple, we could have been in a remote jungle village in Vietnam and it wouldn't have looked much different (minus Charlie everywhere). One thing that was glaringly apparent was that all of these Indians were morbidly obese! Either they were eating the travelers or the entire village had a major genetic glandular problem. I swear I saw one of their skinny, malnourished horses beg for mercy as it was being saddled.
Havasupai translates to People-Of-The-Blue-Green-Waters and that's what we were looking to find. After the 10 mile hike through the ravine to the village, there is another 3 mile hike to get to the first waterfall. We met a hiker in Sedona who swore it would be worth it to make the trek to a subsequent fall which was another 2 miles downstream. This hiker didn't give us very good information, he told us we could barter cigarettes and reefer with the Indians for an authentic Havasupai meal. Since we didn't have the latter, we bought some American Spirit cigarettes on the drive out to see if we could make a "good trade". It turned out we couldn't give those damn cigarettes away. We just hoped he was right about making the extra hike.
See that ravine waaay in the distance? That is where the 10 mile hike starts.
The Havasupai live so remote, they get their mail by mule.
This is the initial decent of the hike into the ravine. The mail mules on the trail can give you an idea of how long it is to the bottom.
We finally arrive at the Havasupai village.
After trekking through the village, we reached this cave opening.
Does this look like a good idea to you?
This was by far the most dangerous part. After descending through the caves we had to repel down the face of a 150 foot cliff holding onto nothing but a chain. Safety harness? Nice try. To make things harder, mist from the nearby waterfall was spraying the rock face and we both lost our footing a couple of times. Greg was above me so if he slipped, I would have been taken out as well. Even if we survived the fall, there was was absolutely no way to get any kind of help for miles.
I've jumped out of an airplane without thinking twice and I won't lie...this was crazy. We contemplated turning back several times but, dammit, we didn't come this far to back down here. Was the reward be worth it? You bet your sweet ass it was....
We stayed for several hours and relaxed in the pools and around the waterfalls. We had an underwater camera that was full of pictures with us and a couple we met from Michigan but the film didn't come out due to heat exposure. Oh well, the best ones survived.
This really was an extraordinary place. The water was an unusual blue-green due to the high concentration of lime deposits which contrasted against the backdrop of craggy red cliffs. The power of the waterfall was extraordinary, we got as close as we could but but it tossed us around like a rowboat in a hurricane. We learned that this was the beginning of a finger into the Colorado River which also carved right into the Grand Canyon. If we had the energy, we could have hiked another 8 miles to the rim but we had already walked 30 miles in 3 days over treacherous terrain and our dogs couldn't take it anymore. We were dreading the impossibly long hike back out but then we learned there was another way.....
Angel of Mercy! It took us nearly 5 hours to hike but only took us 5 minutes to return.
Unfortunately, now it was back to reality for us....
