The day started early, especially for me as I could hardly sleep, as I was extremely nervous. We got up and packed up our daypacks and met at the van at 6 am for the 3-hour drive down to the rim. As we waiting for our gear to get unloaded (and used the rest room for the last time) we had some amazing views. Little did we know this was just the beginning of the amazing sites we were going to experience.
The trail started off with some fairly steep switchbacks for the first 1½ miles. As I was walking down I was just imagining how tough it was going to be to get back up. As we got to the bottom of the switchbacks we began a 6-mile slow decent before arriving at the Havasu Village. We took a few breaks on the way down, including a great picnic lunch.
Just before we arrived at the village we stopped at a wonderful creek and Russ, our trusty guide, suggested we take off our boots and soak our feet in the creek. I was a bit leery as I was not sure I would want to put my boots back on and the water was about 70 degrees. Reluctantly I took my boots off and the water felt so refreshing! It was amazing hoe much better it made me feel and it wasn’t an issue at all to put the boots back on.
At the village we topped up our water while our guides checked us in and continued down another 2 miles to the campsite. It was fairly steep again, but when we came around the bend and saw this, it was worth the journey down.
We stopped at the bottom of the falls for a bit of relaxation after the 6-hour journey down while Russ sorted out our campsite. He did a great job as our campsite was only about a five-mile walk from this waterfall right along the creek!
First things first when we arrived at the campground was a trip to the restroom for me! Then to our surprise we were given our tent to put up… We managed to get it up mostly on our own.
Amazingly we thought it was really small and later we were told it was actually a three-person tent! After the day we had, all we really wanted was a nice cold beer… unfortunately there is no alcohol allowed at the campgrounds. For dinner that night Russ made us some beef tacos and it was early to bed for me! I really enjoyed lying in the tent and looking up to nothing but the canyon walls and the stars. It was so peaceful to fall asleep to the sound of the creek flowing next to us. Richard can blog about his experience in the tent, as he did not have the same experience as I did.
The Johnsons 