The Scouts headed out to Havasupai this week. If you don’t know where that is, it’s down in the Grand Canyon. Not the famous part that all the tourist go see and just look over the edge, this is in the southern part of the Grand Canyon and to see it you have to hike in 10 miles. I’m sure miles in Arizona are the same length as the one’s in California, but when you are down in a slot canyon with the sun on your head and there is no water and not much shade, the Arizona miles seem a lot longer.
So we hiked down and started seeing waterfalls about 2 miles before camp. We were glad to see them. We were told they were there, but while we were hiking we were sure wondering where they were. So as soon as we got camp set up we went off exploring and swimming and looking for rocks to jump off of. Well, most of us anyway. The leaders all took a nap, but the scouts all went exploring! We got back to camp ready for dinner and found we had squirrels in camp. Now, Webster says a squirrel is: a small rodent that has a long bushy tail, lives in trees, and eats nuts and seeds. What it doesn’t tell you is that it gets those nuts and seeds from Devin Peeks pack! We swore revenge, but then just went about fixing dinner.
So the next day we all went up to the falls together and found some good pools to swim in and rocks to jump off of. Some of the guys said they were jumping off of 68 foot cliffs, but I’m not sure what they used to measure with, and cliffs look a lot higher when you are jumping off of them so I’m not sure about how high they were. But it was pretty fun. And almost everybody went off. And everybody that did jump off came back up, so that was good.
When we got back to camp we found that ol’ squirrel in Jon & Adam Shill’s tent. He had been eating their food and thinking he was pretty smart. Well, the last I saw of him Jake and Adam had him in the frying pan and several people were taking a taste of him. He was a fat bugger and cooked up pretty good.
Then the next day we hiked to lots of falls and jumps and had a great time. There were only 3 that had food poisoning the night before so mostly we were in pretty good shape. Well, that and Devin Peek whacked his ear, but the doctor said it’s just bruised and not broken so it should heal up OK.
Some had to take the chopper out early for appointments and some took it because of the food poisoning thing, but the rest hiked out that night. They were going to hike half way and camp and do the second half in the morning, but the older boys got in front and never stopped so when the leaders finally caught up to them they were already at the top waiting at the cars.
So that was Havasupai, next month is Yosemite. They have bears there. I wonder what they taste like?
OK, these are in random order because my camera was out of whack.
But here is the first falls we came to. The guys did a lot of jumping here...
This is another water fall we hiked to. There used to be a pool to swim in here, but it has filled in from a flood.
Hiking from camp to go swim/jump.
Cooling off in camp.
This rock looked like a throne so Devin used it to rule over his cousin.
Jumping (this was the small one)
Watching the water fall.
The Peeks
Mooney Falls.
The switch-backs on the way in. 10 miles of backpacking to get to camp!
On the trail.
