Havasupai - Day 1

Here's a link to the pictures -- http://s298.photobucket.com/albums/mm249/paulandkathie/Havasupai/?action=view&current=4aca4aea.pbw

Paul, Megan and I went with Paul's Dad (Papa) and sister Reagan to Havasupai in the Grand Canyon. Here's the long story of our trip! On Tuesday night we loaded up and drove to Seligman, about 3 hours from Phoenix and checked into a tiny hotel on Route 66. We got up at 2 or 3 in the morning, found a gas station/inn that was closed, woke up the inn keeper girl in her PJ's so we could fill up our camelbak's (that was our plan, but we didn't think the "convenience store" would be closed!) and buy some muffins for breakfast. It was another 2 hours to Hualapi (Walapai) Hilltop where the trailhead is.
We got to the trailhead around 7:30, left our bags for the mule train, got our packs ready and headed down. Hiking down wasn't bad at all -- you can see how steep the switchbacks in the picture looking down on the mules coming up. It's an 8 mile hike (mostly downhill) to the village of Supai where we stopped at a little house/store and bought frozen goodies, took some more pictures (including one of a little LDS chapel) and then kept on down the trail for 2 more miles to the campgrounds. The last 2 miles were a little harder. The trail is all red dirt/sand and went up and downhill a lot, so we were pretty darn sore when we finally got to the campground and found a spot (the only one left in the entire place with a picnic table).
After the mules arrived with the rest of our stuff, we set up camp, chilled for a bit, and then wanted to go exploring. We went back up to Havasu Falls, which are the falls you can really see on the hike in (Navajo Falls comes before Havasu but it's hard to see them from the trail). The water was cold but refreshing -- Megan and Paul got in and messed around for a bit. The mist from the waterfall carries all around the canyon down there and gets a bit cold if you are soaking wet. It was so beautiful, and we explored around some of the caves off the side of the waterfall.
There was a stream on our side of the campground that followed the canyon wall and it took Megan all of 5 seconds to find it, and the fish inside it, and come up with a contraption to catch some. She probably caught 20 fish (catch and release :) ) while we were there. She loved it. We also caught a bunch of frogs. They were SO CUTE with very large very sticky fingers. We also had a pack of native dogs who apparently hang around the campgrounds all summer. We fed them our T-Bones from our steaks the 2nd night and after that they were "our" dogs. We gave them names, and they would bark at anyone who got too close to our tent at night (scaring poor people heading to the potty's at night!) The day we hiked out they came along with us for over 2 miles! They were very cool dogs.