San Diego June 21-25

San Diego Visit: June 21st -25th

Spent a wonderful weekend back in San Diego with Chris, Anastasia, and Madeline. Madeline is extremely adorable and has a lot of character. We were able to go to Balboa Park and also to Ocean Beach.

After going running with Chris and Anastasia, I am a little worried that they are training rather seriously. Hopefully I will be able to keep up with them. My next event is a sprint triathlon in Manassas, VA a week before our America's Finest City (San Diego) Half Marathon. One thing that I said I would have to do before my next triathlon would be to train in a pool. I found a pool near my place, but I have yet to actually swim in it. DC has a lot of facilities that are free to DC residents. The difficult part is finding the ones that are open during the hours you have available.

Dad and I took the opportunity to see a couple Red Sox games while we were out there. The two games we went to, were wins, but the Padres were able to capture one win during the Saturday game.

"But it's a dry heat...."



We flew to Phoenix on Friday 7/6 to visit George and see his new condo. Believe me, I got plenty of grief from my east coast friends about near-record high temperatures we were going to 'enjoy.'

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0705weather0705.html

Yes. It was really hot. The monsoon rain Friday didn't help either. Its pretty rare to sweat in Phoenix, but sweat we did, particularly on Saturday working at the storage facility. Thanks to George, and his friends, Ethan and Zach, we got a lot of things organized and moved to George's place new home. His new address is:
6622 S. Palm Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85283-3707

Its a spacious townhouse style condominium with the most unique wall murals I've ever seen. It really doesn't work to describe it. You've got to see it. Perhaps George will post some pictures here on the blog. Suffice to say, that Saturday night, after a very active and productive day, we fell asleep exhausted under the watchful eye of a giant unicorn.

Sunday was way more low key. We briefly returned to the storage facility with a rental truck, shuffled some things off to Salvation Army, attended services at Grace Bible Church, and finished off our visit with Pizza at Nellos before taking the red-eye home to Boston.

Havasupai hiking trip

A preface to this post: For anyone who has ever done this hike, I want to acknowledge that first-hand experience is far superior to reading a first-hand account. That being said.....

Here's the story of our hiking trip to Havasupai Indian Reservation--by far, the most challenging outdoor adventure Richard and I have every had. I've included pictures that you can click on to enlarge.

(Kudo's to Sean - the instigator/planner. He put the trip together and supplied all the lies and encouragement that convinced us we could do it.)

Starting out
We arrived 5/12/07 - Sat a.m. in Phx. After some last minute shopping for food and equipment we headed north to the town of Seligman to spend the night at a motel on historic route 66 at Grand Canyon Caverns Motel in Peach Springs, AZ. The place was full of bikers and hikers, a eclectic group of travellers one would expect to find on Rt. 66. As you can see, George and Sean found our accomodations were quite comfy.





It was the closest lodging to Route 18, a 60-mile drive that would get us to the trail head. When we arrived at the trail head, we checked some bags with the mule service, that would eventually deliver them to our campground. (Note: reservations for the campground and the mule service were arranged ahead of time. Info on making reservations can be found at the Havasupai Tribe website.) We used duffles for our checked bags because they are easier to pack on the mules. There are limits on how much can be packed in; details are on the website. Our heaviest bag contained the food for 7 people for 3 days. It turned out that packing in some stuff was a wise move because the trek ahead was pretty challenging!





Here we are at the trail head (from left to right):
Kate, Chris (kate & sherm's friend), Sherman, Ellen, Richard, Sean and George. We were smiling at this point because we didn't know any better.







The Hike In
Havasupai Campground is pretty darn remote. The only way in is by foot, horse, or helicopter. With more confidence than capability, we decided to hike it--ten miles in, enticed by the promise of spectacular scenery along the way and waterfalls when we arrived at our destination. The first mile and a half was down hill through switch backs. I spent most of the time checking out the scenery and taking pictures. It was the best part of the hike.





























All fun, and then it got tough!

Sean and George had left us in the dust. We were about 20 minutes behind Kate, Sherm, and Chris. It was getting hotter by the minute, finally peaking at about 95 degrees. But it was a dry heat ;-) Richard felt the whole thing was some sort of cruel joke. Just a little further....just a little further..."hey - you kids think we have good life insurance, but we don't"




Around mile 4, Kate & crew took advantage of a rare shade opportunity and we caught up with them for a few minutes before pushing on. Then again, when disenchantment was setting in, Sean came back down the trail and escorted us the rest of the way to the town of Supai.








The town



Rumor had it that before you entered the town of Supai, you had to pass the dead mule that had been sitting for several days in the AZ heat. No CSI-Supai and no photo here-(use your imagination or not).





We held our breath and limped into town with blisters and sore muscles to check in at the camping office. We totally loved Supai. Here's a picture of Kate and Sherman enjoying a little bit of rest and shade. Not only was there shade and cool drinks, but also cute little barefoot kids, stray dogs, hospitable, quirkly locals....we would have like to spend more time there, but we had more hiking to do.






The kids had gone on ahead. The hike between the village and the campground had a lot of very soft sand. Two miles felt like twelve. Fortunately, as we approached the campground, it was getting cooler, and the landscape was getting lusher.






























As we approached the campground, it was George who met us to escort us in. Hikers come to Havasupai reservation for the waterfalls. As you enter the campground, there are two--Navajo Falls and Havasu Falls. This is Richard and George at Havasu. There is an easy switchback trail that you can take to get down to the beach at Havasu. We spent Tuesday there enjoying the water and natural cool spray. It was a welcome oasis from the heat.







The Campground
Timing is everything. Our bags arrived by mule train and were being unloaded just as we arrived at the corrals. An hour or so later we were settling in. The campground is well shaded and is situated on both sides of the Havasu Creek. Some campsites are better (more private) than others. Sites are not assigned at the camping office. They are available on a first-come first-serve basis. So the hikers that leave the trail head first will get the best sites. We lucked out. We should have set out at sun rise, but didn't get underway until around 9 a.m. Nonetheless, Sean found a super double campsite a little off the beaten track. He found it, and put his pack on the picnic table - which indicated to other campers that the site was taken. We had to walk down the creek about a half mile, cross a plank bridge and up an embankment. And the seven of us set up for our first night.















The camp site was a stone's throw from the creek and situated at the base of the canyon wall. Richard and I set up adjacent to a patch of prickly pear cactus.














Our campsite was half way between Havasu and Mooney Falls. A short half-mile walk brought us to the overlook for Mooney Falls, the ultimate photo-op!

The walk to Mooney Falls was a piece of cake. Getting down the 200 feet to the pools at the base of Mooney Falls was a whole other story. Sean mentioned a rope ladder that he claimed "old ladies and little kids can do." Yeah-right! Legend has it that Mooney Falls was named for a guy who tried to descend to the pools with a rope back in 1882. Mr. Mooney didn't make it. Getting down has not improved dramatically since then.
If you are acrophobic, enjoy the view of the falls from a safe spot on the trail. Otherwise, the way to the base of Mooney involves passing through two tunnels in the rock and then descending the canyon wall with the use of chains, footholds carved into the rock, and a couple of ladders (one with a busted bottom rung).


























Scarey? oh yeah!



















But our efforts were rewarded with anawesome waterfall and crystal clear pools of cascading water.








More photo's from the cascading water at Mooney:



That pretty much wraps up our photos. We got the camera wet during our Mooney adventure.
Kate took some killer photos of the trip. Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/kvphoto. Sean has some nice shots too, although Richard and I are suspiciously absent from them :-)








The Trip Out
Our trip out of the canyon effortless thanks to the village chopper service. Thanks to Airwest Helicopter service http://www.havasupaitribe.com/helicopter.html Richard and I lived to talk about the trip. Five hour hike in and five minute flight out!

Kudos to all the hikers in the group that treked out by foot: Sean, George, Kate, Sherm and Chris.