My first hike to Supai

Mooney Falls

I first hiked to Supai, Arizona in 1987 – it’s hard to believe it has been thirty years ago.  I just found my hand-written journal from that adventure which I am transcribing here for my blog.  This was the first back-packing trip I ever made…

I had the desire to visit the Havasupai Canyon area for many years.  My friend Dave Melian had made the trek and I heard his stories and saw his pictures - which always made me want to go. 

On the spur of the moment, while considering the extreme likelihood that there were no permits available, I called the Supai Tourist Manager only two weeks prior to my intended hiking date.  As it was planned for mid-week there were still permits to be had and I secured the necessary reservations for hiking and camping.  That was really unusual - permits were normally gone months ahead of time.  I had "lucked out."

The preparations for the trek began one week ahead with a visit to the Arizona Hiking Shack on north Cave Creek Road, where I found my old grade-school chum, Glen Dickinson.  I made a reservation for a back pack rental (I did not have one of my own back then) and also for a Therma-Rest pad to sleep on. This was a vinyl sleeping pad that with the opening of a valve, self-inflated with a thin layer of air. This came highly recommended by Glen and the combination of the pack and the pad only cost $4.50 per day, so I agreed to it. Glen assured me it would be worth the money. This completed, I went on with the arrangements for a camping trip to the White Mtns with my kids. 

It was my plan to return from the White Mountains camping trip on the 27^th of June in time to pick up the equipment from the Hiking Shack before they closed for the weekend.  I bought supplies for the trip in different places the next morning, including a small tent I got for ½ price at about $18.  It had been my intent to sleep open-air – but a bargain is a bargain. [In hindsight, it gave me a place to store my stuff out of sight once at the campground.]  I put together a first aid kit, probably the heaviest single item in the pack.  I put together some food – non-perishable things such as celery, peanut butter,  (4) PB&J sandwiches, carrots, apples, a summer sausage, pepperoni sticks with dips, candies for the trail, crackers and gum. I also packed an ice chest with ham sandwiches for breakfast before hiking, juice and several cans of soda pop (to be left in the car on ice until I hiked out three days later, hot and thirsty). 

By now it was Sunday evening and my sister Tina drove me to a car rental agency to pick up my wheels for the trip – a new Chrysler LeBaron.  My own vehicle at the time was an MG-B and I didn't trust it not to break down on a road trip. I still had my boys with me up to this point, so I took them back to their Mom’s and went home to finish my “getting ready.”

I packed a bed sheet to sleep in and a vinyl tarp and some other assorted items that I "just had to have" and of course later found useless.  After a final errand to pick up a friend at the airport (Carol Rosetta, who was returning from a vacation trip of her own), I finally got it all done and hit the road at about 11:30 pm.

I headed north without stopping until I encountered a motorcycle, headlight on, in the ditch.  This was between Prescott Valley and Ash Fork. Dust was still in the air and I turned around thinking he might be hurt. Someone had run him off the road about 4 hours before, and he couldn’t get the big Harley out of a hole he had dug while trying.  I had nothing to tug him out of the ditch with, [and apparently even together we couldn’t pull the bike out], so I gave him a drink and a ride to Ash Fork where he had a friend.  He had been drinking quite a bit, but he caused me no trouble.  He turned out to be a fairly decent fellow.

I made a quick pit stop in Seligman, probably had milk and donuts, and went on out old US 66 to the turn-off to Hilltop. I made pretty good time – I knocked off the 65 miles to Hilltop by 3:45 AM.  As usual, you had to worry about livestock on that road [While transcribing these notes, I don’t remember now whether there actually were any, but I noted the signs with warnings about watching out for them.]  I slept in the car until about 5:45 AM.  I had no alarm (no cell phone in those days); but I was counting on the sounds of other hikers to wake me – and they did. I found myself surprisingly alert for having had so little rest – probably because of the excitement.

The outhouse at Hilltop was the last one until I reached Supai – so I got myself pit-stopped and then got my hiking boots on. I got my man-killer backpack strapped on and finally got on the trail downhill at about 6:20 AM.  My notes “guess” that the pack weighed about 35 lbs.

The trail to Supai from Hilltop begins immediately with switchbacks, which continue for about one mile. It’s fairly easy going down, but my legs were a little shaky at the foot of the mountain.  At the bottom of the switchbacks, the trail turns 90 degrees to starboard and flattens out – you’re hiking north along the bottom of a wide draw at that point. From there on, it is a fairly easy and level walk to Supai – probably 8 more miles.  It is downhill, but not steep. I took a quick break, then moved on down the trail. Hiking pretty fast for a beginner, I made it to Supai by about 9:15 AM.

I created a problem for myself along the way by not drinking enough water.  It was shady and fairly cool, so I wasn't thirsty.  But my body was "working," and by about the last mile I was in a fair amount of misery and discomfort.  I had a heat rash on my arms and “general exhaustion.” The road into the village is a straight stretch, and I struggled past the first houses and farms through the soft deep dirt of the trail, and then at the south edge of the village I came to the Tourist Office where I needed to pay my fees and get my permits.  All hikers register and pay there. My “trail fee” was $10, plus a $9 charge for each night’s camping.  My total was $28.

I crashed on the wooden bench outside for five or ten minutes to recover. At the time, it was my thought that I had come pretty close to a heat stroke.  I drank about a quart of water. Then as I started to feel a little better, I moved off through the village and down the trail toward the campgrounds.  This part of the hike was sunny– and since it was summer, very hot.  And I was already heat-sick before I started. Up to this point, the hike had been mostly shady and cool – which is why you start a summer-time Supai hike in the cool of pre-dawn if you planned right.  Anyway, I was walking very slowly.

Very shortly down the trail, I came across two young women, standing beside the road, resting.  They challenged me as I was strolling by, asked if I was alone.  I told them I was and we stood for a moment to chat. They had camped on the trail overnight and had arrived very early to the village. We moved off together toward the campground, still two miles distant.  From that point on, I had acquired two companions for my adventure. I don’t know what drew them into my company – perhaps they felt I needed adopting, or perhaps they were uneasy after spending their night alone along the trail (they mentioned that, anyway). But we fell into step and chatted as we walked.

The first girl was dark-haired and slender, maybe about 35 years old. She was a school teacher of 6^th graders near Roanoke, Virginia.   She was the more talkative of the two.  Her speech was accented, and vaguely southern [my recollection now is that she sounded somewhat like the actress Paula Prentice].  She was extremely chatty and inquisitive, but not the least bit annoying.  Her name was Caroline Shelburn. 

The other was Jean.  She was a little shorter with red hair and was much quieter.  She had a quick smile, bright eyes, and I think she didn’t miss much.  She was a physical education teacher of elementary school children in a Phoenix school district; she runs 10k’s and triathlons and such. 

We kept pounding away toward the campgrounds and eventually come to the gate and the ranger station, sometime about 11:00 AM.  My name was not in the ranger's reservation book, but I have my permit tag so he writes me down and we move off in search of a suitable camping site (which I already have “pictured” in my mind).

On the way into the village, I had stopped to talk with a gregarious outbound hiker who had allowed as how he had left this paradise of a camping spot, "it would mostly likely still be vacant and I should snatch it up."  So I was looking for it.  The man had told me it was 80% shaded (that was exaggerated) and “with its own private swimming hole.”  It was in a shadier,  “wetter” area, across a footbridge to the right.  We found it easily, and its praises were well-deserved. It was still empty, and Bob, Carolyn and Jean moved right in and set up camp.

After I set up my camp, I was hot and tired. I figured it was about time to go swimming.  In cut-offs and sneakers, I began to work my way down the smooth, wet bank to the water. I planned to stick a toe in to see just how cold it was (it looked VERY cold).  Just about then my feet swapped places with my head, I bounced once on the way down -  and I found out how cold the water was.  I couldn’t speak for probably five minutes - about all I could manage was a croak.  

The water at that spot (Cataract Creek maybe a quarter mile below Havasu Falls) was well over my head and I had gone right to the bottom.  Once in, it quickly became bearable, although it was still chilly. The only thing that made this all OK was the air temperature was probably 110 degrees. I swam around the area, and over to a cascading tumble of water near some rocks and travertine, and sat in a natural “Jacuzzi” surrounded by a small horseshoe-shaped waterfall. The entire setting was wiped out about 5 years later by one of Cataract Creek’s periodic floods. I was never again able to find this exact spot.

It was time to eat lunch, so I climbed out, dried off, and got into my cache of food – PBJs, apples and celery.  The girls had some freeze-dried chicken salad and bagels – they gave me their left-overs and I ate it with some of my crackers. We agreed to share the remainder of my food, then we’d have gourmet food for supper.  After lunch, we decided to go see Havasu Falls, at the head of the campground. We had passed the falls on the hike down, about 1/4 mile back up the trail toward the village.  It appeared that we would be a three-some for the duration.  I had no complaints about that.

Arriving at the bluff below the falls, Carolyn introduced herself to the common prickly pear cactus.  She got a few little prickers in foot and toe.  We helped her get those out, then moved down to the sand and rocks by the falls and its travertine pools. There were lots of people sunning and swimming.  I swam across the base of the falls and climbed up on the cliff beside them.  It was a good place to people watch. The huge Cottonwood tree at the west side by the trail was still standing then, with its swinging rope.   Some boys were making use of that to swing way out over the pool and dropping into the water. 

I got back into the water and swam around among all the others doing the same; you had to keep swimming, otherwise the water was too cold. It was very brisk. I got out and joined Jean and Carolyn on the “beach,” where they were sunning themselves. I discovered I had worn my watch into the water for the second time, which did it no harm in the end.  I also discovered that I forgot to remove my wallet.  So I scattered its contents around on the rocks to dry. The contents dried out OK, but the wallet itself did not – it was finally dry on Wednesday morning for the hike out.  I felt pretty stupid about the whole thing.

While we were sitting around the beach area, we noticed that one young lady was sunning herself au natural.  This is frowned upon by the Indians, who are very modest.  But we didn’t hear any of them complain about it. The sun was now going down and the sunshine was getting harder to find – they had to chase it around a bit to stay in it.  Jean was reading a book, and Carolyn was intent on staying in the sun.  I moved over to a nearby picnic table to talk to a gentleman sitting there – and my legs had gone to sleep from sitting on the ground, so I wanted to move around a bit.  He was Robert Morris of Los Angeles, there with his three sons to see the area, then they were to move on to the Grand Canyon itself (North Rim).  I tell him about our fine camping spot, and by the time we got back to it, I found he and his boys had moved in next door.  I felt a little territorial for a few moments, but there was plenty of room, and he “is pleasant enough.”

The girls have heard of the legendary Indian taco at the Supai Café; Jean at least wanted to try that.  We put it to a vote and begin the two mile trek to the village for supper.  It was still hot and sunny, so the walk was tough and miserable.  I was driven along by the thought of a cold Coke, which I had been thinking about all day. 

Along the way, we met another couple just arriving from Hilltop – they had gotten a late start.  They were from a kibbutz in Israel and were touring the great intermountain west! [When I wrote this] I had already forgotten their names, but we had a lot of conversation about life in a kibbutz, and we all gave them plenty of advice about what to see in Northern Arizona.  After we parted, we headed on toward the village.  

Even then [1987], we noted the abundance of satellite dishes in the yards of the little houses – Supai is an extremely remote place, but television is one of their common pleasures.  Arriving at the Supai cafeteria, I ordered a bowl of stew and a Slice (lemon-lime soda). Jean and Carolyn had fry bread and beans since they were out of the other taco ingredients.  Years later, my Mother had to be helicoptered out of Supai after eating those beans.  But they apparently didn’t have any negative effects on my two comrades. At the time, I made a note that they “also got lots of water.”  I was anxious to get across the street to the general store – and I inadvertently walked out of the cafe without paying.  I got halfway across the street before I remembered.  At the store, I got a large bottle of Dr. Pepper to carry back to camp for the next day.

We hung about the village for a little while, then started back down-trail toward the campground.  Carolyn got side-tracked onto the spur to Navajo Falls, but she felt the getting lost had been worth it as those falls were very pretty.  I never saw them until quite a few years later, and they ARE worth the short hike to reach them - the area around Navajo Falls is like a grotto. Anyway, we stopped and waited for Carolyn to catch up as we saw her coming back around our way. [I think she thought that spur was a short-cut, rather than a dead-end.]

I stopped along the way, the girls got on ahead of me, and by the time I got back to camp they were already visiting with the Israeli couple again.  They really were nice people and I joined in the conversation as well – all I remember of them now is that the lady had short, curly dark hair.  I took my Dr Pepper bottle to the creek, and tied it to a tree with some fishing line, with the bottle dangling in the cold water.  Jean had me do the same with her day pack, as it had a juice bottle in it which she hoped would also be cold for breakfast. I am sure it was.

We relaxed in camp, and attempted to R&R Jean’s candle lantern, which attempt was finally successful. Bugs then gathered to worship.  Our plan for the morning was to visit Mooney Falls (at the other end of the campground).  It was too hot to sleep in a sleeping bag – so I wrapped up in a sheet.  The bottom of the Canyon is like an oven in the summer - the rocks hold the heat. It was still warm in the tent, so I folded the rain fly back across the top, to open up the screen – and that helped. I slept very well; Glen had been right, the Therma-Rest was very comfortable.

I woke up off and on from about 5:30 AM, but didn’t climb out until about 7:45 AM. It was cool and nice and I really wanted to enjoy it.  I got up and performed my morning rituals, shaved etc, then prepared for breakfast. The girls have pancakes with poppy seeds and ate them with peanut butter, honey and jam. They shared; I had mine with honey and one with strawberry jam.  Then they made scrambled eggs with bacon in it – I do not remember but I am guessing [now] this was one of those packaged freeze-dried things.  We cleaned up camp and then got out toward Mooney Falls.

Carolyn was wearing flip-flops.  I wanted to advise her against that, but diplomacy won out. We encountered our Israeli friends along the way, and discover they will continue on out of the canyon. We had hoped to share our supper with them.

We soon arrived at the top of Mooney Falls, and began the almost vertical descent down the face of the cliffs to the base. There are tunnels and chains and pitons and a drop of probably 300 feet to the bottom. It was [and is] spectacular and exciting – terrifying from the top looking down, but easily negotiable to anyone in fairly good shape.  My Mom completed it both ways at age 75.  The view of the falls (the canyon's tallest) is magnificent from the top.  It’s hard to see where to put your feet for each step down and about half-way, I took Carolyn’s water bottle which she was carrying, and tucked it behind me in my belt. Chivalry lives!

At the bottom, we crossed a shallow pool to the island, which is where everyone hangs out at Mooney Falls. The falls were named for an explorer, Mooney, who attempted to descend the nearby cliffs and failed – fell to his death.  They buried him on “an island.”  I figure it is the very one on which we now stood.  At any rate, I undertook the taking of some photographs. 

I went for a swim, and headed across the shallow side to the cliffs by the falls.  The crashing water was blowing into a fine mist, and even in the hot sun, I nearly froze to death.  I worked my way around to the other side and joined Bob Morris, and a man from Washington I had met on the way down the trail – he and his son had passed me on the switchbacks the first morning.  They were all waist-deep in the water on the sheltered side of the pool, against the east wall of this kind-of-a grotto. Bob eventually pushed his way (against a strong current) in to swim, and I reluctantly followed, remembering how cold it was.  We soon began diving in headfirst and had boo-coups fun doing it.

We spent an hour or two swimming and sunning, but I eventually tapered off as I feared I was getting swimmer’s ear.  It was probably just the discomfort of the cold water though. Bob Morris mentioned he had hired a pack horse for the trip out of the canyon the next day; he has one spot on the pack saddle left unreserved (for balance and weight distribution, they carry four).  I made use of it, as the girls weren’t interested.  They were tough back-packers.  I am more of a light-weight.

Eventually, we left Mooney Falls and climbed our way back up the cliff.  It is less-scary going up than it is coming down, and I doubt any of us will ever forget that bit of fun.  Carolyn had been so frightened on the descent, but was now having such fun with it, that I took her photo going up, very much “engaged” with the cliff – and I had it enlarged and framed (or block-mounted) for her after I returned home.

[This is the end of the notes that I took.]  I either lost the rest, or didn’t write any more after this point.  But while I remember little, I do have at least one other very fond memory of this adventure. Jean had not, to this point, gone into the water at all.  She kept refusing, even when the rest of us went in.  But later in the afternoon, toward the end of the day, she finally decided to swim.  She stood for a long time on a rock beside the water at Havasu Falls, still hesitant about her decision to swim.  Finally, she either stepped, or dove, into the water.  Just like everyone else, she shrieked bloody murder when she got herself suddenly immersed. But just like everyone else, she quickly got used to the temperature.  And from that point on, she swam around, and jumped, and dived, and was a picture of total joy; it was beautiful.  

I took quite a few photos of her as she bounced around, and as she sat on the rocks on the far-side of the pool by the falls.  I am certain I still have the negatives – and when I find them I will digitize them and maybe add some to this post.  We had a very nice last evening in camp, visiting and talking about what fun we’d had.  The only thing that would have made it better was a campfire (fires were not permitted), but everything else was perfect.  

One thing that was different then was the spring water below the village was still pure enough to drink right from the source.  Within a few years, that was no longer possible.  For the hike out, we all filled our water bottles from the spring near the campground.

I remember that we got on the trail very early on Wednesday morning, hiked together out through the village and up the trail to Hilltop. It was easier for me than it was them, as my pack went on a Havasupai horse. All I carried was some snacks and my water.  But we all survived and made it out in good time.  We said our goodbyes at the trailhead – I shared my cold drinks with them (I had left that ice chest in the car). 

I think I exchanged a letter or two with Carolyn, and I took Jean to see a Gordon Lightfoot concert, before I lost track of both of them.  But they helped make my first hike to Supai very memorable.  I have been back many times since then, and I enjoyed them all, but that was my first and in my memory, about the best of all of them.

Film Review: The Homesman

On its surface, this gritty and dark story is about a woman who undertakes to deliver three women who have become mentally ill while homesteading the Nebraska plains in 1854. Underneath that framework, the message is about the realities of pioneering Plains life and the hardness of character required to survive there.  This is a topic I have written about before. The screenplay was adapted from the novel by Glendon Swarthout.

The community from whence these people started is very small, and it has no resources to care for these three women who have become violently disturbed. The preacher decides the community must start these women on a journey back to their families in the “east” by delivering them to the care of a minister’s wife in a settlement along the Missouri River in Iowa. This is quite some distance away by wagon and through unsettled, undeveloped territory.  In the year the story purportedly takes place, Nebraska had really not been settled yet – people in any numbers to settle and farm in that territory were still ten or even twenty years in the future.  For the most part, no resources were present to assist travelers along their way, except along the Overland Trail route.

The preacher meets with the townsfolk in the church to decide which of them will take the three ill women to Iowa – but the men all refuse or claim they cannot make the trip (which would likely have been true if they were to survive themselves).  So a local woman, a “spinster” in her 30s, declares she will do it. Others doubt she can, but she believes she is as capable as any man to do the job as she lives alone, runs her own farm and has been quite successful up to that time.  The locals prepare a wagon for her, and she sets out to make the journey to the settlements in Iowa.

In the story, the woman is “plain,” and she has been turned down by a local man to whom she’d un-romantically proposed.  His thought was that he could go east and do much better. As she starts out, she encounters and releases a hard-luck never-do-well man from an impromptu lynching - on the condition he do a "job of work" for her.  He reluctantly agrees, and although he threatens not to (after he learns what the job entails), he does complete his part of the bargain in the end.  The remainder of the story concerns their journey, her ultimate collapse, and his partial “redemption” in honoring his commitment to her (and the women). The ill-fated heroine, Mary Bee Cuddy, turns out to have been not strong enough to complete the job, although she is a “very good woman.”  In the end, the scruffy, immoral vagabond she enlists is successful, if only in the task at hand.

This is not a pretty film, it is not uplifting; it is hard to watch.  But the roles are well-acted and in some ways it does depict the realities of life on the Great Plains as they were then (the harshness and the hardship); but not totally. There were two things in this story that do not "work." The first has to do with casting, the other with story. The two are related.

An underpinning premise is that Mary Bee is "plain."  She’s ugly. She purportedly cannot get a husband because of that. This in some degree underlies her failure to complete what she sets out to do, as later events contribute to her own feeling of hopelessness.  But first of all, where are you going to find an established actress who can pull that off?  There are no “ugly” actresses that I can think of; just my opinion.  Hilary Swank plays the role of Mary Bee, and you can “ugly” her up all you want to and she’s still strikingly beautiful.  So that doesn’t work.  That we might overlook; we can pretend she is "plain." 

Tommy Lee Jones and Hilary Swank in "The Homesman"

The second flaw is more damaging to the story’s premise, if you know anything about western history.  Ugly or not, Mary Bee Cuddy is presented to be a successful farmer in the new town of Loup, with good prospects and “money in the bank.”  She is physically strong and healthy - the film begins with a scene of her plowing her own fields. 

Historically, even thirty years later, there was a shortage of marriageable women in the west. There is absolutely no way she would have been left unmarried if that was what she wanted to be.  Men would have courted her from hundreds of miles away the minute they knew she was there – that in fact was the reality on the frontier.  She wouldn’t have had to propose to, or throw herself at, anyone.

In the "old west," marriage-minded men had to marry native women, or camp-followers, if they wanted to find a wife in the west.  In those times, either of those possibilities was considered socially unacceptable; many did so anyway. The Fred Harvey Company hired eastern or mid-western girls to work in the railroad hotels along the transcontinental railroad - they hired young, strong and mostly “pretty” women to host in their restaurants and hotels – but they had to make them sign contracts that they wouldn’t marry for the term of their agreements.  If they hadn’t, those women would have been snapped up as frontier wives before you could blink twice; many of them were anyway, despite those contracts. More than one western ranch wife got her start as a Harvey girl (or an imported school-marm). Other than the Harvey girls, "good" women were scarce in the west for a long period of time. Even a “plain” woman of Mary Bee’s quality would have been a highly-valued prize as a wife.

Still, it is an excellent film. Other than I've noted, it is realistic in terms of action and environment and it is beautifully filmed.  In the end, perhaps the message is that sometimes it takes a bad man to survive, someone not bothered much by conscience. The "good" of a Mary Bee isn't always good enough and that's just the way it is (or was). In this story, her good character interferes with her ability to be successful. We are shown once again that life isn't always fair. Mary Bee Cuddy deserved all good things, but doesn't get them.

I could watch Ms. Swank act all day long. You’ll also find Tommy Lee Jones (also as co-producer/director), John Lithgow, Meryl Streep, Hailee Steinfeld and some other acclaimed actors and familiar faces in this film. I'd call it a stellar cast.  It’s a quality film, believably and competently acted by its great cast.  You won’t laugh, you won’t be entertained (much); but it is a story worth watching and I am sure it is a film I’ll watch again.  I also plan to read the book.