Havasupai Falls: The most expensive camping experience ever… Yet it was so worth​i​​​t

It took me three years to finally get the campground reservation
It all started three years ago when I first saw a Havasupai Falls on Instagram and thought it had to be photoshopped 100%. Later on, I started digging in the whole Havasupai subject and realized that the pictures apparently were not photoshopped, but indeed a place like that was actually real. It turns out that you actually need to buy a permit in order to go camping to Havasupai and that no “day hikers” are allowed in.

The first year (three years ago) I called the reservation line and they told me all passes for the entire year sold out within a couple days after release date on February 1st of each year. I was impressed and told myself I would get my hands on one of those passes next year for sure, so I wrote it down on my calendar…. then life happened… and I was busy with work and I completely forgot the date… Again, once I called and all the passes were gone.

But then, this year they changed the reservation process into a web site booking process. February 1st at 8:00am Arizona time I called jess so she could log in for me and reserve two spots for the campground for whichever date she could find… It turns out the web page collapsed and it took jess over two hours to find the only date available from February 21st to February 24th. We were on the phone and jess was about to check out when she said: “Wait! WTF, its $725 for camping?!?!?!”… are you sure?!?! when I told her, “babe, Its a once in a lifetime experience, so dont think about it and just book it” and So she did.

Heres the link for the reservations web page: https://www.havasupaireservations.com

It turns out that for the dates we were able to reserve, the biggest snowfall in 10 years was expected to hit Arizona. I was so worried because it was going to be my first camping experience with jess, and camping in freezing temperature makes camping so difficult and not enjoyable (at least in my opinion) and it meant a lot for me since I wanted Jess to really get into this whole camping outdoors thing. I even told her that if she didn’t feel comfortable we could resell our campground tickets, but she said she was cool with it.

What to pack for Havasupai
Here is a helpful link of what you should pack for Havasupai from an adventurer who has been there three times already and who has an awesome adventure/outside blog:
https://bearfoottheory.com/backpacking-gear-havasu-falls-packing-list/

The Plan Vs. Reality
We would land in Vegas on Thursday night at around 9:00pm and planned to stay at the Hualapai Lodge (62 miles away from Hualapai Hilltop where people start the hike). Its a two to two hours and a half drive from Las Vegas. Keep in mind that it is in front of the lodge where you will see the last gas station, so if you need to refuel do it here. Route 18 is a perpendicular road from road 66 which is basically a 60-mile road with the only purpose of getting you as close as possible to Havasupai (I was impressed in the good condition and sole purpose of this road). Again, we had planned to stay the night before the hike down to Havasupai in the lodge, but unfortunately for us, Arizona experienced a 10-year record-breaking snowfall during that night. Road 18 was closed due to snow, so we decided to head over to another part of the Grand Canyon and do some sightseeing but all roads were basically closed. Instead, we ended up at a town by the name of Williams where we had lunch at an Italian place by the name of “Station 66 Italian Bistro” where we had a delicious in house Arizona red blend wine to warm ourselves up.

When we headed back to the hotel we found out that another group of hikers had managed to drive all the way up road 18 and supposedly started the hike. We didn’t want to take the chance since our rental wasn’t 4×4 nor did we have chains for the tires and didnt want to get stock in the snow

Hualapai Lodge:
https://www.guestreservations.com/hualapai-lodge/booking?gclid=Cj0KCQiA5NPjBRDDARIsAM9X1GLmFP2HqLU6F10UP2wqjK0y0XanuVi6O5GzJ6_GfpKUZU7sDOzXTkYaAgBFEALw_wcB
Italian Bistro at Williams Town:
https://www.thestation66.com

So Saturday we headed up road 18 all the way to Hualapai Hilltop. The average temperature at that time was in the teens… so it was really cold as you can probably figure it out from the picture above.

Fun fact is that before the trip, Jess and I were trying out our bags full of our camping gear to check how heavy it would feel in our shoulders…  She started making fun of me because I was winning about how heavy my bag was… She even started squatting with my bag on… Turns out that 20 mins later after having squatted with my bag on, she tells me that she hurt her back for real….

We ended up paying the for mule service to carry our bags because of Jessi’s incident (which cost $400 + $750 of campground permits = $1150).

The Actual Hike
It turns out that the hike down to Havasupai Falls is breathtaking… I don’t understand why on the dozens of blog posts I read and the dozen of youtube videos I saw nobody even mentioned how incredible the hike it was. The Grand Canyon is actually incredible… I even compare it to the majestic Angels Falls back home in Venezuela. They are both super different but at the same time, their greatness can be compared. Its a 13kms/8mile hike down to the Havasu Village where you have to check in before hiking down another extra 3.5kms/ 2 miles down to the campground area. The fact that it was so cold actually benefit us for the sake of the hike itself. After reading some other blog posts, I learned that during the summer months people actually start at 3am to avoid the extreme heat temperatures.
As a rule, you should average 15 mins per Km walked, so plan on walking anywhere between 4 and 6 hours to cover the 16kms / 10 miles. In our case, since we were not carrying any bags at all, it took us a little less than 4 hours.

Politics Everywhere: Considering how expensive the entire experience is, it really disappointed me the general aspect and how deteriorated the Havasu Village actually was. It looked like a mix of a hood/poor/dangerous/dirty place. It made me wonder if the campground fee actually goes to the Havasu people, or like in almost every organization in this world corruption exists in the most remote places as well, where the people who administrate or who have the higher ranks keep most of the money for themselves while the rest of the people starve and suffer to get through… I also believe that they are so aware of this situation, that they prohibit taking pictures in the actual town… 

The next to mile hike dow goes by pretty quickly, and almost immediately after passing by the town you start hearing water flow next to the trail. All the excitement which had built together the oncoming days prior to this trip led to this precise moment… was the hype gonna be worth it?? Where the IG pictures make justice to the actual place?? Three years thinking that Ill be able to present that in person… when then that sound of waterfalls becomes super alive and suddenly out of NOWHERE to your right hand you see the famous Havasu Falls…! and WOW! let me tell you that it is even better in real life that how it looks in pictures… It is just so powerfull that I am honestly out of words to describe it.

After taking a while to contemplate the beauty of the falls we decided to continue our hike to the 1-mile campground area. Jess wanted to set up camp right away, but I decided to walk farther down into the trail to see if we could land a sweet camping place near the slow crystalline river flow. Indeed, we did find a sweet place down the river and set up camp there (since we had arrived quite fast because of not carrying our bags with us during our hike, we had to wait a bit for the mules to arrive into campground so we could actually set up the camp).
We decided to head back to Havasu falls and chill a bit around the falls where we met a cool couple from San Diego… Edgar and I forgot her name, But they were this awesome vibes couple from San Diego and we spoke like for an hour about personal experiences and life overall. They even helped us carry our bags to the campground and set up camp.
This is one of the things I like most about being outdoors and nature… Is that you get to meet people with similar views on life… nature becomes an escape to our hectic lives, and we (outdoor enthusiasts) tend to share personal stories so easily while in the outdoors with others just because of the sake of being out in nature.

I definitely recommend taking a hammock. I even read that during summer people only take the hammock with them instead of carrying with a tent… great idea in my opinion. Also, there is natural spring with endless potable water at the beginning of the campground area, so there is no need to bring in water, except for the one you plan to dring while on your hike down to the falls. Unfortunately for us, it was so cold to be outside that we made ourselves some dinner and went immediately inside our tent at around 7:00pm. We had bought a blanket for cold temperatures which served great! We had no issues at all with the cold weather during the night because of the “go rump blanket” (its a great buy, but keep in mind is expensive and quite big/spacious $200 for the two-person blanket – $1150 +$200= $1350). By 5am the next day we were already awake, but since it was in the teens Fahrenheit or around -10 celsius there was no discussing that we were getting out of our tent. We stayed in “trying” to get some more sleep until 9am when we were finally able to leave our tents and make some coffee and breakfast before heading out to discover more waterfalls.
Blanket Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CBMD7TM/ref=twister_B018KF5YSE?th=1

By this time, Jessi was very frustrated with how bad she had slept and how cold it was… She asked me if I minded if we didn’t spend another night in the freezing weather, and considering what she had gone through without a doubt (okkk… maybe not without a doubt, but with hesitating very little) I told her, OK, you are the boss, my lady! So we had no time to waste, since we knew that Jessi wasn’t going to be able to carry the backpack all the way up the 13-mile trail back to the car, we knew we had until 1pm to visit Mooney falls, pack the camp up and hike the 2 miles back up the where the helicopters flew from.
We rushed down an extra mile to Mooney Falls, where the descent is very very sketchy let me tell you. It is not difficult, but it is sketchy for sure. In comparison Mooney to Havasu they are both breathtaking, but Mooney is more in depth of the Grand Canyon… and a little bit bigger I believe. It was so cold at this time, that Jess had her feet numb so we decided it was best for her to watch the falls from above, while I made a quick decend to watch them from bellow.

We hurried back to dismount camp and headed back up to the village with our bags. We had less than an hour to cover a 2-mile uphill hike with our bags and we manage to make it without any problems… well actually we barely made it, but we made it, and that’s what matters. They charge $85 x person + a $20 per extra luggage + $10 for credit card fee = $200 + $1350 = $1550. It was well worth it; the first-time jess was on a Helicopter and for me seeing the Grand Canyon from above was just amazing. In the end, we manage to experience all phases possible of the trip… hike with and without our backpacks, mule services, and the chopper ride. For those of you animal advocates wondering if the mules get exploited (there’s an IG account just dedicated to posting false pictures about the state of the mules in Havasupai) they are actually in pretty good shape. And I’m not saying this for the sake of saying it… I’ve been a farmer my entire life, grew up in a farm and have been around cows, horses, mules, and donkeys since an early age, and I do testify that they are nowhere near what this IG account is trying to portray. I even told jess before getting to the hilltop, if it’s true, the state in which these mules are, there’s no doubt that we are both carrying our backpacks the entire way down.

Las Vegas – Dine and Hike
Since we had cut our Havasupai trip short, we decided to spend on night in Las Vegas to pamper ourselves a little bit after the freezing night we had just experienced. We had dinner at one of the best restaurants I’ve ever dined at “Catch” at the Cosmopolitan. Wow! the sushi was as fresh as it could’ve been, makes justice to the name. On the next morning, we had brunch at Saddelle’s, Jess favorite brunch place in the entire world… and again we had an amazing meal. We tried getting a late check out from our hotel since our flight departed at 10:30pm but they were charging us an absurd amount… So we (or maybe I) decided to make a quick 40 mins drive outside Vegas to do a short 8-mile hike to some hot springs and Colorado River.
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/nevada/gold-strike-hot-spring-trail

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I knew at this point I was pushing Jess limits but she said, ok, lets go without hesitating. So I did not think about it twice and headed to the parking lot at the trailhead. She went online and kinda panicked when she read that the trail was rated as “Hard”. Indeed it had its “hard” parts, where you had to rappeled backwards some tiny drops… Nothing to be afraid of, but had some technical stuff on it. Everything went smoothly and jess manage to cover the 4.4 mile down without any problems. I skinny dipped into the Colorado River to later dipped myself in the hotsprings. The temperature was just perfect. A must when in Vegas and wanting to do something different from partying and gambling and going to shows.

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