Exploring Havasupai: A Guide to the Heart of the Grand Canyon

by Greg Witt

Overview

Discover one of the most beautiful destinations in Arizona, surrounded by Grand Canyon National Park.

Deep in the Grand Canyon lies a place of unmatched beauty—a place where blue-green water cascades over fern-clad cliffs into travertine pools, where great blue heron skim canyon streams, and where giant cottonwoods and graceful willows thrive in the shade of majestic sandstone cliffs. Havasupai is a paradise enveloped in one of the earth’s most rugged and parched landscapes.

Exploring Havasupai by author Greg Witt is the essential destination guide for those visiting the area. The updated book is filled with insider tips, fascinating background, and essential information. It identifies many new hikes, mines, springs, and historical sites never before revealed in a Grand Canyon or Havasupai guidebook. Details on canyon geology, weather patterns, and the unique flora and fauna add depth to a hiker’s experience.

The guidebook includes detailed maps, trail descriptions, stunning full-color photographs, and intriguing historical insights. This is the must-have guide for canyon visitors, whether you’re arriving by helicopter, on horseback, or on foot.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781634040709
Publisher:	Menasha Ridge Press
Publication date:	12/13/2016
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	431,397
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Greg Witt’s journeys have taken him to every corner of the globe. He has guided mountaineering expeditions in the Alps and Andes and paddled wild rivers in the Americas. He has dropped teams of adventurers into golden slot canyons; trudged through deep jungles in Africa, Central America, and Asia; and guided archaeological expeditions across the parched Arabian Peninsula. His passion for adventure has always focused on sharing his experience with others. Following degrees from the University of California and Brigham Young University, he had an early career in human resources management; but Greg prefers high adventure to the high-rise, so decades ago he traded his wingtips for hiking boots and has never looked back. Some weeks, Greg hikes more miles than he drives, which means he wears out his boots faster than he wears out his tires. He has crossed the Grand Canyon on foot more than a dozen times, climbed Colorado’s three highest peaks in three days, and each summer as a guide in the Alps he hikes more than 700 miles and gains nearly 100,000 vertical feet of elevation—the equivalent of climbing Everest 9 times. Now he leads readers on the most breathtaking hikes and exciting outdoor adventures on the globe. He comes ready to discuss the geology, history, archaeology, weather patterns, culture, and flora and fauna of the exciting locales he loves. His other titles include 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Salt Lake City and 50 Best Short Hikes in Utah’s National Parks. Greg’s research and exploration continue to uncover the unknown. If you join him, you can be guaranteed a phenomenal adventure peppered with the unexpected.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
Havasupai: The Heart of the Grand Canyon

Paradise has never been easily reached. In the case of Havasupai, it’s 10 miles on foot or by horse from a canyon-rim trailhead that’s still 60 miles removed from the old Route 66 in northern Arizona. By most standards, Supai Village, which lies in the depths of Havasu Canyon, is the most remote town in the continental United States and the only community remaining where both the mail and the trash are still carried out by mules.

In this canyon paradise, color, form, and light create a scenic palette with a distinctive and unmatched appeal. Red canyon walls, deep-green cottonwoods, a cloudless desert sky, and pearlescent limestone combine to reflect a turquoise hue from the waters of Havasu Creek. Iridescent shades of aquamarine bounce off glistening pools, and thunderous waterfalls throw sprays that form rainbows.

Every day Havasu Creek carries 38 million gallons of natural spring water into the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Along the way it nourishes the Supai Village— its farms, livestock, and people. As the creek slithers down the canyon, abrupt cliffs form some of the most spectacular waterfalls imaginable, while travertine rims create hundreds of natural pools and drops. The perennial flow of Havasu Creek sustains more life—both people and agricultural production—than any other tributary within the Grand Canyon. Providing the necessary water for the tribe and its livelihood, this spring-fed stream is also the primary attraction for the thousands of visitors who come to the canyon each year.

Most visitors to the Grand Canyon drive from one crowded overlook to the next and never experience the inner beauty of the canyon. For those willing to pay the price of strapping on a pair of boots or saddling up, Havasupai reveals its variety of natural wonders. Tucked away like a sun-drenched Shangri-la, this stunning red-rock oasis must be deliberately and thoughtfully sought out. There are steep and jagged miles between the trailhead and your first glimpse of water. Blistering sun, choking dust, and steep canyon walls accompany you on your journey. With each footfall, you dream of pristine aquamarine pools and tumbling waterfalls. The vision keeps you plodding onward until the blasting desert inferno is suddenly subdued by cooling mist, draping ferns, and leafy cottonwoods—you have arrived at Havasupai.

Once in the canyon, you can indulge your senses in a thousand ways. You can cool yourself in the crystalline waters of the creek or soak in bubbling pools. You can nap in dappled shade to the roar of a thunderous lullaby or explore hidden grottos and uncharted channels of the creek. Side canyons can be sun-baked, dry, and rocky or dark, moist, and blanketed with dripping ferns. By nightfall, the desert air cools and even brings a welcome chill in the spring and fall.

The native people of Havasu Canyon, those who call themselves Havasuw ’Baaja—people of the blue-green water—comprise a tribe of about 650 members known as the Havasupai. Most of the tribe members live in the Supai Village, where they speak their native Havasupai language and farm on tribal lands. They are the only indigenous people of the Grand Canyon living in the canyon today. A resourceful people, they are keepers of an ancient heritage and rightfully proud of their home.

As people from around the world learn about Havasupai and the incomparable beauty of the canyon, they find their way to the trailhead, to the village, and on to the falls and pools. Today tourism forms the economic base for the tribe and provides jobs in packing supplies on horseback and in operating the lodge, campground, café, and store. Other tribal members are employed in tribal-run federal programs and in municipal services. But sharing the natural wonders of Havasupai with the world comes at a high price. Trail maintenance, construction of facilities, and waste management are all expensive and difficult undertakings in this remote landscape.

EXPLORING HAVASUPAI is packed with the essential information you need to make your trip to Havasupai spectacular. You will come to understand and appreciate the history of the native people of the canyon, the Havasupai. Specific information is given on what you will need to bring for your safety and comfort in this remote corner of the Grand Canyon. The guide is loaded with detailed instructions on how to find and enjoy every rich element of this piece of paradise—from hidden waterfalls to limestone caverns to dramatic overlooks. Sprinkled throughout are fascinating and informative morsels of history, geology, folklore, weather, and nature that will make your visit even more meaningful. And woven into each page of this guide is a reverence for the land and people that will help you sense your responsibility to leave the canyon every bit as perfect as you found it.

Table of Contents

• Havasupai: The Heart of the Grand Canyon
• How to Use This Book
• Planning Your Trip
• Getting to the Trailhead
• Havasupai History
• Havasupai Culture, Traditions, and Language
• Havasupai and Grand Canyon Geology
• Havasupai Flora and Fauna
• Minimum-Impact Travel
• Staying Healthy in the Canyon
• Natural Hazards
• Havasupai Trail: Hualapai Hilltop to Mooney Falls
• Supai Village
• Camping in the Canyon
• Waterfalls and Pools
• Additional Hiking Trails in Havasuapi

List of Maps

• Coconino Plateau
• Hualapai Hilltop to Mooney Falls
• Supai Village
• Mooney Falls to Colorado River
• Carbonate Canyon and Mesa Trails
• Ghost Canyon
• Beaver Canyon
• Willow Spring Trail
• West Mesa Trail: Havasu Falls to Beaver Canyon

Editorial Reviews

2010 National Outdoor Book Award winner

From the Publisher