Grand Canyon Trip Day 5

Woke up at 6 and threw everything in the car.  We headed down and out to the Havasupai Indian Reservation where you can hike the Havasu Falls Trail.  10 miles... our biggest hike in yet.

Here's us starting at the car:

And once again we hike down!

We love backpacking together!

I'm pretty sure I noted about the perfect weather... here's proof:

This hike reminded us more of Canyonlands because of all the canyons we went through of course!

I kept photo stalking Ben!

Then we come to the sign that says the town of Supai is so close and the trees turn bright green, just like they did in the Oasis of the Indian Garden in the Grand Canyon too!

We checked into the Reservations Office, got our tourist bracelets, and hiked on in.  While on our way to camp we passed by some lovely falls:

The waters were so blue:

This one pictured above is Havasu Falls.

Then we set up camp and hiked down to Mooney Falls.

To get to the bottom of Mooney Falls, you had to climb down into 2 tunnels and down a steep rock face holding onto chains.

It got kinda scary because the mist was making everything slippery.  Hardest part of all the hikes.  But we made it!

We were honored by seeing Cali Condors.  Yes I mean Honored by their presence.  They're such an endangered species. 

There were two flying together.  We think they might be a young couple!

The water was amazing and here goes more feet soakings:

Ben really enjoyed this because he got bit all up and down his legs by "no-see-ums" or "sand bugs."  They bite and poisoned his legs and then they even blistered because of the number of bites and how sensitive Ben is to bites:

Luckily, I'm a "smarty PANTS" and kept on my PANTS the whole time!  No zipping off the bottoms for me.  Full pants please!  My poor baby here is an example of why to wear pants!

Lesson learned?  I hope so!


Then bedtime, but not before we gazed at the stars for awhile!

Grand Canyon Trip Day 4

We woke up, broke camp, and hiked up and out!  It took us 3 hours to get out of the canyon (aka 4.5 miles with over 3000 foot elevation change)!  We are "rock" stars! ;-) 

Here we are hiking up!

The trail we've hiked on:

The sun coming up over the canyon each morning was lovely!

Almost there... just 1 mile left and I already feel so accomplished:

Story time:  The last 1.5 miles was the worst.  From the last rest house up was hard and we were exhausted.  So for the last 1.5-.5 miles we took lots of breaks around each of the switch backs.  Then for the last .5 miles, I got myself together, put on my game face and high tailed it outta there! 

I was like a horse racing for her barn.  I was screaming, "EXCUSE ME" at the stupid tourists just standing in the middle of the trail.  There was no way I was stopping for them.  The rule of hiking is STOP AND MOVE OVER for hikers coming up.  Some people just dont understand Why We Have Rules To FOLLOW! 

My mantra was "1, 2, 3, 4."  Each step counted and I was so determined to finish in 3 hours too.  We started at 7:51 and finished the hike out at 10:52.  WOW, right?!?! 

Here's some of our wow, we did it faces:

What an amazing backpacking trip!  By far my all time favorite!  Perfect weather, perfect trails & hiking locations, perfect company, perfect food, perfect body health, etc.  The list goes on and on of why this was the best hiking trip ever!

But, Day 4 continues, cause now its only 11.  So we got a campground and immediately went, "next door" and showered!  Oooooh!  What wonderful things!  We each paid $2.00 for 8 minute shower which means .25cents per minute.  NOT bad after all things considered!  We also did laundry there too in preparation for the next backpacking trip (which happens to be Day #5).

We set up camp and headed out on the Tour Bus to see Hermit's Rest.  It was gorgeous!

And then back to a warm fire!  You can see our whole campsite here:

And just in case you wondered what the inside of our "home" aka tent looks like:

Me on the left and Ben on the right. 

This night we finished off with a ranger program about the Dams of the Colorado and early bed!

Grand Canyon Trip Day 3

Good morning Canyon!

Hello Red Bud Trees!

We started early on our day hike which includes down Devil's Corkscrew, over the Silver Bridge, up to Phantom Canyon and the Canteen, over the Black Bridge, back up Devil's Corkscrew, and back to camp. 

It took us a leisurely 3 hours to get down to Phantom Ranch.

We passed cool cactus.  I think they have little faces:

More morning sun!

And then after all that hiking we were there!  The Colorado River!

Then we could see the Silver & Black Bridges.  A helicopter was coming in at the same time as us.

Over the bridge we go!

It wobbled and you could see through it.  Way eerie!

Ok!  Enough about the cool bridge.  We made it to Phantom and stopped in at the Canteen for some refreshments & calories!  YUM!

We saw this cool idea for postcards that travel by mule and we had to do it!

So we took a moment and wrote some postcards!

Then we shipped them out!

After that it was time to get wet, not too wet because of the freezing river temperatures.  So we dipped our feet in!

And then aired them off!

Now it was time to hike out over the black bridge and back to camp.  Good thing we only had our day packs with us!

It took us less time to hike back uphill to camp.  Weird?  YES!  But we're pretty awesome! (not to brag or anything ;-)  ).

On our way back we passed a mule train & a rafting trip!

What a great hike back!

So that night we heard another ranger program, this time about the rock layers & their formation into today's Grand Canyon, then we ate dinner and went to bed!