A Trip to Havasu Falls: Hiking through the Grand Canyon and the Supai Village

Photo by Jo Murphy

This is was my first trip out west. Before I was 22 I had never been west of New Orleans, and there I was about to take a flight all the way to Los Angeles. In the spring of 2015, I was invited to join a group of people, including Sam and our good friend Jim, for a hike to the floor of the Grand Canyon, through the Supai Village and to Havasu Falls where we would camp for 2 nights and finish our trip in Las Vegas (I could have done without Vegas but I’d never been so I can cross that off my bucket list).

                Our trip included meeting up with some friends in L.A. before making our way to the Canyon which added an extra few days on to our trip but it was still fun because I had never been to California before.

*****Something that we didn’t know until 1 month before our trip is that you need reservations to camp at the falls. I spent 3 weeks calling the front desk EVERYDAY asking if there were any cancellations because they were completely booked for 3 months out!!! About a week and a half before our trip I got the good news that they had a cancelation and I made our reservation official. Be sure to make reservations at least 3-4 months before your trip*****

Havasu Falls

 This is our itinerary:

Day1: Fly to Los Angeles

We landed in L.A. in the early afternoon where we met our friend, Jo (he’s the one who invited us to go on the Havasu Falls hike). We spent our afternoon walking around Venice Beach and the Pier at Santa Monica. We stayed at their house for the night and started organizing our camping gear from our giant duffle bags we checked on the plane.

Day 2: Drive to AZ
*If you wanted to skip the whole L.A. adventure, I would recommend flying in to Flagstaff, AZ and renting a car/taking public transport to a hotel near the trail head. See my Alternate Itinerary linked at the bottom of this post for details*

We woke up early and started a 4 hour drive towards the trail head. We stayed at the Grand Canyon Caverns Inn that was about an hour and a half drive away from the hike and spent a very restful night, taking it easy, preparing food and snacks (PB&J’s are great hiking food, they get flattened in the bags but still taste great and give you extra energy!), and staying VERY hydrated.

My pack, Sam's, and Jim's

Day 3: First Day Hiking

Today we start hiking! We woke up around 6:30AM, got the last of our things together and drove to the trail head. The hike from the rim of the canyon to the camp site is right around 12 miles. You need to get to the camp grounds before dark, which is why we started the trail bright and early. Our packs were between 35-50 pounds (It’s a very nice courtesy to share the weight with your fellow hikers so no one drags behind because their packs are too heavy). Some of the guys carried more weight because they were comfortable with it, but we all managed to stay pretty evenly dispersed. You can generally hike with 1/3 of your body weight – remember, a gallon of water weighs around 8 pounds, so make sure you factor that in to your total weight.

On the trail to the Supai Village

We started hiking around 9AM and were at our campsite by 5PM.

*We did have a little bump in our hike. One of our people slipped and broke his foot 2 miles away from the village! He still managed to get to the campsite with the help of some of the locals and an ATV.

About a mile past the village, you will see Navajo Falls, followed by Havasu Falls and then the campground. We set up camp, had some food and went to bed.

Day 4: Havasu Falls, Navajo Falls, and Mooney Falls

Wake up in the bottom of the Grand Canyon! As if we weren’t completely exhausted from the hike down, we woke up, ate some breakfast, and started hiking around the area.

At the base of Navajo Falls





Set up a hammock at Havasu Falls



We went for a swim at the base of Navajo Falls, hiked down (about a half mile?) to Havasu Falls for a swim, relaxed in the crystal clear water and let our leg muscles take a breather. I had never done a distance hike with a pack on before and man alive where my shoulders sore!

After lunch, we headed down the campsite path to over look Mooney Falls.

Mooney Falls. Photo by Jo

Some people camp right on the edge and wake up to a stunning view. The hike down to Mooney can be fairly difficult. The only way down is by taking the stone staircase which has a chain as the hand rail. The stone is very slippery from the mist of the falls and can be quite hard for some people to navigate. (I have a fear of heights and I tend to slip a lot even on steady ground so I opted out of this)  Once you are down there, Sam said the view is amazing.

Day 5: Hiking out of the Canyon

This was one LONG day. Our group collectively woke up at 4:30 AM to break down the campsite and pack up our bags. We rented a mule for our friend with the broken foot and set off on the 12 mile hike up to the rim. I believe we were on the trail around 7:30 or 8 and we were at the trail head by 3PM.

Chasing the sunshine as the weather moves in.

We got there just in time. Right when we reached the parking lot, the wind was blowing and it started to hail. It was not the warm welcome you would want after the mind blowing, exhausting experience of hiking out of the canyon (our injured friend was waiting for us in the car for about 2 hours).  From there, we started driving to Las Vegas where we would spend the night. It was about a 3 hour drive to the Mandalay Bay Hotel and it was pouring rain. I kept thinking, “This is the desert, right?” We spent the night gambling and drinking and staying up way too late for what we had just done.

Day 6: Leaving Vegas for L.A.

Sore… Hung over… Tired… And we had to file into a car and drive back to L.A. Thinking back on it now; we should have bought our plane ticket from Atlanta to L.A and from Las Vegas to Atlanta. We thought about this as we drove past the Las Vegas Airport back to L.A. just to catch our flight home. Definite face palm moment. It was fun to drive through the desert again though. I live in Georgia and it was cool to drive down the highway and see a landscape that didn’t involve pine trees or rows of soybeans and cotton. We got back to our friend’s place that night and immediately passed out.

Our view leaving the campgrounds to the trailhead.

Day 7: Flying Home

We packed up our stuff, showered, got a shuttle to the airport and flew home.

If I were to do this trip all over again, I would skip over L.A. and fly straight in to Arizona to maximize our time down in the canyon. Click Here to see my new and improved itinerary for this trip to Havasupai.