Havasupai

Back in about February Jared called me one day and said some of his friends from school were planning a trip to Havasupai and wondered if I wanted to go. Uh...yeah!!! He called that day and made reservations for us. At that time it was going to be about three months after Kyson's surgery and we thought that would work out great. Well, Kyson's surgery got postponed twice and instead of our original date of March 7th it ended up being April 7th. Then instead of the planned 7-10 day stay at the hospital it turned into 5 1/2 weeks. Kyson got out of the hospital May 11th with a chest tube so I just didn't think it was safe for me to go. Gratefully the chest tube didn't last long and he was doing great. I still wouldn't have gone but my sister Natalie and her husband Dallas were willing to watch our boys for us. Natalie is a PA (what Jared is in school for:) and I knew I could trust her with all of Kyson's high maintenance needs! Between needing meds four times a day, a crazy low fat diet, and ending up with an ear infection he was A LOT of work to watch. Thank you so very much Natalie and Dallas! I must say that I don't think anyone has a better support system than Jared and I have. We have had SO MANY people praying for us, serving us, bringing us dinners, watching our boys...it's humbling. We are truly blessed.

Anyway, back to Havasupai. It was incredible! We left around midnight Sunday to be at the trail head by 4:30 AM. Here we are ready to begin!

Our group


It's a good 12 mile hike especially carrying close to 40 pounds on your back! By the time you get to the campground all you want to do is find the closest campsite and shed that backpack! That's exactly what we did and went and put our sore feet in the water! After soaking our feet for a bit we found a good place to camp and moved all of our stuff...or in my case let my amazing husband haul both of our backpacks to the new spot:)

Once we rested for a bit we went and set up camp. Jared and I decided it wasn't worth the weight to bring a tent so we slept under the stars. I was a little worried about all of the lizards that were EVERYWHERE but gratefully we didn't have any crawl in bed with us!


Here's some pictures of the falls.
This is the first one you come to. I'm not sure if they call it Navajo Falls or not. The old Navajo falls completely washed out in a recent flood and further upstream this waterfall was created.

A little farther down is Havasu Falls. This picture just doesn't do justice to how truly beautiful it is.

About another mile down is Mooney Falls. It's HUGE!


The second day we were there we decided to hike down to Beaver Falls. We didn't quite make it there but along the way I took so many pictures because it is the most beautiful place I have ever been.









Our group minus me...we had to carry our shoes because we kept getting in and out of the water.






The next day we woke up at 4am to pack up and hike out. We wanted to get to the switchbacks before it was too hot. I didn't take very many pictures on the hike down but I took a lot on the way out since I sent my backpack on a horse:)

This is the beginning of the hike out. Just beautiful!

Once you get to this sign you have hiked about four miles and have another eight to go:)


There are two things that are just amazing about the scenery at Havasupai...the color of the water, it's so blue it's hard to believe, and the color of the rock. It is a very neat redish color.


We hiked out super fast. I think we may have hiked out faster than we hiked in. We were on a mission and took very few breaks. When we did stop we didn't rest for more than a couple minutes. The longest break we took was right before the switchbacks.


We didn't even stay there long because we wanted to get the last and hardest part of the hike over with! As we were making our way up the switchbacks along came this hero of mine:)

See that backpack with the blue sleeping bag on it? Yep that's mine stuffed with all of mine and Jared's heavy stuff! Thank you horse!

Gotta love the switchbacks...


And here we are at the top (yes I say we because I was there, just taking the picture and not in the picture:) Havasupai complete!