What you should know about Havasupai Falls

For those of you that know me, know I love to spend my free time hiking and on adventures with my husband, DJ. When we moved to Arizona almost a year ago, we made a bucket list of things we’d like to do here and like most states, some of these Instagram hot spots are getting harder and harder to get to. One of these places is Havasu Falls, a group of turquoise blue falls in Northern Arizona on the Havasu reservation. Permits are limited for this 20 mile (minimum) round trip hike and require a couple days off to accomplish it.

We were so lucky to be able to get reservations to camp there this year in March, and it turned out to be perfect timing. Since the tickets sold out in 1 hour of opening the 2018 dates, we knew this was something special that many people don’t even get to do in their lifetime. We were going to make it count.

We only got a reservation for 2 days, so we were able to travel pretty light. We brought hammocks to sleep in because they are much lighter than our tent and strapped sleeping bags to our packs. We set out to Havasu and got there around midnight where we slept in our freezing car until sunrise. We started our hike in the cold but quickly warmed up as we walked. The 10-mile hike into our campsite wasn’t too bad, we set up camp next to the bright blue waters and headed out to explore.

Besides the falls we saw coming in, the first falls we explored were Mooney Falls. People were camping right at the edge of the falls, and it was straight out of a postcard. I would say these were probably the tallest falls we saw (about 10 miles beyond this point, there are more falls that we weren’t able to make it to this trip, but we would love to make it to where the falls meet the Colorado River in the future). Our dinner consisted of things like beef jerky and tortillas because we didn’t want to bring cooking gear, but it was okay for one night.

The next morning we stopped by a couple falls on our way out where we took a dip. It is really cold close to the falls where this mist hits you, but at a little distance, it feels nice, even in the winter. They say the water is so blue because of the lime in the water, but whatever it is, it’s working beautifully.

I will say the hike out was much harder. We were already exhausted and had blisters from the treck in. It was much hotter this day and we had to stop every mile or so to rest. In the end, it must be one of the most rewarding hikes we have been on to date and I am so glad we had the opportunity. I have more exciting blog posts from our bucket list items coming soon so stay tuned!