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Arizona vacation – Part 2: Walnut Canyon and Havasupai

Part II of the Great Arizona trip in November 2006. This includes hiking Walnut Canyon, and then the hike to Supai and the campground on the Havasupai Indian Reservation near the Grand Canyon. In addition, I visited the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff.

Click on the thumbnail images to get larger ones (around 100-300K). Click on the "huge" link to get the full size pictures (around 3M). 44 pictures included.

See also:
Part I: hiking the National Monuments (Sunset Crater, Wupatki, and Walnut Cany.
Part III: hiking the falls (Mooney, Havasu, and Navajo) on the Havasupai Indian Reservation.

Walnut Canyon

This time we started from the south and hiked for a few hours towards the Walnut Canyon National Monument (but were still quite a ways away from it). It's a pretty canyon and easy hike, with almost no one else around.

[Walnut Canyon]

[Walnut Canyon]

[Walnut Canyon]

Three shots from Caynut Canyon.

[Tarantula]

[Walnut Canyon]

While hiking, I came across a tarantula, almost stepping on him. Fortunately, I missed and both of us emerged unscathed. It was the first time I saw a real tarantual, in the wild. The second shot is of Walnut Canyon.

[Cave]

[Cave]

[Rock fissure]

We passed a cave at the edge of a rock outcropping. The first two shots show the cave and a closer view of it, and the third shows a crack going up the edge of the cave. It wasn't that spectacular of a cave, actually.

[Walnut Canyon]

[Walnut Canyon]

[Walnut Canyon]

Three more shots from the canyon.

Flagstaff and Lowell Observatory

We visited the Lowell Observatory and had a nice view of Flagstaff from the top of the hill. This is where they discovered the "planet" Pluto, and the day we were there Mercury was transiting (passing in front of) the sun, and they had telescopes out with filters to let you see it happening. It was quite cool, though I have no pictures of the sun.

[Flagstaff, AZ]

[Flagstaff, AZ]

[Lowell Observatory]

The hike into Havasupai Canyon

We hiked into the Havasupai Canyon, which is an Indian Reservation that is part of the Havasupai Tribe. We drove 3 hours from Flagstaff and parked at the trailhead. Then it's an 8 mile hike down into the canyon to the village of Supai, and then two more miles to the campground. Going down isn't too bad. The last mile or so is a bit more challenging when you're leaving. The scenery is amazingly beautiful, and I gather it's a lot easier to get a permit here than in the Grand Canyon National Park.

[Havasupai Canyon]

[Havasupai Canyon]

[Nicole]

The first two shots are of the Canyon as we began our hike down. The third shot shows Nicole as she is starting to shed some layers. We left Flagstaff at 5am, and started hiking shortly after 8am. As it was November, it was a bit chilly until we got down to the canyon. A flaw in the camera lens left a hair-like line in the top left side of some of the pictures, like the second one.

[Havasupai Canyon]

[Havasupai Canyon]

[A tree in the canyon]

More pictures of the canyon walls. The sky was very blue. Again, the lens flaw was visible in the second shot. Occasionally, there are plants growing near or on the path, as in the third shot. As we got closer to Supai and closer to water, the plant life started to become more visible and abundant.

[Close to Supai]

[Mule train]

[Closer to Supai]

A (blurry) shot of the sign saying you're getting close to Supai. It's still a few miles off. A mule carrying stuff (they carry supplies and the U.S. mail), and another of the hills. Note that there are more plants visible in these pictures.

[Canyon]

[Tree]

[Closer]

Another short of the hills. A tree in the path, and a sign that points to Hualapai Hilltop (where we parked at the start of the trail) and Supai. There are noticably a lot more plants around now.

The village of Supai

The village of Supai has about 500 people, and all supplies come in either through mule train or helicopter. There is a general store, a post office (the mail is sent via mule train), a restaurant, and various other buildings. The people were friendly, and the helicopters were flying by every 20 minutes or so (it's possible there was only one helipcopter that just made continuous runs all day).

[Crossing the Havasupai Creek]

[The Havasupai Creek]

[The village of Supai]

Finally, we crossed a bridge that led into the village of Supai. The Havasupai Creek has a lot of limestone (calcium carbonate) deposits in it, which give it a very intense blue-green color. The last picture is of the outskirts of the village as we entered it. Lots of horses and mules not shown in the picture, to the right and left.

[More vegetation]

[Frank and a sign]

[Havasu falls]

Some vegetation in the area. The area is like an oasis in the middle of the desert, since there is abundant water. The second picture continues the ongoing theme of Frank reacting to signs, in this case it says "warning unstable condition." It is left to the reader to decide to what the sign referred. And the last shot is of falls (Havasu?) visible on the way to the campground. We stopped at various falls on the way out, pictures of which are included in Part III.

[Navajo Falls]

[Multicolor cactus]

A shot of (I think) Navajo Falls. There are a lot more shots of it in Part III. And a colorful prickly pear cactus. The colorful parts are, I admit, the pieces that aren't actually doing well, but it was striking to see red, orange, yellow, and purple on a traditionally green cactus, on red-brown rocks and dirt.

[Havasupai Creek]

[Havasupai Creek]

[Havasupai Creek]

The Havasupai Creek again. And again, the mineral deposits give it an eerie color. But still very beautiful.

[Havasu Falls]

[Havasu Falls]

Two shots of the Havasu Falls from above. Beautiful falls. We spent more time there on the way out (more pictures in Part III).

The Campground

The campground is two miles beyond the village of Supai, with a bit of a descent and is along the Havasupai Creek. There are various campsites along both sides of the creek, with one or two places to cross over. They have port-a-potties (which I imagine are taken there and removed by helicopters, judging by the harnesses on the top of them) and there is drinking water available (there's a spigot outside a small hut that gets a feed from a stream; I imagine the hut has some filters inside). There were also picnic tables (wood and plastic covered metal). So the facilities were quite decent.

We walked a ways down the creek, then crossed over and then walked back up on the other side. While there were a good number of people in the campground (a few dozen), we had some privacy. And since we were close enough to the creek and the moving water, we didn't hear anyone, even though there were campers across the creek from us.

[The campground]

[Havasupai Creek by the campground]

The first shot is of the campground area. We didn't take any pictures of our tents. The second shot is halfway cross the Havasupai Creek on the footbridge by the campgrounds. The little drop-offs upstream provide the sound of moving water, which provides white noise and provided some nice sound isolation by our campsite.

[Night at camp (by headlamp light)]

[Night at camp (with flash)]

[Night at camp (by headlamp light)]

Three shots at the campsite at night, the second night, with all seven of us around the picnic table (I'm not in the picture), at the tail end of dinner. The first and third shot are without a flash (all of us had LED headlamps) and the second is with a flash. It does get quite dark there. You can see some of the propane/butane/whatever camp stoves on the table. From left to right, the people are: Nicole, Jess, Scott, Stan, Becky, and Joel.

See also:
Part I: hiking the National Monuments (Sunset Crater, Wupatki, and Walnut Cany.
Part III: hiking the falls (Mooney, Havasu, and Navajo) on the Havasupai Indian Reservation.

This page last modified Jun 23, 2011.
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