Grand Canyon - Havasupai Indian Reservation

This site is no longer going to be updated. I have upgraded my site and the new location is:

http://worldgallivant.com

The west canyon rim lighting up at 7 am in March

Many things really surprised me during this hike.

1. How natural it felt having my backpack on the second day.
2. How quickly my body recovered after a really long hike.
3. How amazingly beautiful it was, some I didn't realize until sitting on my couch back home and glancing through the photos. 

I guess I should begin at, well, the beginning. One thing I would really  recommend no matter what: they do NOT have running water at the rim. We could of sworn that we read on the website that they had running water, but they don't. Sadly we had to mooch some off of the fellow hikers and they were very kind, they wouldn't even take the money we offered in exchange. They do have a pretty good sized parking lot at the very top, with a permanent port-a-potty that may or may not have toilet paper and sanitizer. The parking lot also has a couple fenced off sections were they keep the mules during the day, while we were there a couple of groups used that section to camp in. We decided to sleep in the back of our rented vehicle.

http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/havasupai.htm

The hike took a lot longer then we anticipated, not arriving into the camp ground until 4 o'clock or so. We would highly recommend bringing water and make sure that you have some kind of map so that you could pace yourself, or at least know how much further. About half way down, we started running into people hiking back out, 9 out of 10 times we asked people how much further or what we should anticipate they all responded "almost there". This being our first real hike, we didn't fully comprehend what their definition of "almost there" was, in this case it meant hours not minutes.

We also found out that taking a helicopter out of the park was cheaper then riding the mules. You just have to show up on a day that they are flying, put your name on a sheet before two and you have a flight out of there. During March riding a mule cost about 93$ per person, plus another mule to carry your packs, where as taking the helicopter was 85$ per person and that included our packs. We decided to take the helicopter flight and boy were we excited to leave. Not saying that we didn't like the Grand Canyon, it was beautiful.

By not under understanding that there was no running water on the rim, we had become dehydrated during the hike and we had a serious lack of confidence in our ability to hike back out of the Canyon. Looking back on the whole experience from the comfort of my couch, I would hike it again but take less food and more water. I would also like to say I would want to hike back out, but again that's coming from me while in the comfort of my home. Also I would recommend taking some compost-able toilet paper as the bathrooms don't always have toilet paper and also some sanitizer as they don't always have that either.

Test Run: Grand Canyon

This site is no longer going to be updated. I have upgraded my site and the new location is:

http://worldgallivant.com

The Grand Canyon trip was first created as my next excursion out into the world. I have always had the travel bug, as I grow older it appears that I now get to pursue that urge.

During the beginning of my mothers last visit to Washington, we decided that it had been a little too long since the last time we had really traveled anywhere. Yes, we want on little vacations to Vancouver and Victoria, but they never actually satisfied those exploration urges. We wanted big, whopping, ocean hopping explorations, and I was only in college once. THIS is the only time that I won't have to work around work vacations. I could take up to three months off and not worry about losing a job or any other commitments. She agreed that this was quit logical. Mother finally caved in and agreed to help me raise enough money to travel to Japan.

Mother's x-mas present to help
with last minute items for our packs
and also to try out some Japanese food.

It had been a while, since we had seen my grandparents. While we were in the state we may as well go see the long told of Havasupai Reservation. As we neared the end of her two week stay with me in the summer of 2013, I started telling her that the time to travel was now.

Since we have never been minimalist travelers or travelers outside the US, we were going to have to complete some research and do a test run. The Grand Canyon trip seemed to be the perfect goal for having our gear together and test everything out. First off we would be in the same state, we could both give feed back on how things worked, improve them if necessary, or decide to chuck them all together. Second, we could organize who should carry what, who should collect what (food, medical, cleaning, etc). Third, it was already planned, mostly paid for, and would be a bunch of fun!

We are now 14 days away from our plane and drive to the rim. Last minute preparations are in order: getting a lite weight can opener (wouldn't have thought of it, until we had to start planning on what to hike down to our camp ground for 2 nights and 3 days), making sure tents, sleeping bags, clothes, hygiene, and everything else was in order.

LUSH's Godiva 2-in-1 Shampoo
and Conditioner

Just came across a article that mentioned LUSH had solid shampoo and conditioner, for pretty cheap too. That way those two items don't cut into the amount of liquids you can carry onto planes; very necessary when you want to travel lite, but clean. We are now replacing those two go-Toobs with olive oil and dish soap.

Clipped toe nails and finger nails (yeah, it's gross to mention) but when your planning on walking down hill for most of a day, you really don't want your toes jamming into the tip of your boots causing serious pain (mother actually had this happen the last time she hiked down as a child, lost quit a few of those nails). Gross, but necessary preparation.

The only things that we have left to really do before heading off on our first documented gallivant is to pack and head for the airports. Waiting is the problem, two more weeks of school before break and I believe they are going to be torture. If I had anything other than planning money (we are selling things on e-bay to raise funds for these trips) and school it might be a little different. I guess I will just muddle my way through to the light at the end of the tunnel.

Synopsis: Trips 2014-15

This site is no longer going to be updated. I have upgraded my site and the new location is:

http://worldgallivant.com

As the first blog I should probably give you the low down of what's in the works.

   

First trip: Grand Canyon (oh yeah, for not much of a hiker, definitely jumped into the deep end).

We (my mother and I) are going meet up in the Salt Lake City Airport and fly down to Phoenix, AZ. Pick up the rent-a-car and drive to the Canyon edge. As this will still be March, it may be a bit chilly. We are making the transition from Northern US to a little bit father south, so I'm not expecting too much of a temperature shock, but just in case it is too chilly for camping on the rim, we will have a car to sleep in. We are fine with sleeping in cars, tents, hostels, pretty much anywhere as long as we have running water and cheap food somewhere close at hand. 

Havasupai Falls, Grand Canyon

After a night on the rim, we will be waking up bright and early to hike down into the Havasupai Indian Reservation. This place has always been on my mothers bucket list to go back to. I grew up hearing "If there is one place I could take someone before they died, that would be the place". How can you blame that idea when she's actually been there once before and it looks like that. Naturally, when thinking of a place to get our feet wet and "test" out our gear before a big trip, we wanted to check it off.

Second trip: Japan

When asked about where we are going in Japan, the simple reply is everywhere, of course one cannot travel to every single place in a country in 49 days, but we will sure try. This will be taking place right after my Junior Finals are over, from mid-May to the beginning of July. We will be taking off from Seattle- Tacoma Airport and landing in Tokyo with our Japan Rail Passes in hand. Some of the highlights are:

Hagurosan Approach (2,266 steps),
Dewa Sanzan

• Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo
•  Ueno Zoo (Giant Pandas!), Tokyo
• Sumo Tournament, Tokyo
• Ghibli Museum (yes, I am one of those Americans that grew up with Miyazaki; yes, I do own all of his movies; and I have made a quilt that is captions from all the famous movies that he produced, that were out in 2010).
• Hakone Loop
• Takeda Castle Ruins, Asago
• Kii Peninsula Hike
• A-Bomb, Hiroshima
• Bike Shimanami Kaido (Shikoku to Honshu)
• Floating Torii, Miyajima Island
• Takachiho gorge
• Dinosaur Park, Sakrajima (next to Kagoshima)
• Yakushima Island 
• snorkel with turtles
• watch turtles lay eggs



Shirantani Unsuikyo, Yakushima Island

• forest that Princess Mononoke was based on
• Akiyoshi-dai Tablelands
• Noto Peninsula
• Hagurosan, Dewa Sanzan
• Rishiri-Rebun
• Jigokundani Onsen, Nakano (bathe with monkeys)

We will be seeing plenty of shrines, temples, rice patties, museums, ryokan, and other attractions along the way. Didn't want to bore you with all of the details in one shot, when all I know is what I and my mother have gleaned off of the internet.