Havasupai: Our Backpacking Trip to Paradise

How We Came About Doing This Trip

A few years back I saw a picture of the Havasu Falls, probably on social media, and I wanted to go. I did a little research into the trip and realized that permits were required and it was a pretty competitive process to get those permits. Permits are for a 4-day (3 nights) stay. Prior to this year, the process of obtaining a permit was to login to the Havasupai reservation website on February 1st at 8 a.m. to try to obtain permits. It was very difficult because with so many people logging on at the same time, many people would get kicked off the website. When we had started converting the van, I knew this would be the perfect time to try for permits. This year for the first time they did a presale lottery. In January, we paid an extra $15 to join the presale lottery. We were able to select three different preferred dates to go. I wasn’t super hopeful that we would win the lottery, and was fully planning on joining the mad dash for permits on February 1st. At the end of January, while we were still home and working on the van, I received an email that we won the presale lottery for March 22-25. I was SO excited and ran out to tell Trevor while he was working on the van that we had won permits. We received this news in the midst of our burnout during working on the van, and it was great to have something like this to look forward to and push us to get the van finished.

A Little Bit of Background

Havasupai is a Native American reservation which is technically located within the Grand Canyon. It is one of the most remote reservations in the United States. The name is a combination of the Supai village where the locals live and the Havasu Falls, which the reservation is known for. The Havasu Falls are known because of the high lime concentrations in the water that creates the blue-green color of the water. If you’ve ever seen photos of the water and falls, you may think the pictures are edited, but the water is genuinely that stunning!

The Supai village has a post office, police station, school, fire department, etc. The locals request that there are no pictures taken in the Supai village so you will not see any pictures of the village itself. There are no cars on the reservation. They use mules and helicopters as transportation in and out of the canyon.

Preparing for the Trip

There are a few different ways to do this trip. The cheapest and most basic way to do it is to backpack in and camp at the bottom and then backpack out. The hike is a 10 mile hike with 2500 ft of elevation change – so not an easy hike especially with a 25-30 pound backpack on your back. Some other options are to book a mule to carry your packs, stay at the lodge in the Supai village, and helicopter out of the canyon. Of course we chose the cheapest and most difficult option 😉. A year and a half ago we went to Joshua Tree with some friends (shoutout to Jesse & Janelle and Zach & Erika - we wish you could have been with us this time!) to do our first backpacking trip. We had a lot of the backpacking gear from that trip, but had borrowed a tent so we needed to buy a backpacking tent and a few other supplies. We stopped at REI while we were in Santa Fe to buy a tent, some backpacking meals, and a few other miscellaneous items. The day before or day of your hike in you have to pick up your permits at the Grand Canyon Caverns Inn - about an hour and a half from the trailhead. It was also the closest lodging to the trailhead so we picked up our permits the night before and camped there.

Day 1

The morning of our first day we woke up bright and early at 5 in the morning. We had packed our bags the night before so we stuck a few last minute things in and drove to the trail head. We started our hike in at about 8 in the morning. The hike down was not too terrible as we were going downhill most of the time. We were both feeling really good until we hit the Supai village at about mile 8. It started to feel like we were so close and I started to really think about how tired my body was. But the campground was another two miles beyond the village and so those last two miles were pretty rough. Between the village and campground we crossed the Havasu Creek a few times and were starting to get glimpses of the beautiful blue water. Just before we reached the campground we got our first view of the Havasu Falls and we were stunned…it felt like it couldn’t be real! By this time our legs were shot, so we finished the hike to the campground. The campground itself is about a mile long with campsites all along the beautiful Havasu Creek. We chose a campsite about a half mile in that was set back a bit from the creek, but was secluded by the trees a bit (I liked it because we could do our business there at night without having to walk the couple minutes to the restroom 😁). We took off our packs and sat at the campsite for a bit, unable to move. Our bodies were TIRED. And we were realizing just how difficult the hike out was going to be. But we were so excited for the next few days we had to enjoy this little paradise. After setting up camp we put on our swimsuits and headed down to the Havasu Falls. The temperature was in the lower 60s that day. I had read that the Havasu water stays around 70 degrees year round. It was definitely chilly but not terrible. Trevor got in and swam while I sat on some rocks in the water. We figured the cold water was probably good for our sore muscles. We spent about an hour there and then headed back to our campsite to make dinner. There are no fires allowed in Havasupai so we brought our little stove and backpacking meals (freeze dried meals you just add boiling water to). Then we got in our tent for the night, played a game of Trails, and went to sleep. We were a little worried about the temperatures at night as it was looking like it could get down to the 30s at night. When we had backpacked in Joshua Tree, the temperatures were in the 30s and as soon as the sun started to go down it was frigid. But the weather at night was perfect and we didn’t get cold at all so we were very thankful for that.

Day 2

There are numerous falls and points of interest to hike to once in Havasupai. On day 2, our plan was to see Mooney Falls and Beaver Falls. Mooney Falls was at the very end of the campground. It could be seen from the top or, as we chose to do, you could go down to the base of the falls. The trek down is very treacherous. You make your way down the side of the steep cliff with chains along the side to help you grip. If you’ve ever hiked Angels Landing in Zion, this felt very similar. But the part that made it even more treacherous is the mist from the falls soaks everything so you’re climbing down slippery rocks. There was a pile of old work gloves at the top and bottom of the cliff for anyone to use to help you grip the chains. The gloves were soaking wet and pretty disgusting but I wore them anyway. The three mile hike to Beaver Falls began at the base of Mooney. So once we successfully made it down the cliff, we started the hike to Beaver. Trevor and I kept commenting that everywhere you look while in Havasupai feels like a scene from a movie. The views are just unreal. The hike to Beaver required you to cross the creek severals times and also included some questionable ladder setups but we made it safely. We spent a little time in the water at Beaver, ate some lunch, and then headed back to Mooney. We hung out at Mooney for a bit before starting the climb back up the cliff. I thought going down was scary, but going up was even worse! I kept telling Trevor our mothers would be so worried if they knew what we were doing right now 😬 - so better to tell them about it once you’ve made it out alive! When we made it back to our campsite we realized that a squirrel had gotten into our trash and dispersed it across our campsite. In my research for this trip, I had learned that you have to be careful of the critters getting into your food and that you should hang any food or anything that smells from a tree. They will chew through your tent if you leave it in your tent. So we had been hanging our food but left our trash hanging a little too low. We got our trash cleaned up and went back to Havasu Falls to hang out for a bit. We ate dinner, played our nightly game of Trails, and since we had heard it was supposed to rain that night, we got everything packed either in our tent or waterproofed. It did rain a bit that night but we stayed nice and dry in our tent.

Day 3

Our plan for day 3 was to keep it a little more low key and try to let our legs rest up a bit before our hike out of the canyon the next day. We didn’t really do as much resting as we would have liked, but we had two more waterfalls that we wanted to see. Back towards the village there were two waterfalls - Navajo Falls and Fifty Foot Falls. They were both a short hike. On our way back to the campground, we wanted to stop by a little frybread stand for lunch as this was the last thing we felt like we needed to do to get the full Havasupai experience. There are a few locals that set up at this stand most days and sell frybread tacos. We were happy to see they were open and enjoyed some fresh food for lunch. As we were waiting for our food to be made, some dark clouds started to move in and it started to rain…and then hail. Thankfully there was a tent by the food stand that a bunch of us huddled under as we ate our lunch. The rain and hail let up for a bit so we hurried back to our campsite and relaxed in our tent for some of the afternoon while it rained some more. Eventually it stopped raining so we made our way to Havasu Falls and then Mooney Falls for the last time. We went back to our site and made dinner and ended up eating in our tent because it was chilly. Then we ended our evening with a final game of Trails and went to sleep.

Day 4

The next morning we woke up bright and early at 6:30 to pack everything up and start our hike out. After breakfast and packing, we started the hike out at 8:30. We were thankful for the beautiful weather – sunny and around 50 degrees – which was perfect for the hike. The first 8.5 miles of the hike climbed about 1000 ft of elevation so it was a slow climb and not too bad. Once we hit the final mile and half, we had 1500 ft of elevation left to climb - and it was brutal. My motivation was the pizza we had agreed to pick up for dinner and looking forward to laying in bed and watching an episode of The Amazing Race we had recorded 😊. We were quite relieved when we reached the top and made it back to the van around 2 in the afternoon. Our bodies were tired and sore! We headed towards our next stop in Sedona where we planned to spend the night and enjoyed our pizza and The Amazing Race.

It’s probably too early to say this, but I think Havasupai will probably be the highlight of this van trip for me (and Trevor might agree). It was not only so beautiful, but we loved meeting so many neat people at the campground, we enjoyed the time away from the van (especially after our tire issues the week before), and we enjoyed the time with one another. Of course we’ve had plenty of time together in the van over the past two months, but it can feel busy and distracted sometimes. We’re often planning what hikes we want to do, where we’re going to stay, taking care of van issues, working, etc. It was so nice to slow down, get away from technology, and just live the simple life for a few days in an incredibly beautiful place.

I would highly recommend Havasupai to anyone who wants to go. While the price tag is not cheap, it’s an amazing experience. We met a guy who was there for his ninth time…and we would go back in a heartbeat!

P.S. Thank you to all of you who have sent messages to us! We love hearing from you all. Please keep sending them ❤️