Day 5 – Seligman, AZ to Grand Canyon Caverns, AZ to Supai, AZ

Miles driven today: 99 Cumulative miles: 1616 Got up at 7:30am this morning and packed our backpacks for our hike down to Supai. It took us quite a while to get everything packed, but we’re still fairly new to ‘backpack camping’ and wanted to make sure we had all that we needed, but not so much that it would be miserable to carry. Finally left KOA at 9:00am and drove about 35 minutes to Grand Canyon Caverns. We bought our tickets for the 10:00am tour and browsed the ‘curio shop’ until then. The shop was filled with all sorts of odds and ends (or trinkets and trash as I normally call it), mostly Route 66 paraphernalia, but also plenty of ‘souvenir rocks’ and scorpion necklaces and such. The tour finally began and we descended 210 feet down an elevator to the dry caverns (meaning no water, which also means no new formations are being made). The tour was interesting and pretty much like any cave/ cavern tour, except with a cheese-factor of about 9 (on a scale of 10). The tour guide had his standard jokes and the rest of our tour group seemed to laugh on cue, almost as if they were on laugh tracks (you know what I’m talking about – when you are watching a sitcom and you hear the ‘audience’ laugh). Some interesting things we saw/ learned: this cavern was deemed a fallout shelter during the Cuban Missile Crisis, with supplies for 2,000 people for 2 weeks (which are still in the cavern); the air in the caverns comes from near Havasu Falls (where we’re headed later today) and takes about 2 weeks to get here; the temperature and humidity are constant year-round; a bobcat that fell into the natural cave entrance in 1850 is still there, preserved by the constant temp/ humidity; a giant ground sloth also fell into the opening as well, 11,000 years ago (they know because these have been extinct that long and they had the remains carbon-dated) and tried to claw its way back out – the scratch marks are still visible and ¾ of a toenail was found in the wall; the closest living relatives of the giant ground sloth are the three-toed sloth, the armadillo, and the anteater. I’m sure there were plenty more morsels of information, but they’re a bit clouded in my head by the cheesy jokes and atmosphere (life-sized Indian mannequins, a stuffed sloth replica in the caverns, and giant fake dinosaurs outside). We left the caverns and drove for about an hour and a half to the Hualapai Hilltop on the Havasupai Indian Reservation (we had to drive through the Hualapai Indian Reservation as well – I think we were maybe supposed to buy a permit to cross, but the signs weren’t really clear and I decided to just keep driving, which I think may have made Daniel a bit nervous, but he kept his mouth shut). When we got to Hualapai Hilltop, it was a bit more chaotic than I had expected. There were cars parked every which way and horses and pack mules all over the place. We knew we were supposed to ‘pay on arrival,’ but did that mean arrival at the hilltop? Or at the village in the bottom of the canyon (Supai)? Or at the campground? The book we had didn’t specify and of course we had no cell service to call and check. I looked again in the book where I had campground reservation written down and realized the price I had written was $75.90 for camping and fees for Reservation access – per person! And we only had $110 in cash on us. I wasn’t even sure if they could take credit cards (there is a lodge in Supai, but the book we have says there are no televisions and no phones there). I really didn’t know what to expect and Daniel couldn’t remember from his trip to Supai 16+ years ago with his grandmother. Daniel was visibly frustrated and stressed out since we didn’t exactly know how everything would work out (and he had asked me to call to figure it out, but I waited until there was no cell service to try – though, in my defense, I was driving and he could have tried to call too). We decided to put on our packs and start the 8-mile hike down the canyon to Supai. We started our hike just a few minutes before 1:00pm (in hindsight, not the smartest idea as it was friggin’ hot!!), each carrying packs weighing 35 – 40 pounds a piece. We hiked back and forth down the switchbacks, passed a few people on their way out of the canyon, and then were passed by horses and mules carrying residents, supplies, and the mail (Supai is so remote that its mail is still delivered on horseback – a la Pony-Express). We hiked and hiked some more. Sopped for Daniel to put moleskin on his new blisters. Stopped to cool off and drink more water. Stopped to look at a desert fox (?). Stopped to dump rocks out of our hiking boots, etc. Actually, in all, we only stopped for about 25 – 30 minutes. Finally, 4 hours after leaving Hualapai Hilltop, we reached Supai and found the Tourist Office/ Registration. We dropped our packs, went inside, and were relieved to see a credit card machine. We paid our fees, got tags for our bags (to prove we paid), then hiked toward the edge of town, almost got run over by horses being run through town by a local on a horse, and Daniel and I switched packs (he had the tent and whatever water we hadn’t drank already in his pack, so it was the heavier of the two). We spent the next hour hiking further down the canyon, past Havasu Falls, and to the entrance of the campground, 2 miles past the village. We made it to the first open picnic table and sat down to drop our packs. We both remembered reading a recommendation to walk the entire length of the campground before selecting a campsite as there are many options. I somehow don’t think that the person who made this recommendation had just hiked 10 miles in 5 hours in the August heat. We opted to leave our packs at the table and drag ourselves down river a bit to see what there was. An eight of a mile or so into it, we turned around to get our packs (again, in hindsight, we should have just kept them on to begin with), then walked maybe a quarter mile and found a great campsite near the canyon wall, away from other people and about 50 feet from the river. We sat for a few minutes, switched to our flip-flops to relieve Daniel’s blisters and my ankles (which are feeling bruised from my boots) and set up our tent. By 6:45pm, we had the stove set up and were making dinner (again, boiling water to dump in a bag of food). We ate, which was really more going through the motions of scooping and chewing rather than enjoying dinner. By about 7:30pm, we were so exhausted that we closed up our packs, set them on the picnic table, crawled in our tent, and crashed. Wildlife seen: Red-tailed hawk, lizards, toad, desert fox? Miles hiked: ~10.5