Thinking about heading to Havasupai? Check the weather first...

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Havasu Falls, a popular tourist destination located in the Havasupai Indian Reservation, was closed to outsiders in March 2020, as a consequence of the worldwide pandemic.

I first visited this magical place in the summer of 2007.

Havasupai is unlike anywhere else I have been.

In a land far removed from the clamor of modern life sits a hidden gem of unparalleled beauty. Here, the Havasupai people, guardians of this sacred realm, have dwelt for many generations, their lives entwined with the land and its bountiful gifts.

Although they embrace modern conveniences, their isolated location has allowed them to maintain some semblance of their older ways.

Your first trip to the falls is a surreal one. As you venture forth into the quiet sanctuary, whispers of awe and reverence fill the air, carried upon the gentle desert breeze echoing in the hot desert sun.

At the start of your hike, you’ll question if you are in the correct place. The trailhead was more than 2 hours from a major city, and you haven’t had cell phone coverage in some time.

Looking around, there is no evidence of a near-tropical oasis, hidden just 10 miles ahead. Instead, your first thought will probably be “do I have enough water for this?!”

But once you make it to the oasis you are treated to a privilege unlike any other, and a peace and tranquility that is hard to put into words.

Your mind is able to fold into itself, becoming fully present in near silence as you drift in the turquoise blue waters staring up at the magnificent red rock cliffs and acres of greenery, connecting with the countless number of people who have done something similar over the years.

It’s my favorite place on earth.

I went back to Havasupai in the summer of 2015 and had an even more enjoyable time. The squirrels were even fatter than I remembered (they subsisted on pretty much a complete diet of stolen human food; acquiring the skills to chew through nearly anything), the weather was perfect, and the people were just as friendly.

I was very lucky to be able to go. It was not easy to secure a permit, and both times I ended up jumping in with an established group.

I left wondering if I would ever be able to return.

I met my now wife shortly after that trip, and remember thinking how I couldn’t wait to take her down there someday.

We learned early this year (2023) that the campground would reopen in March. The demand was already high before we were forced into 3 years of no supply and I was confident I would have to give up any hope of going to Havasupai sometime this decade.

I joined the Facebook group and put the thought out of my mind.

As usual, I have a vacation scheduled but nothing is planned for it. The clock in the corner of the monitor blares at 1:34 AM. I should have gone to bed hours ago, but I could not decide where we should go.

I was sick with Covid through the Winter holiday and the flu on Thanksgiving. My company went through an 80% RIF in January, and I also lost 75% of my accounts. Plus I had not had a proper vacation since Sedona 6 months prior, and I needed to relieve some stress.

Money was tight, so I wandered the internet looking at options.

I stumbled onto a Facebook post with a link to a marketplace selling Havasupai reservations.

My first thought was excitement, there was a reservation for 2 people on the days I was taking off!

But my next thought was apprehension, it was nearly $800, almost twice what I wanted to spend, and what if we didn’t have a good time?

I made it to the checkout page and decided to wait and discuss it with Taryn.

“Guess what?” I told her early the next day.

She looked at me inquisitively over her bowl of oatmeal, her spoon hovering near her mouth.

A woman of few words, she raised her eyebrows higher and gestured for an answer.

“I found a marketplace for Havasuapi passes, and there are 2 on the exact dates I have off next week. It’s a bit spendy, but what do you — “

“Let's go! It’s Havasupai” Taryn exclaimed joyfully.

That was enough for me. I had been touting the joys of Havasupai for as long as she could remember, and our chance to visit together was finally here!

I booked the reservation, and we began to prepare for the trip.

I did research on Havasupai in the winter and figured we needed to prepare for temperatures as cold as the high 30s. I understood that the water would be 70 degrees, and the air temperature in the 60s during the day, so we 100% planned on swimming.

We were looking forward to smaller crowds and the joys of being some of the first people welcomed back to the campground after its 3 years of hibernation.

Unfortunately, I never thought to check the weather.

We are located about 6 hours from Havasupai in a similar climate. The day we were scheduled to leave we were seeing rain like we had not seen in years, setting off flood warnings all across the American Southwest.

But we drove through the downpour and took on the risk — I wasn’t about to be out $800 and miss out on Havasupai!

Besides, it never rains for long in the desert. And even if there was flooding we would just stay on the high ground.

It would end and we would have a great time. Plus, the weather forecast was already predicting sunny skies for the next two days. We pressed on, spending the night in a hotel a few hours from the trailhead.

The next day’s hike wasn’t quite like I remembered. My bag was much heavier, 70+ pounds — at least twice as heavy as it would be in Summer. It was cold, but quickly warmed up as we started the descent.

We made it through the village and were nearing the campground when my first inclination that something was off presented itself.

What were these gross brown waters and where were the cascades of turquoise and azure?

“No worries”, I assured myself and my wife, “these waters will clear up in the next day or two. It’s only Thursday and we have till Sunday!”

As we neared the campsite we interacted with a fellow hiker. She had been at the campsite for a few days and had seen the waters blue only yesterday. But this rain was something else.

“I’m from Seattle and I am an avid backpacker. That was, without a doubt, the WORST rainstorm I have ever been in!”

Oh good, then we had made it through the worst part.

We even met a ranger a bit later who told us the waters would be blue again on Saturday.

Things were looking up.

We struggled to find a campground in the overly crowded site. I had never seen so many people here before, and I came during peak season twice in the past.

We eventually found a campsite of sorts near the bathrooms. Convenient, if not desirable, and decided we would look for somewhere else the next morning.

The day dawned on a nearly cloudless blue sky.

We quickly moved our belongings to a more secluded spot, with a picnic table. We were excited to settle in and get our vacation back on track!

As I began preparing breakfast the excitement shifted towards panic; a park ranger came sprinting towards us, his body armor vest shifting violently as he ran.

“This is all going to flood, you need to get the fuck out of here.?NOW!”

We scrambled together a few bare essentials: car keys, water, and some food. There was no time to break camp. Taryn was smart enough to stuff her sleeping bag in her pack, and we left everything else, including my sleeping bag and our extra clothes.

We jogged for high ground, not sure how much time we had left.

Somewhere around 150 of us gathered on the highest ground, waiting for an update. It was a few minutes past 8 o’clock, and I was missing my coat back at our campsite.

After several hours of waiting, with no update, I decided we would abandon all our other supplies and head back to the car.

We didn’t make it very far.

The bridge was completely washed away, and that river was rushing way too fast to ford.

Path to Havasupai washed out

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We rejoined the group and waited for an update.

Noon came and went.

Two o’clock came and went.

By 4 o’clock, I decided that an update was not forthcoming. The water had not gotten any worse all day, and people were starting to wonder why we had to evacuate at all. Other than a few paths being washed out, we had not seen any campsites flooded.

Taryn went to the restroom and I sat there wondering if any news was coming. I dreaded spending the night on the high ground without my gear, and I decided I would do something about it.

I began the 1-mile jog back to our campsite, figuring I would bulldoze past any rangers who tried to stop me. I didn’t see any rangers, but I did pass a few people with the same idea.

I had to take an alternate route, as the main trail was washed out, and I came around the corner to find Taryn!

She had joined a small group and was leading her own rescue efforts. She had also planned to save the day, although she only had her sites set on my sleeping bag and our pads. Together, we gathered all of our left-behind gear and moved to a secluded camping spot far from the river and right at the base of the highest ground.

We still had two more days here. Maybe it would turn out to be a fun trip.

Or, maybe it would get worse.

In September of 2021, I went deer hunting in Northern Idaho. It was well below freezing in our tent, yet I stayed warm enough with an insulated blanket wrapped around me inside my sleeping bag.

This evening in Havasupai, it dropped down to 28 degrees. I am not exactly sure why, maybe it was due to the stressful events, my low food intake, and my dehydration, but it was the coldest and most miserable night I have experienced.

Taryn had a better night, but the look on her face made it clear she was not having a good time. On top of that, we had no idea what was going on. The experience showed me how much I take modern means of information distribution for granted. Without a digital reference, all I had to go on was rumor and hearsay.

And we were both tired of rumor and hearsay.

“Let’s go?home.”

We packed up our belongings and headed back to where the main group camped.

The bridge was still washed out, but we learned that they were taking hikers on an alternate route to the village, many had left last night, where people were queuing for the helicopter.

Worried that we would not make it out in time since the helicopter stops flying at sundown, I tried to rush us ahead of the group.

When we reached this new trailhead, we were told to hike the half-mile or so back to the ranger station and leave our bags because this hike was too difficult to take a large pack on.

We did so, and found ourselves back at the trailhead, waiting for a group of 6 people to slowly begin the ascent — 6 people who had decided they would bring their bags.

It’s a miracle no one died.

The first part of the hike was sketchy. A 30–40 foot vertical climb with easy footholds but treacherous footing. We trusted our lives to a small nylon rope, hoping its integrity would prove more forthcoming than the attempts at an evacuation.

Once we made it past that first stretch it was a relatively easy walk back to the village.

Halfway there, I realized I had left the car keys in my pack.

Fear and panic overtook me.

I was positive we would never see those packs again. I had made sure to grab my phone and wallet, how could I have forgotten the keys?!

Taryn helped calm me down and make a rational decision. I decided I had no choice but to head back to the ranger station. Taryn would wait for me on the trail.

30 minutes later, I met back up with Taryn and we discussed the idea of going back (a third time!) to grab our bags. Feeling that was the correct call, we reluctantly made the attempt. But once we got back to the trailhead we saw a line of well over 20 people, all with their bags, waiting to ascend.

Dejected, we gave up and headed towards the village, at least comforted by the thought that we could get home now.

About twenty minutes later we were stopped by a ranger, in a small clearing where a crowd was slowly forming.

As we waited for him to get off his walkie-talkie, Taryn broke down. I think it took some time for the events to catch up with her, and I think the fear of possibly never seeing our daughter again came into full effect.

Although painful to watch, it gave birth to a truly beautiful human experience. One of the other hikers, a stranger at the time, was within hugging distance and Taryn reached out to her before I could react.

They enjoyed a heartfelt embrace for a few seconds before it felt right for me to take over, experiencing the odd sensation where your partner’s panic leads to your calmness and control.

God bless Vinetta, a 40-something yoga teacher and mother with two teenage children who we got to know later in the experience. I think she gave Taryn something that I couldn’t, a genuine and loving woman’s touch.

Taryn calmed down quickly, and the ranger informed us of the new plan.

Because this trail was on sacred ground, we were not allowed to walk on it. Instead, they were going to use ATVs to shuttle people across.

The ride back to the village was uneventful, and like water emptying into a clogged drain, my stress slowly started to subside.

We had a late breakfast at the village cafe. Well, Taryn did. I always find it difficult to eat when I am overly stressed. But I managed a few bites, Taryn enjoyed a much-needed coffee, and we headed out with a smaller group of 20 or so to take a back route to the main trail.

According to Alltrails, it is around an 8-mile hike with over 2,000 feet of elevation . But the horrible thing about this hike is that most of that elevation is in the last mile and a half.

I kept a great pace, leading the group, until the real ascent started.

Since we started the journey nearly 4 days prior, I would estimate I had eaten around 3–4,000 total calories and had less than a gallon of water to drink. And I need 3,500 calories just for maintenance.

I hit a wall.

And for the first time in my life, I genuinely wondered if I would be able to finish this hike.

My feelings about the leave-your-pack experience shifted to positive. Even if I never saw my pack again I was incredibly grateful it was sitting back at camp. I would have had a harder time lugging it out than hosting Joe Rogen at a Vegan “barbecue”.

Taryn was having nowhere near as difficult a time as me, although she too felt that lugging the pack out would have been an impossible venture.

She patiently waited as I took many breaks, and slowly drug my exhausted self out of the Grand Canyon.

The journey mostly behind us, we stopped to stretch and overheard our friend Vinetta sharing her experience with another hiker.

“There was even a girl crying”, Vinetta said with concern.

“That was me,” Taryn quipped across the parking lot, “I was the one crying!”

“You weren’t the only one!” The other girl put in.

We all laughed, shared contact information, and went back to our car. The helicopter had been running all day, and after only about a 2-hour wait, we got our bags!

We loaded up and headed for a sports bar. With the stressful event behind us, I was ready to forget the trauma, enjoy the good times, and try to make up that calorie deficit!

Stats according to the iPhone: 200 floors climbed, 27 miles walked.