Hava-you seen this place?

There is nothing in this world quite like Havasu Falls and Havasupai. Havasupai means people of the blue-green waters. There are many beautiful waterfalls on the Havasupai tribal land within Havasu canyon. This adventure is permit only. Permits are managed by the Havasupai tribe and are limited each year. They typically sell out within minutes on the day of release. To get a reservation and read up on the process, check out the tribe's website.

I was lucky enough to score us a permit for two over Memorial Day weekend last year (2019). Reservations are now ALL 3 nights/4 days. No day hikes are permitted. Our reservation started on Saturday, so we flew to Arizona on Friday. We chose to fly into Phoenix for a few reasons – I’m familiar with the general area, we could get Dustin to see the Grand Canyon (although a bit out of our way), and there are some great local breweries.

We grabbed our rental car (super easy process at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport) and headed to grab brunch (and beer!). We chose to stop by North Mountain Brewing Company and had delicious food and a lovely flight of beer to sample in preparation for the 3.5-hour drive to the south sim of the Grand Canyon. DUSTIN GOT TO SEE THE GRAND CANYON – we hung around exploring the park for a few hours before making the trek to our hotel and completing our ‘pack prep’ for our hike the next morning.

There are a few options for the night before your hike into the canyon: sleep in your car at the trailhead (hard pass – we are too old and creaky for that), Hualapai Lodge in Peach Springs, Grand Canyon Caverns Inn, or other hotels in either Kingman or Seligman. We chose Hualapai Lodge based on reviews and proximity to the trailhead. The price point was as expected considering the demand – our room was about $150.

Although we originally intended to be some of those “start the hike at 4am” people, we decided to wait and grab breakfast at the lodge before making the drive to the trailhead. This was so worth it and we didn’t feel like we missed out by starting our hike later than intended. We still remained comfortable throughout the hike even though we left the trailhead around 8am.

We got to Havasu Falls around 1pm totaling just about 5 hours for the hike in (a bit more if you count continuing down to the campground).

Seeing the blue water was nothing short of badass. We set up camp near a canyon wall (swapped this to a different site the next afternoon) and decided to head back to the falls to take it all in – dipping your hiker-tired feet in that freezing blue water is heavenly!

Our first full day in the canyon we decided to head to Beaver Falls so we could explore there and then explore Mooney Falls more (you have to go to Beaver Falls via the descent at Mooney Falls). The hike to Beaver Falls is a 7-mile roundtrip hike. Going beyond Beaver Falls means leaving Havasupai land, however, if we make a return trip I would LOVE to hike out to the Confluence – the area where Havasu Creek waters meet the raging Colorado River. The hike to Confluence is 17 miles roundtrip, so we decided to skip it this year as ideally the day after would be a low-key recovery day and we wanted to maximize our exploring on Havasupai land.

We moved our campsite to a larger area near the creek with a picnic table that afternoon and cooked our dinner before relaxing into a game of cards by the campsite lantern.

Day two of exploring took us to the remaining falls on the Havasupai land – Fiftyfoot Falls, Little Navajo Falls, and a bit more time at Havasu Falls. We hiked “up the hill” near Havasu Falls for fry bread (with Nutella – yum!) as an afternoon treat. For meals, we mainly kept to dehydrated backpacking meals (Mountain House was our go-to brand), fruit/vegetable snack strips (light and flat – perfect for this!), backpacking instant coffee (Alpine Start brand coffee – so delish!), peanut butter, and granola bars. We found that the restrooms at the campground were maintained pretty well and [almost] always had available toilet paper.

This was Dustin’s first backpacking adventure and it was one of my favorite trips we’ve done as a couple to date. I can’t wait to head back to Havasupai. Are you interested in doing this trip? Let me know and I can give you all the information we used as well as my rockstar Havasupai packing list.

xo.

stay wild.