And then we went to the Grand Canyon. The morning that we got there, we went straight to the backcountry permitting office in order to get our camping permit for the following night. Despite the employee's best efforts to deter us from our trip with warnings of lack of water, extreme heat, and lightning strikes, we obtained our permit and went to explore the South Rim for the day. Walking along the Rim Trail at the top of the canyon was certainly beautiful, but it was so packed with non-hiker tourists (filthy casuals, as we so lovingly like to call them) that it was hard for it to be too enjoyable. This just made us even more excited to get down into the canyon and away from the crowds the following day.
We drove into the Kaibab National Forest and camped by our car for the night, and we were up and heading back to the park to begin our hike at 4 am the next morning. We shuttled to the South Kaibab trailhead and started down the trail in the dark. About 20 minutes in, a mule train passed by us, carrying supplies down to the lodge at the bottom of the canyon. We enjoyed the sunrise a few minutes later and then continued our trek down, down, down without the use of our headlamps. The entire trail was absolutely breathtaking. We compared it to when we hiked Franconia Ridge in the White Mountains of New Hampshire last year--expansive, incredible views in every direction, every step of the way.
We reached the bottom at about 8 am and had the rest of the day to relax in the creek or by the Colorado River. It was about 100 degrees during the heat of the day, which was lower than it had been for the previous couple of weeks. We tried to consider ourselves lucky, but it was still rough on our bodies being out in that sort of heat for the entire day and night. At no point did we regret our descent, though!
We got up at about 3 am again to begin hiking back out. We hiked up the Bright Angel Trail this time. It was a bit longer than the South Kaibab, at about 9.5 miles, but it was more gradually graded (that's still almost 10 miles of constant uphill in 80-90 degree heat, though). It also had water at a few points along the way. We crushed all of those miles by 8:30 am and celebrated by getting showers at a campground within the park! Clean and invigorated from our hike, we said goodbye to the Grand Canyon and made our way towards Havasu Falls.
Havasu Falls was the destination that sparked this entire trip. I stumbled upon it back in November while traversing some travel blog, and Mike and I decided to travel out to Arizona for that hike this summer. It started off with us thinking we would fly out, do Havasu and the Grand Canyon, and then fly back. Then we started adding. And adding. And adding. And before we knew it, we had spiraled this trip completely out of control, decided to drive all the way across the country, and visit about 10 more national parks than we were originally planning on. So goes our life.
We slept in our car the night before our hike down into Havasu, and once again, we were up in the wee hours of the morning preparing to hike. We basically flew down into the canyon, far speedier than our Grand Canyon descent had been, and we were into Supai Village within just a couple of hours. The campground was about two miles past the village, and before we even reached a campsite, we came upon Havasu Falls and its bright turquoise blue waters. We had seen plenty of photos of it before our arrival, but as always, those could do the landscape no justice. It was an absolutely amazing sight. And for about 30 minutes that morning, we had the falls entirely to ourselves. We couldn't fathom why more people weren't enjoying the beauty of the falls in the early morning light, but we enjoyed it while we could!
Later that morning, we hiked down to Mooney Falls, which was the next set down from the main Havasu Falls. They were even larger than Havasu, and far less crowded due to the descent through caves and down ladders to get there. Mike and I spent most of our time down there, jumping off a rope swing into the crystal clear water and sitting in the mist from the huge falls. It was, in a word, perfect.
We ate dinner down by those falls and were ready for bed by the time the sun set again. One last morning of 4 am wake up calls rolled around again, and we booked our way back out of the canyon. We made really good time despite it being all uphill again, and we were back to the car by 8 am! This time, our post-hike treat was getting our laundry done in a town north of Las Vegas (which we drove through without getting off of the highway. Needless to say, that city's not quite our style). From there, we drove through Death Valley National Park, aka a literal oven. We got out of our car at one point, for about 3 minutes, and that was all we could stand. It was heat like nothing I've experienced before. The only thing I can compare it to is the rush of heat on your face you feel from opening an oven door while baking. It was around 115 degrees, and we were roasting. Then, we got caught in a huge dust storm while continuing our drive. We had to slow down to about 10 mph until we got out of it--visibility was basically nonexistent. Maybe sometime in the middle of winter we'll revisit that park, but I can assure you I'll never drive through there in the summer again.
Now we're into the Sierras, which are a whole 'nother world! We're spending tonight around Mono Lake and will be headed into Yosemite in the morning! Everything we've encountered so far has been incredible, and we feel positive that trend is going to continue. Until next park!
No comments:
Post a Comment