I just want to start off by saying this post has taken some time to pull together. For one, It took me a good while to recover from said events enough to actually be able to write about it. Secondly, this summer has been so incredible but so, so, BUSY! I know I say that in just about every post... maybe my lifestyle isn't for the daily blogger but I still enjoy it. So here's to a single blog post a month! I promise I'll make it a goodie ;)
So I mentioned how Mattie and I made a trip to Las Vegas over Memorial day weekend... but I didn't explain the real reasoning behind going. Funny story: I have this bad habit of constantly researching hikes, trails, all things outdoors that look fancy, ect.. add them to a list of places I want to visit and eventually, I make it happen. Well, this particular trail I had been eyeballing for well over a year. I did all my research ( so I thought ) planned it all out in my head and then very carefully presented it to Matthew. Poor guy, had no idea what he was getting into. I presented it as a weekend in Vegas with a little road trip to the Grand Canyon one day, all fun and games. Being the wonderful hubby that he is, he agreed and we were off. Now don't get me wrong, I wanted to see Vegas.. but my sole intention was to check this hike off the bucket list... I conveinantly failed to mention to Matt the length of the hike, the strenuosity and the time it was going to take out of our trip. SO.. after our night out on the town, I made the suggestion we should probably get a good nights rest for the following long day we had ahead.
I set the alarm for 3:30am. We had to leave our hotel by 4 in order to make it to the trailhead by sunrise. For any fellow hikers, you guys know that trailheads aren't like a mall location that you can put into your GPS and then all is well. We were in the middle of the desert and I was using a map to find this place. Needless to say, I was slightly stressed with the pressure to pull this off. Too much time getting turned around would prevent starting the trail early enough, the whole thing would be a no go. With only one argument as to wether or not I was reading the map properly.. We finally made it to the trailhead. Now let me back up for a hot minute to say, our original game plan was to start looking for a gas station about 100 miles out to stock up on food, water ect.. however, funny thing about the desert, there aren't gas stations. haha. This was mistake 1 of MANY. We had stopped by Hardees earlier that morning and ate a healthy, I'm going on the longest hike of my life, I should eat a biscuit, type breakfast.. I had a lovely cup of ice and half a biscuit left over. So that is what we started our hike with. Now normally, I would have said its not a good idea to go without food and water but thankfully I knew there was a town 10 miles in that had food and water that we could buy, so we only had to make it 10 miles. No biggie, right?
We pack our melted ice and half biscuit in our packs and start to head for the trail when I noticed there were signs posted everywhere that said: "ABSOLUTELY NO DAY HIKERS" my heart DROPPED. I wasn't kidding when I said I had done my research and NO WHERE did they mention they didn't allow day hikers. Matt quickly replied with, "aww sad, guess we can't go." haha but I wasn't having it. There was a total of maybe 10 people stretching and preparing for the hike and I made my way through the group looking for the trail guide. I explained to her how I literally had traveled half way across the country to do this hike, not to mention woke up at 3:30 and drove 4 hours to start but that I wasn't going to just turn around and call it quits. She responded with a, "I'm sorry ma'am but we only have capacity to hold so many people at the bottom per night and that unfortunately her group was already full.. blah, blah, blah. So I kindly asked if the trail was well marked and then walked away. Mistake number 2. At this point Matt was so annoyed with me. He isn't one to break the rules but he was in no way going to leave me ( because I had already started down the trail to keep from someone stopping me.. ) However, I must say it was slightly discouraging to see the people hiking up what we were hiking down. I asked how long they had been at it and a few responded with " 5-6 hours" I refused to turn back so I just grinned and said, oh well, we are in good shape, we'll be fine. The other thing I didn't think twice about was the rocks and how unstable the ground was. Usually when I hike I just wear my chacos and all is well. Learn from me people, BUY UGLY OVER THE ANKLE BOOTS AND SAVE YOUR FEET. ok... but for real. Thankfully we were keeping a good pace and we made it to the bottom in 3 hours. Or at least what we thought was the bottom. We entered into the town of Supai and they literally had a team of people checking you in. Since I had the bright idea to do the hike without permission, we "accidentally" created a distraction in order to sneak through. Only downfall was, we had ZERO idea where we were going. The town was so rural, I felt like I had stepped back in time due to all the cattle and lack of normalcy.
We found a little market and when we walked in I literally heard the hallelujah chorus.. they had a vending machine with crushed ice. ( insert praising hands emoji) It was a sign from God. haha anyways, we purchased a gallon of water, protein bars and enough food to last us the rest of the afternoon. I asked the young girl behind the counter which way the waterfall was and she literally just pointed, not a single word, just pointed. I'm sure the look on my face said a lot. haha but we headed in the direction she pointed. Now, I only panicked like, 2 more times because little did we know where she pointed would be like 2-3 more miles until we came upon any sign of a waterfall. I seriously thought I had us stranded. Then we finally heard it. Couldn't find it, but we heard it. After a short maze downhill we saw the most beautiful waterfall. Water the most ridiculously gorgeous color too! We set up camp, ate lunch, cliff jumped, rested up and took more pictures than I am even proud to admit.
At this point it was a little after lunch and we decided not knowing exactly what time the sun goes down, we would start heading back.. we stocked up on water again and peaced out. The best part: We ran into the tour of people we saw at the top of the trailhead on our way out. The lady asked why we were heading back out at this hour and I told her we didn't even have a tent to stay even if we wanted too. She gave us this look of concern and wished us luck. Matt and I were both slightly caught off guard by her response but I mean, what can ya do? Now another mistake we made was not taking anything that told us how far we had gone/had to go. We downloaded an app but it needed service to work (which clearly wasn't happening.) So we went solely based off what looked familiar from the trip down. haha I feel like such an amateur now that i'm writing all of this down. No judgment, okay people?
Mistake #7534 - While we were down there, we jumped in the falls. When we got out to get dressed somehow our shoes ended up soaked. Not even a mile in, BOTH the soles of my feet were one giant blister. Secondly, the not so terrible heat on the way down, changed with a quickness. I'm not even exaggerating I felt like I was in a oven. Florida is hot as heck but it's humid so I just sweat, there... you literally feel like you can't breathe. So we DOWNED our water. About an hour later... we see familiar stuff, surely we're doing alright... another hour later, we run out of water. No biggie considering we are almost out, right? Negative ghost rider. More familiar stuff but this dang trail was never ending. At this point we were just barely over half way. Finally, 2 hours later, we make it to the switchbacks that take us out of the canyon... it took over an hour to finish the last 2 miles directly UP the canyon. Tears were shed, I will not say wether from Matt or I, haha. But seriously I think I cried the entire last mile from a combined pain from my dehydration and blisters that were at this point so horrible I looked like a crippled little lady. After 5 1/2 hours, we finish what took us only 3 hours to get down.
News Flash: When you decend 5,200 feet into the canyons, you eventually have to climb 5,200 feet back out.
We made it to our car, but the funny thing now was we had to drive over 100 miles out of the reservation before we could even find a gas station. The hunger and thirst was real. We rock, paper, scissored to see who the lucky one was who had to drive and matt lost. I don't think it was physically possible for me to be behind the wheel. Imagine the WORST hangover of your life, paired with a migraine out of this world and soreness from parts of your body you didn't even know existed. That was the current state in which we were in. The closest food facility we found was a Arby's. Satisfying, right? We parked and just looked at each other. It was seriously something from out of a movie, neither of us could move.. we kinda just fell out of the car. I couldn't stand, I couldn't wear shoes, I couldn't do anything. So here was the single least proud moment of my life: I walked into a random Arby's barefoot and crippled, layed the frick out in a booth, covered my face to keep from being sick and just layed there. Matt came out of the bathroom and said, "Babe, I just peed straight brown, I think I'm dying." haha. We ordered food but couldn't eat, we just stared at it. We ended up just drinking water and crawled back into the car and drove 3 hours back to our hotel.
The rest of the evening was a blur. I don't remember getting back to our room, or showering for that matter. Just sleep. Sleep off the dehydration and hike hangover from hell. Sleep, sleep and more sleep.
The next morning I decided to look through our pictures and came to realize we never made it to the falls in which we originally planned to hike. ( I just thought it looked different in person than in pictures.) The falls we saw were just a prequel to the big daddy that was just a few miles further in the canyon. That being said, Matt and I already have our next trip booked. This time with a few minor changes to the itinerary ;)
For anyone interested in visiting Supai:
*DO NOT try to do this hike in one day. You will want to kill yourself if trying doesn't kill you first.
*It's the hardest place in the world to find, Do yourself a favor and hire a tour guide.
*Wear over the ankle boots or something with good ankle support unless you enjoy pain.
*Take more water than you ever thought possible to drink in one day
*Try to pick a less hot month than June, It was ungodly hot. I'm an idiot
*Bring someone encouraging... you're gonna need it.
My short story of how I nearly died in Arizona aside... t'was the Single.Best.Day.Of.My.Life.
