The Havasupai Trip...

How do I even start explaining how awesome this trip was? Great friends. Beautiful water. High hikes. Invigorating sun. Wicked wounds. Hungry animals. Whelp, actually, that pretty much sums it all up!
Alright, you're right, I do have some stories.

Let's get to it.

The hike down to Havasupai was incredible. It was beautiful, really. Sometimes we had to remind ourselves that we were actually in the Grand Canyon. We arrived at Havasupai in the morning and was the first group that had arrived all day because we had left so early. Since we beat the mules carrying our tents and such, we decided to play around in the incredibly clear water. Waterfalls were in abundance, and there were good spots to jump in.

At one point, we travelled downstream, and I was catching up to the group and thought body rafting would be a quick method to get to my friends. The only thing was that I did not check what the rocks were like at one high water flow area. Needless to say, I had really good form, but that did not help me out too much with such rough rocks. High up on my left leg, I got some pretty good scratches, and let me tell you, it was a bumpy ride. My feet even got some scratches. I got out and tried to pretend like nothing happened, which is understandable because it was pretty dumb on my part not to check the rocks. Honestly. *Open palm to forehead*

Ya thirsty?

After the mules arrived, the tents were set up and we put our food up high in order to keep the animals out of it. Those animals though, their pretty sneaky. When we got back from more water fun, we hear a scream! Kenzi had seen a squirrel in our food bag! I hurried over and then took the bag down and opened it up to find a squirrel jumping out latching onto my face! (Okay, there really wasn't a squirrel in the food bag, but it was a worry of ours.) That squirrel got into my trail mix dang it! Turns out they don't like raisins so much. That's understandable I guess.

After a short night of rest, Kenzi, Carolyn, and I woke up to find Kristi by the bags of food hanging on a rope...with a horse. It had been eating Richard's food! We hurried over and Sparkers (yes we named the horse) was eating his trail mix. So I made squirrel trail mix, and Richard must have made horse trail mix. Since everyone else was still asleep, we were trying to be quiet and to get it to go away at the same time. Carolyn ended up getting a stick and tapping at the horses bum, and that got it going. Richard's trail mix must have been the best Sparkers has ever had, because she ended up coming back for more.

Chillin' in the water

There was a sweet cliff jumping spot. I used to not get scared of heights at all, but going for this jump actually scared me. It was about 30 feet high. I was at the edge, psyching myself out and could not get myself to do it. My friends were yelling and cheering for me to go, but I was just so nervous. Then, I looked down at Alan, he was cheering too, and then all of the sudden I saw him giving me a count with his fingers. 1-2-and on 3 I jumped. It was so freeing, so great to jump, to go for it and pencil in the water.

We went on a long hike one day that was really fun too. Up a bunch of ladders, climbing up rocks. There was one moment that was one of the funniest moments of the trip. Alan and I got a picture by a cliff. There was a tree that angled to have branches hanging over the cliff, and we called Steven over to be a part of the picture. The tree was sturdy enough for him to hang onto, but not completely reliable. So Steven was hanging a little bit over the cliff hanging onto the tree, and he was shaking the tree a bit to be funny. All of the sudden something started scurrying down the tree and crawled over Steven's hand and down to the trunk of the tree and then ran in between my feet and down the cliff behind me. The best part was that Steven did not know that it was a lizard running down the tree and over his hand, so he was pretty freaked out. His eyes were huge, and his face was just priceless. I was pretty scared for a second too, mostly because I did not want him to let go of the tree and fall down. Right after it happened I started cracking up though! It was so hilarious! I'll never get over how funny that was.

The Men

The Women

The hike back out seemed so fast. I stayed behind with Alan and Steven to have the mules take our bags up. Since we were the last wave out, we were booking it hiking out to catch up to everyone. Steven and I ended up catching up to Richard and so we hiked quickly together. They ended up having a faster pace than I did, so they kept it up while I kept my pace. Then we had the long uphill hike...really uphill. The change in motion of my legs felt strange and was really hard. I was surprised at the difficulty. And I thought I was in shape! I made a deal that I would not stop on the switchbacks, and so I didn't. It was like the tortoise and the hare, except I was probably slower than the tortoise, and there wasn't really a hare that I beat...So maybe I was just a snail. Yeah, we'll go with that.

Everybody finished the hike safe and sound! Load up and head out!