Day Nine: The Havasupai - People of the Blue-Green Water
6/15/11:
Anyway, farms, I know them. Or so I thought.
Because the farms at the end of our ten-mile hike into the Grand Canyon looked nothing at all like what I was used to.
A two-hour drive to the rim, two miles of switchbacks, seven miles of desert, one mile beside a stream, and our party of intrepid women had reached the promised land (and its farms): Havasu Village.
The hike, which I would have been anxious about had I had more than half a days warning that it was coming, was both my first jaunt into the desert and into the Grand Canyon. Being acutely aware of my amazing capacity to become instantly dehydrated, I drank easily six glasses of orange juice in preparation and packed two milk jugs and five bottles of water. I couldn’t complain though, because it was the pack mules who took the brunt of our weight on their saddle-sore backs. Watching them blindly weave up and down the switchbacks with suitcases strapped to their sides was shudder-inducing, especially when those very same switchbacks gave me an exorbitant amount of trouble. Without a proper backpack and poles, I spent the entire two miles waiting to eat dirt and praying that I would have the luck to fall when no one was looking. By some grace (most definitely not my own), I made it down.
The desert bit was flat and as we’d started at an early hour, not insanely hot yet. I was hiking with a highly interesting group of women: the KNF geologist, Jessica, the KNF Archaeologist, Erin, the KNF silviculturist, Rachel, and a KNF firefighter, Sami. During our trek, I was able to speak with each of these women and learn a hell of a lot. Jessica’s knowledge of rocks was flooring, Rachel kept identifying different plants and scrub trees along the route, while Sami patiently endured my flood of questions.
Sami’s been fighting fire for something like fourteen years, and she loves it. She told me what it felt like to be one of a very small (although growing!) number of female firefighters, and why it was she was still doing what she was doing. I went into the conversation merely curious about what it was like to work in such a male-dominated field, and came out of it seriously considering becoming a firefighter myself. The grinding work, the long days and even longer hikes, the camaraderie, all forcefully appealed to me. Here was something that was hard; here was something I could be good at.
I hadn’t even finished one milk jug of water, and we were on our last mile of the hike. After hours of harsh rock and sand, the thick green vegetation along the sudden stream was visually startling.
And then the worn dirt path had spilled us into Havasu, and here I was, redefining my mental image of ‘farm.’
Completely unfazed by my perplexing conundrum, Erin led us onward to the Havasupai Elementary School where we were scheduled to present a Kaibab Heritage Outreach Program. Jessica enthralled the kids with a rock game and various geology chants, while Rachel conducted a catchy tree song (bark! phloem! xylem! cambium! heartwood!) and brought out a crowd pleaser: a full-body tree costume.
The program ended, the kids dispersed, and we did some more walking.
In Havasu, ‘Havasupai’ means “people of the blue-green water,” which might come off as a little bit odd given that these Native Americans live in the Grand Canyon.
Not so.
A mile away from this village of three hundred is Havasu Falls, and two miles from that is One-Hundred Foot Falls. In trying to think of words to describe the falls, I thought of only one thing: that I couldn’t. Travertine minerals make the water especially clear and blue; sitting in the frothy spray, I found myself looking up at the wind-woven Grand Canyon walls, watching a bird of prey dip on the swells, and wondering if it was possible to stay here forever.
Photos: 1. Mules on the switchbacks 2. Erin, Rachel, Sami, Jessica, Yelena and me 3. Entering Havasu Village 4. Julian in Rachel's tree costume 5. Havasu Falls
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