More On Havasupai

Here's a link to info: beautifulplacestovisit.com/tag/havasupai-reservation/ Or havasupaitribe.com And yes, the water IS that blue. Crazy, right?!

Jenessa Rises From the World of Dead [Absent] Bloggers

Helloooo, everyone. I know, I know, shame on me for not writing sooner, but I've been one busy quack (what a quack is, I know not). Most recently, I just came home from Havasupai. What is that, you ask, dear family members? It is a village and Indian tribe in the Grand Canyon, and there is a hike that has adopted the short name of Havasupai. Basically, it's a...11.5 or so mile hike down into the Grand Canyon, where there are some AMAZING waterfalls to splash about in. We also found a cave whilst whittling away time before the night (we hiked out at night). In fact, I'll just give you a play-by-play of what happened: Tuesday at noon: left St. George; drove to the Grand Canyon, near the entrance to the hiking trail. Arrived at 6 or so, and was very bored. Wednesday at 3 AM: I, having had not slept for even a minute, was a weird mix of exhaustion and wide-awakeness, jumped up, put in my contacts, and was ready to hike down. We (we being me and my three fellow laurels and friends) would have reached our campsite at 7:30 AM, but, as we did not see our well-hidden campsite, we walked about an extra mile before finding our little home for the next few days. We sat around until 2, seeking shade, because we hired donkeys to carry tents, etc., and they were an hour or so late. We then headed to the main falls, Havasu Falls, where we played in the water for a few hours, then headed back to eat our yummy Mountain Man dinner (that night was spaghetti!), then have a talk about scriptures with Bishop. At quarter to nine, Shelsey (one of my best friends ever) and I went to our Grotto (I dubbed our little tent spot that), both aching from the extra mile and wanting to lay down, to get in our tent. She was writing in her journal and I was reading scriptures when she suddenly gasped and freaked out and was out of the tent in record time. What had she looked at to act like a crazed looney? There was a humongous wolf spider (I think it was a wolf spider) with a body the size of of a nickel mere inches above our heads. I curled up in a ball in the corner of our Walrus tent as it came to my side. I was yelling at Shelsey to come open my door flap because the spider was pouring on the gas towards it (and me), and I finally convinced her to. I was up and out of there so fast I was shocked. I didn't know I had it in me, being so sore my legs were shaking, but I guess you get gusto (motivation as well), when you find out you're rooming with a surprise third tentie (instead of roomie) that happens to be one of nature's finest and ugliest.... Anyways, Shelsey's dad came down and killed the spider after pulling evetything out of the tent and shaking it...it was a complicated process. I can only imagine what all the other campers thought as they heard two girls yelling and hearing me say, "Just open my flap!" Thursday: we ate our granola, which was delicious, then headed to Mooney Falls. Mooney is the most exciting hiking path. Why? Well, you hike down a rocky terrain, then enter a cave that is roughly hewn out of the cliff, hike down that for a while, then go out for a few yards. After that, you enter another cave, descend a little, then BAM! You look down and there are chains, and you literally scale the cliffside with only a greasy chain to hold you up. You climb down the face of the rock for quite some time, and then you're there. It's intense. We played there for a few hours, then went back to camp to play in the river (our campsite was right next to a portion of the river). As we were hiking down, a father of one of the girls in our group heard some other guys say, "Did you see those girls climbing down? They hiked here themselves! Isn't that impressive?" (I'm both offended- could you be any more sexist?-and...honored? Smug? Well, glad we proved how sstrong we really are.) We had a little testimony meeting, then went to bed. Friday: we saw 8th ward from our stake. They were also impressed with us *eye roll*. We found some floaties, me and a Mia Maid, Courtney, floated down the river. It was so much fun! We then packed up camp and took it to Havasu Falls. We wanted less of a hike that night when we hiked out. We lazed about, playing and floating. Bishop found a cave, so we hiked in, and it was pitch black, slightly cold, and dead silent. It was actually an old abandoned mining shaft with a whole bunch of tunnels going not only left and right, but up and down as well. I took some souvenir rocks. It was so so cool, but I was in my headlamp, swimsuit, board shorts, and water shoes, so I didn't go down the tunnel with questionable rope as your support. Anyways, we left at sixish, after hiking up Havasu to this pool we found at the top of the falls with tall jumping spots. We got sidetracked for an hour and a half at the village where we bought blesssed ice cream and I fed a grey cat tuna, talked to an animal more bear than dog, and played with this cute little black weiner dog. We saw a huge scorpion that was basically a small lobster (it was freakishly big). Then we reached the switchbacks. Oh my gosh, it was awful. They are steep, long, and never ending. We also had to keep stopping for this one girl.... We were all apart on the treacherous switchbacks, and I saw a baby scorpion no bigger than a half of a Twinkie. Maddi and I finally emerged, panting and victorious, at 11:45 PM or so. We took victory pictures, went to the beloved bathroom (hey, hey, hey, you'd have to go to if you drank water almost nonstop for five hours with no bathroom stops), the headed towards the cars to get an icy gatorade and drop. Everyone made it back by 12:45, and we all went to bed until 7-ish, then proceeded to drive home. Saturday: we stopped at Golden Corral for breakfast (oh, yeeeaaahhh), where I had ice cream, amongst many other foods. We got home at one, give or take. So I now have the privelege to say I hiked the Grand stinkin' Canyon! Okay, that was a loooong post. My arm is aching. I'll post pictures ASAP. Bye!