Day 8

March 21, 2008

Exit Out of Havasu Canyon

This morning we hiked the two miles to the village of Supai and ate breakfast at the cafe.  We stopped by the lodge to pick up George's day pack, but apparently it was stolen and the people running the lodge didn't seem to care one bit, even though the assured us it would be save while we were away.  We then signed up for a helicopter ride to the rim.  We had to wait almost three hours while they hauled in feed for the horses and hauled out residents to the rim.  Apparently the Havasupai can't even grow enough alfalfa to feed their horses.  It was grotesque how much was spent on hauling people and animal feed to and from the rim via helicopter.  I wonder who is paying for this -- certainly not the Havasupai.

Once back in our car and on the road towards Las Vegas, we successfully changed our return flight to Denver for later that evening.  I pulled into the drive at my house in Boulder just after midnight.  I'm not sure what else to say about this trip except that I am still deeply disappointed. 

A few days after I got home I wrote to Tom Martin about what happened, and he wrote back with pictures of his route and the chockstone that stopped us.  He was pretty sure that we turned around at the last obstacle in Matkat.  I still think we did the right thing by turning around, but that fact doesn't make me feel much better. 

We still had our cache at "Matkat Hotel" to deal with.  Tom spoke with one of the rangers who was about to embark on a river trip through the canyon.  The ranger was kind enough haul it out for us.