My Group's Story

Written by Josh Kaggie.
Here's my story in the Deseret News. Two pictures are available. desnews.havasupaiflood.com

Here's some of my pictures on facebook.

And here are the rest.

Beginning writing the night that I got home..

Ah, to be home. It is currently 2:40 AM MST. But I was in the flood at Hava Su Pai. I was airlifted out. I have a lot of stuff that I'm going to forget. And oddly enough, I don't think I can sleep.
I hope to shorten most of this and add a photo-journal later.

It's too late to write. I just got home. I got out of the canyon at about 2pm MST. Then we drove home. For now, I've just contacted various agencies to see what's best to do with those pictures.

Like I said, more after I finish sleeping. I'll eventually add lots of pictures from my previous trips too.

It's 3:52 AM, MST. And I can't sleep. Funny thing is my heart is racing more now then I think it ever did in the canyon. Time to think does that.

The start of our trip

I'll just start at the beginning to try and relax myself so skip ahead when I actually do have the rest of the stories. I drove from Utah with a friend Thursday morning. It's a good 11 to 12 hour drive simply because you have to go around the canyon. We were meeting a couple of friends that I knew from college. In fact, I had invited a lot more and luckily, though not unexpectedly, some that were very committed to go dropped out at near the last minute. I always count on a few people to drop out.

We ate in Peach Springs at the only restaurant in town. There were some people from Europe there and my friend and myself thought they were speaking a language we were fluent in. Apparently we weren't so fluent. They were from Germany instead of Scandinavia which was a little embarassing for us, especially since I started our conversation in Danish.

Hualapi Hilltop was 60 miles away from there. We got there after dark, after being passed by a group of 5-6 cars (and some in that group lost their keys) that were all together. At the Hilltop we met up with friends from other parts of the country. Two from Arizona, one from California, and us two from Utah made five together. We slept fairly well. There's always a lot of mosquitoes at the hilltop but never any in the canyon. We laid a tarp down (and didn't notice some broken glass) but slept pretty good.

Friday morning: We were slow getting started that morning. We debated whether to bring certain gear - like a 70 foot rope. (I wish I had brought my ham radio too.) I brought my cell phone but left it in no-service mode. (I brought it for the time but ended using it later for the numbers.) We decided to bring my Nintendo DS because the wait for the flight out often takes a few hours normally.

When we started up in the morning going down the hilltop, a group of 20 passed us up. I was the slowest one in our group. Not that I was tired or injured, I just take smaller steps. We passed up maybe about 15 people getting to the campground. But everything was nice, dry, and calm. We checked in, bought some ice cream (best $5 spent ever), and headed down to the camp.

Friday afternoon and night: Well, since I'm not in danger of getting kicked out of the canyon now, (you aren't supposed to climb any walls,) our camp was right next to a cave. We climbed up and explored the cave after we made camp. The cave was a good 30 foot scale off of the ground. I set up my tent for a place to change. We made lunch. Then we went into the cave. There was a bunch of sandstone bricks slightly lower then the cave on the ascent up, so it makes me think that the cave was used slightly for mining. We explored the entire cave. There was a nice big room where you could make camp in it if needed (as in, 6 people could sleep comfortably there). There were tons of crystals but many of them had been broken off. A few of us in our group spelunk regularly so we didn't take anything out of it. It had soft ground but a crystal overhang. The bottom of the cave was sand. There was very little ascent or descent in the cave and it only really went back 100 feet. Another passage came out to 20 feet away from the entrance. But nothing significant. We spent the rest of the day swimming in the travertines at Hava Su Falls and just enjoying it. The water was too cold for me that day so I didn't play in it too much. I think half the time we were there we just napped while in the water.

That night it rained. We had two tents among the five of us. We started out among the stars lying on tarps. The rain didn't last very long but it made us move inside of our tents. We woke up very muggy and sweaty.


Generic Map of trail: Hualapi Hilltop - Hava Su Pai - Navajo Falls - Hava Su Falls - Campground - 300 ft climb - Mooney Falls - Beaver Falls - Colorado River


Saturday day we spent enjoying everything there was to enjoy. Our original plan was to hike to the Colorado river. I forget how long it is to get there. But we got a fairly early start. It's almost a ten mile hike if I remember correctly, which I don't. Along the way we had to climb various hills and go through lots of water - pretty standard. There was a rope swing between Mooney and Beaver that we swung on. It had a stick attached to it, but on the way back, it had some bicycle handle bars attached to it to hang on to. There was an emergency bike laying there that could carry someone laying down. It had one wheel on it. I think that's where the group behind us got the handle bars from.

We hiked to Beaver Falls and absolutely enjoyed it. We played in all of the travertines some of which were really deep. We jumped off of big rocks into the falls and it'd push us out. We spent a good amount of time there. There were people jumping in from all sorts of places - something you couldn't do with any of the other falls. One kid was pretty crazy and jumped from about as high as you could get.

We were going to go to the Colorado. We had plenty of food and water. But the two in our group from Arizona were planning on leaving that night for a meeting they had that morning. So we decided to go back and play in Mooney Falls.

The First Warning

Mooney Falls is the tallest (or rather was) of the falls. It's absolutely gorgeous. We used someone's air mattress that they left behind and filled it up to play around it. Everyone in our group got pretty close to the falls itself and scaled the wall a little bit. Some in our group felt some debris fall from above. A couple of us climbed a big rock just right next to the falls and jumped in. You had to be careful though, because there are a lot of big rocks in the water itself fairly close to the falls. But most of it is (was) ok. So we thoroughly enjoyed it. Then we climbed up the 400 foot climb, that has ladders and steps and ropes but is a steep ascent, most of which is within a 50 foot horizontal radius. We got back to camp and started making dinner.

A lot of our food was gone. It had been chewed through by squirrels. The squirrels near there are nasty. Everything that had been left out of a tent was chewed through. They even got into my pack and chewed through the rest of my granola bars and powerade powder and other food I was planning on. They chewed through my friends' food - a lot of it was in a big plastic bag, then in smaller plastic bags. The squirrels (we assume squirrels but there was a wet feather on my metal plate that was left on the table - maybe a combination of both) had eaten pretty much all of my friends' food. Some of the food was strewn up against the mountain walls. It's amazing that they would chew through so much plastic. They sampled pretty much everything we had that was left out. (Last year, one of my friends lost a steak to a dog when we left.)

Right as we were ready for dinner and eating the food we had left a guy and a girl came running through the camp yelling, "Flash Flood! Flash Flood! Flash Flood!" Pretty soon the place where there was a cave had a bunch of people on it. Everyone without their gear. Pretty much no one knew how bad a flash flood would be. My group actually stayed on the ground. We didn't move. We packed up though. We put away our tents and tarps and got everything ready to go. But a flood never came. Nothing happened. It was a boy who cries wolf scenario but it's better safe then sorry. A different ranger came through and explained that they might see it rise 6 feet. It was about 5:30 pm at this time, Saturday afternoon.

Two of our friends decided to hike out of the canyon. They left earlier then us so they could stop at a restaurant in the village and get something to eat. My own friends decided they wanted to leave too, but I was planning on spending an extra day. My pack was packed only to get stuff in quickly, not to hike 10 miles comfortably uphill. Plus, I was still in my swimsuit and it was uncomfortable. So we were a little bit behind. I noticed that the space blanket and bandana that I had brought were missing - I think the squirrels probably took it, but I saw a few space blankets later and really hoped that mine helped someone.

We had moved camp at this point, thinking the other spot would be pretty dumb. Originally we were planning to move into the cave, but some other campers did that after the first flash flood warning and we didn't want to be too crowded. Our second choice was next to Mooney falls, further down the camp. That was still open and was the closest spot to the falls. We were planning on doing that earlier but since the flash flood warning we decided it would be a bad idea. (Oddly enough, the outhouses next to mooney falls were safe the entire night.)

So the other camping spot that was still open, with a table, on high ground, was right next to the outhouses at the entrance to the camp. I think this was one of the major reasons my one friend wanted to hike out earlier.

So we had moved there. After we had moved there, we were curious what the hut was down there. (I was hoping they sold food.) The hut is a ranger station. I started talking with the ranger and his wife there. I told them we had moved to a new campground really close but might be planning on hiking out of the canyon. They said we would be safe there. They said they were about to leave to the village to get some food. They were down there early to warn of flooding.

We decided to hike. I'm not sure how long our friends had been ahead of us. But we spent some time cooking at our smells-like-crap campground, repacked, and I changed. It was probably a half hour to an hour. But then we began our hike out.

The First Flood

It's two miles uphill to the Supai village. The rangers started walking after we left. We hiked and got about a mile before it started to rain pretty hard. We pulled out our tarp and hid under a tree next to the trail and covered ourselves. The rain calmed down soon enough, but we kept sitting there. The ranger caught up and made us move along with them. We chatted with them for a while. It was their first night as rangers. I think they are out of a job now. (The ranger was farsighted and missed our hands trying to shake them when he stopped at a huge bonfire a mile before the village.) They had walkie talkies.

When we had gotten to the village we checked all around and couldn't see our two friends. We had just assumed they had gone on without us so we decided to go on too. We got our flashlights out because it was twilight. We asked a villager what she thought. She said she wouldn't recommend hiking out but wished us luck when we decided to anyway. As we were hiking out, I was actually a little scared and thought to myself that I'd be calm if I were to meet my doom.

We got about a mile outside of the village. There's a pretty big hill just outside the village that you have to climb up and then down. We headed down that, the path levelled off. I was trying to keep up since the two friends with me walked a lot faster and I had a few blisters and watersores (ie. sores you get from sandals when water is being pressed against them) and some other uncomfortableness. But I knew if we delayed it could mean a lot worse things might happen. We wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

We had passed the last fence of the village and were on our way up a hill. I wasn't paying much attention until my other friends stopped. About 6 inches of water was coming down (at the head of the water). I say it was going down just a little faster then I can walk (because I kept just ahead of it) but my other friend says it was going faster then that. We walked downhill to start because the trail uphilled really soon. Only one of us got wet. We were booking it uphill but the water diverged off to a different path. The path out of the canyon was blocked by water. It was possible to cross but who wants to hike 8 miles in wet, muddy boots? Especially when there's further chance of flash floods?

We found a spot a bit further up the road. It was nice and flat. It had a ton of horse chips that we kicked out of the way. We decided to make camp there and wait for the morning. We hung our packs, a lamp, and our garbage in the trees. We pulled out a tarp and decided to enjoy the night. We made pretty much the remainder of our food - hot cocoa and Mountain House apple crisp.

Some other hikers came by, saw the flood and talked with us for a moment. They made camp a little bit further uphill, but only for a few moments. They had someone scout ahead and since the bridge was still there and only slightly flooded, they decided to go on ahead. We figured we could wait for morning when the path had dried and the flooding had stopped.

We pulled out our sleeping bags and got in them. We talked for a while. Between us, we have a lawyer, physicist, and emergency coordinator so we talked quite a bit of philosophy and such.

The Second Flood - The Real Disaster

We were asleep for probably an hour. It was 11:30 Saturday night. I heard some campers walk by on the road. They got down to where the water was and turned around. One of them walked up to us and shined her light in our faces and went, "No it's not them." Even with the light in my eyes, I pretended to be asleep because I really just didn't want to move. She then started walking back and said, "You guys do know it's flooded down here, right?" My friend quickly replied, "Yeah, that's we are camped right here." We laid there for 30 seconds before one of us said, "That's a lot louder then it was before."

So one of my friends got up. Right as he ran over to where the path was to check it out, a huge flood of a couple feet came gushing up the trail. We were surrounded on all sides. I walked over there with my socks on (I left them on so I didn't have to remove moleskin. I put a fresh pair on after the hike. The one thing I did plan on and bring was 6 pairs of socks.) Someone on the other side who was hurrying up the trail yelled, "Are you ok?" And I went, "Ummm... yeah..." really slowly and melancholily. (I know it isn't a word.)

We cut down our packs (which we had hung up in a tree) and left the light on still hanging in a tree. I just grabbed up a tarp with two sleeping bags in it, my pack on my back, and my shoes and went to the flooded trail. My two other friends were still in swimsuits. One of them had hiked the way in his nice water shoes. My other friend was barefoot. I had my socks on. And we went through the water. By the time I crossed (two of us were trying to get the lamp down and decided it was futile) it was up past my knees and my shorts got wet. I had partly damp shorts all night, but it was nothing compared to the sweat from the humidity.

We had actually scouted the other side of the river. We always had an escape plan before we made any camp on the trip. When the first flood came that night, we had gone uphill this way as soon as we could. We didn't want to be downstream from their irrigation system. The problem with this side of the river is that it had a lot of cacti and was steep. There really wasn't any place with a lot of room. There was a place to lay a sleeping bag or two (under normal, standard comfortable circumstances) higher up and through a lot of cacti. I actually went barefoot (sockfoot) because I didn't want to take my socks off and put my shoes on yet. Plus I was debating whether to cross again to get my lamp.

We walked through a number of catcus patches. We found a good spot a good 50 feet higher then our previous camping spot. We made a couple of trips bringing our stuff up there. Oddly enough, my friend with boots on got a cactus prick in him, while I did not. (Though I realized in the morning that I had slept next to a cactus the entire night. Good thing I didn't roll over much.)

When I went to decide whether to get my light (it was still on across the river) our previous camp spot had been flooded. It was flooded within minutes of us getting up.

We made camp this time on almost a ledge. It was the flatest cleanest spot we could fine. Our gear was still dry, other then the tarps and clothing below the upper part of the kneecap. We had a huge boulder just below us that we could walk on and see everything. The waters had filled as far as we could see. My flashlight went as far we could see which was to trees on the opposite side of the floods. We couldn't tell how much further it was.

One of my friends claimed that he heard screaming. We were very concerned for our two friends who went on ahead, but we had a feeling that they were alright. It was almost midnight and they should have made it out of the canyon by then, though they would have cut it pretty close. We talked about how this flood would kill people.

We talked about how it probably wouldn't be on the news. There are plenty of people killed by flash floods every year in slot canyons, and we had a slot canyon coming down. How often does one hear of someone being killed in a slot canyon? Not too often. We talked about Noah's flood which was an interesting conversation. One of my friends claimed that he heard screaming. I could hear it too, but I could never tell whether it was river noises, screaming, or dogs barking because canyons do a funny thing with sounds and distances especially when there are a lot of sounds.

I got the spot nearest to a ledge. Our camping spot was pretty slanted as it was but there was a bigger slant where I was at. We started trying to sleep parallel to the edges of the tarp, but I had too much ledge to even go to sleep. We turned our sleeping bags parallel to the diagonals of the tarp. The tarp kind of fit perfectly between the side of the mountain and the huge boulder and tree at our feet. This diagonal position allowed me to kind of stand up against a rock the entire night. I put my feet on a conveniently situated rock that wasn't going to move and left them there most of the night. I would roll onto one of my sides occasionally with a little bit of finesse. We woke up to find a dead cactus right next to my bag on that side. Funny how little you notice some things..

I had trouble going to sleep. The other guys fell asleep easy. There were a lot of noises during the night. I think they were horses since plenty of them tended to run free in the village. I finally fell asleep when an hour later a helicopter flew down the canyon. He then flew back up the canyon just a few minutes later. I assume he was a scout.

I woke up nice and early. Pretty much when the sun came up ~5am. I walked on the boulder and noticed that everything was still flooded. The path out of the canyon was gone, even though it was morning.



The white light in this picture is where my lamp was hanging. That's where we made our initial flood camp. The flood in the foreground is what we had to cross, though it was a lot higher. (The sand seems to have brought in a lot of sand.) My lamp was muddy on the bottom. But it was still shining. The other side of the lamp is the flooded valley that was still flooded when we left.

I went for a walk and tried not to wake the other guys. I couldn't see our previous camp until I had hiked around a little bit and I saw some horses and was trying to get a good picture. They were very curious about my lamp. I ended up only scaring them away revealing a bull. So I went back up to our camp.

I had to poo. And I'm a very curious person. So I ended up wandering up the trail in a little bit and found a spot. There was plenty of dry trail to the village along the side of the road, along the irrigation ditch for a while. The water tapered off eventually from the trail.

The First Day of Aftermath

When we all got up we hiked back to the city. At the top of the first tall hill out of the city were the other campers who had awaken us that night and about 3 horses. I'm not sure how they all fit during the night. (I doubt the horses were there at night.) The path to the city was muddy most of the way, until close a few hundred yards away from the main road. It made us curious how the houses that were a lot lower fared.

In town we met a few of the other villagers. There was a paper sign on many trees that said, "Dam breech at 8:85 AM. Tourists will be evacuated. Villagers stay posted." And there was a rumor around that it would take 4 - 6 hours for the water to get there. Most of us thought that another flood was coming, but after a while we didn't think it would get up to that part of the village. It wasn't until my drive home that I realized it should've been, "Dam breeched at 8:45 PM." That would've made a world of difference.

There was one guy there that was a professional tour guide. He had a lot of people with him. His group had about 5-10 large blue tents at the camp site when we were down there. After the first flash flood warning, I believe he went around and assigned every person in the camp a number. A few people got annoyed by it but it did help a little bit in trying to get an estimate of how many people were down there.

The emergency coordinator in our group volunteered to help with the efforts. Basically, he ended up going around trying to get people on a list to try and get a head count. And if a person had a number assigned by the tour guide, he would try and get that too. Since we had some other climbing and other experience, we were prepared for a lot of other things.

The tribal member who was a FEMA coordinator was in charge of organizing all of us. He asked if any of us (who were prepared to rescue others) had any equipment with us like rope. He told us, "We may have to get your rope from your car."

My friend suggested that we find out who has any other experience in the crowd so he sent my other friend and me through the crowds asking who had experience in emergency, rock climbing, CPR, etc. We didn't need to use that list, but if it had come down to it, we did not have a doctor or nurse in the city (who wasn't a camper) that night. We did get a good list - we had some people who have rock climbed, been nurses, and a volunteer fireman.

The number count off worked decently well. It went up to 120 people. My friends and myself helped put everything in order and figured how approximately how many people were missing. By the time the last flight came to the city, about 13 people were missing from the number count off. There are a lot of other records and since people are free to go when they please, it is hard to know who was really there or wasn't.

We were poorly informed of anything in the city. The first helicopter came at close to 9 am. That was the AZ emergency helicopter. I think I may have seen another helicopter. They basically ended up flying down to where people were stranded and took them either to the city or the hilltop, kind of based on how they were rescued or their condition. I only know the stories of the people who were taken to the village.

And most of the time, we waited.

All of the travel to the campground was by helicopter - no one took any of their vehicles for a variety of reasons - speed and the roads were crumbling.

Everyone's Stories

Over the next few hours and days we would hear stories of other people. The professional tour guide ended up gathering a lot of people after the first flood and taking them almost to the city. He also went down that morning and helped rescue a few people, since one of the bridges were out and they needed to cross it.
There was another group that ended up getting to the city by hiking a long way around the mountains - they were apparently on the right side of the river and close to a ledge you could climb up to the mountains to.
Some had to cross a washed out bridge coming to the city I belive through use of human rope.

There was a group of scouts that were stranded on an island. They were rescued by making a rope bridge. One rope strung up high to hold onto, one down low to stand on. And they climbed one by one across the flooded waters.
This one I heard second hand so I'm unsure how a couple things of it played out: One girl climbed up a tree when the first flood came. When the second flood came she was holding on to dear life. Her hands held on upstream while her back was downstream. Then a big torrent came and swept her up and around the tree so that her back was to the oncoming water. She was pressed against the tree. She was constantly battered. She was rescued basically by being asked to jump in the water. So she did. Nothing but her hand was above water but the tribal members caught her. She was among those of us who left the second day.

One group who was rescued early had lost all their packs and gear. They were among those to leave the second day too. We offered a couple of them breakfast but I'm not sure who ended up giving them food because food in the city still cost money, and they had lost everything other then the shirt on their backs.

Plenty had been awaken while still in their tents. Others had been awaken because they heard a twig snap or had to pee. Some of those woke up to 30 other people. The guys who were in their tents didn't notice that the water was there surrounding them. When they had stepped outside of their tents (one guy had to pee) they noticed that the water was pretty high. They had in their group one guy on an air mattress who had started floating away. They tried waking him up a couple times but he thought they were joking with him. He woke up soon enough though. Most of these people found high ground soon enough. The waters subsided enough by the morning to land a helicopter in some places.

I forget which story it was but I know as soon as one group left their island - I think they were on tables - shortly after huge trees came.

Most of these people lost tents and other gear. I don't know how many kept their keys or wallets with them. There was one tent that had two large trees pushed up right next to it. The two trees created a 'V' shape and created a natural dam. That tent was safe the entire night, even being deep in what should've been water. The tents right next to it disappeared though.

I haven't watched any news about it - I was in the canyon afterall and have only been home part of a day. I'm pretty sure the news stories have died down a bit. So I'm not sure what other stories there were coming out of the canyon.

So people were being rescued. The tally went up. And a lot of us kept wondering when people would actually start being taken out. They did say they were going to evacuate the village because of the flood.

Some people found access to the internet and checked stories. Plenty of them were incorrect. For example, one said that there was a Red Cross Tent with us. There was no Red Cross Tent. There was no food, other then what you bought. (I found out later that food was given out at the store Sunday night. I wish we had known that! That just tells you how little we were told.) Shelter was a single emergency blanket if you lost your bag. No one volunteered to stay another day. It was force fed to those who didn't get in line fast enough - many of whom should have left the first day had an extra nights stay, while people who had been perfectly fine or stayed in a lodge got out earlier. It was the dumb luck of the draw. I wonder if we had been told that they wouldn't be flying more people out more then a few moments in advance if we would've figured out on our own who should go first.

One news story said that everyone would get $500 for their nights stay. That was incorrect. Including everyone at once, we got $500 total in goods. The store gave out gatorade, coffee, and danishes Monday morning.

There really wasn't an inventory of that point of anyone who might have had any emergencies or needs, such as a diabetic or flood injuries.

The First Flight Out

Two apache helicopters were there at 2 PM Sunday afternoon and finally started taking people out. Up until that time I had started playing cards with some people from the East Coast. (I was very glad that I brought my DS and playing cards along the trip.) I had talked with a lot of people who had stayed at the lodge who had a perfectly good nights rest and didn't know anything went wrong until they left their room that morning.

The had us move from the standard landing pad to further down the road so they could fit two Apache helicopters. It moved really slow. I think they took out a group of eight per helicopter, which seemed to return every half hour. There were a officers from city, county, state, and the national guard was flying the helicopters. The next day there were others from DPS, NPS, and then we had the FEMA guy. That's already 7 different agencies with different flight and emergency protocols sovereign land in a place districted by everyone. I'm pretty sure everyone was confused. It wasn't until Monday that we had someone who actually was in charge. Part of the slowness could've been because it was a Sunday. The other was interdepartmental. The other part was they had to rescue others first.

Whenever a helicopter would land it would blow up a lot of crap, since the ground before had plenty of broken up horse manure. Everyone would look away or cover their faces.

The Destruction We Saw

My group realized it would be a while, so we went down the trail to check out the destruction. We met a native along the way. And he showed us around. He showed us his house and how he had a laundry machine now that he didn't have before. (There was one house that you could see flying back that was completely destroyed.)

He showed us bridges. And we went down the trail.

Hava Su Pai will never be the same again. There is a trail to Hava Su Falls but it is incredibly treacherous. A wrong step would be a 50 foot fall at least. Navajo Falls is completely gone. All the green lushness is gone. With all the trees that had been washed downstream, I bet the travertines that take hundreds of years to form are gone. I don't know if the waters or the land will be blue green again for at least a year. At the least, it will be a long time without tourism and a lot of hard work for these people.

Many people were probably very upset with the Hava Su people. Perhaps rightfully so. I feel incredibly sorry for them. Each villager we talked to had a different opinion of what the flood was and said stuff like, "Yeah, we had a flood like this in 2006, then in 2001." At that point, I'm not sure if they had seen the destruction. It will create new falls. But they will have to work hard to make it safe, to create new paths, and it will be a long time before they get tourists again.

Perhaps, they had seen this big of a flood in 1993. I would put money that this is bigger. It's hard to say because those records don't tell which buildings and which cliffs they scrambled up to for safety. Because I think we saw buildings destroyed too, and maybe not villagers, but tourists, scrambled up cliffs for safety. I do not know if they have ever endured two dam breakings. (Two dams as far as I understand. The Redmond and the cattle/crop dam.) That could be worse then their flood of the early '90s.

Even if it wasn't worse, it caused enough damage that much of it will never be restored. The village is not in any real danger. It exists in a fairly wide valley where most of the water will spread out evenly.

Navajo Falls is no more. The path around Navajo Falls doesn't exist. Much of that land simply fell. I'm sure that the little remaining will fall with just a little bit of pressure. It's sand holding up sand. The path is sand. It doesn't take much to create an avalanche.

Perhaps I'm blowing things out of proportion. I might be wrong. I'm pretty sure I'm right. Some people will be very surprised when Hava Su doesn't open for a while.

I don't know how long it will take for the new falls to become beautiful again. It will take at least a year for vegetation and repairs. Vegetation should help make it more stable.

You may wonder, why are there still great pictures of Mooney Falls and Hava Su Falls? It doesn't look like they have been affected much. Some people claim they've seen more flooding then what they saw in those videos. The answer is simple, that is about 5 times less flooding then occurred the night before. Mooney and Havasu Falls are rock. Navajo Falls is sand. The trail to the campground from navajo falls extended out at least another good 40 feet and that is all gone.

Havasupai will never ever be the same.

The Path Out of the Canyon was Flooded

We got back, waited for a little bit, then went on another hike. We didn't want to lose our spot as last in line so we had to leave. That and sitting in the same spot for most of the day isn't fun. Our next hike was to where we had camped the night before. I was curious if it was still flooded. It was. The bridge was out further up. I guess you could try and trudge through it. It would have been quicker then waiting for the helicopters. But there wasn't really any way out at that time.

Fifty villagers were sent to the hilltop, then they took a few others out. Then they announced that they wouldn't be flying anyone else out that night. Flights would resume at daybreak.

Most people headed back to the main plaza where they handed out emergency blankets for anyone who needed them. They opened up the community center for toilets. Rooms were available for $40 for whoever wanted to rent them. The charge is normally $145 per room. Most others spent the night on ant infested grass and cement. But perhaps ants don't come out at night. The lights were on for a while and I think when they went off, a big cheer was heard from everyone.

As for my party, we found another place to sleep. There were plenty of other dark and grassy spots. I personally would have preferred where I slept the night before compared to the hard concrete of the basketball court.

As we were walking, a villager invited us to join him for some television. We watched a small part of the Olympics. I fell asleep and started snoring.

Early the next morning, people were up and already in line for the helicopters by 4 am. The sun came up at 5am, which is when I woke up. I joined the line fairly quickly but we ended up being a lot later in the line, pretty much last at one point because most everyone saved a spot for someone else.

But the people who stayed at the lodge were the last ones out.
Coffee and danishes were free for everyone. Then eventually gatorade. (After I had bought some. I felt bad for the tribe so I gave a decent tip to the store owner. Funny thing about that - one guy said he would never give another cent to the tribe the day before but then ended up paying for a room.)

The helicopters arrived at 9am. At about 10:30ish other helicopters started arriving. We only had one blackhawk this time (I saw 3 the day before). But it was 10 times more efficient then the other day. We had I think 7 helicopters from many different agencies. Arizona State Rescue, National Park Services, National Guard, etc. The private charter kept bringing people in without taking anyone out. I think there were some people the day before who paid for the charter to take them out. And there was finally someone who took charge, who yelled what was going on to everyone. That's what we really missed the day before.

We had one guy there from DPS who was there volunteering on his day off. And a lot more people went on hikes that day, though we ended up having less time.

The funny thing about it is if the Hava Su nation was a US company, they would have done a lot of things different. Like not even letting us take a chance to get out of the canyon.

Since no one died, I don't think anyone can really sue for the time spent there or the lack of warning.

I really enjoyed the trip. I thought it was absolutely fascinating how the tribe and the campers responded to different situations. I really enjoyed watching the flash flood. Everyone on the ledgers was accounted for. (255 campers.) Their site says the tentative schedule to reopen is in 4 weeks. I'm betting it will be a lot longer then that.

I do have a little bit of bitterness. I actually wasn't bitter until my drive home. A long drive like that lets you have time to think. If I were in charge of the tribe, I'd probably have a lot different protocols and standards.

I wore the same clothes without changing anything or washing anything for a few days. Next time, I bring only one pair of clothes. And a ham radio. That would've made all the difference in the world. What a great last trip of the summer.
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I will add further formatting, another picture story section, and shorten the story later. This took a while to type and will probably serve more as a personal memory of what happened more then a public one, but nevertheless, here it is. I like to keep records of a lot of my adventures.

Any questions, corrections or comments? See any other pictures or video on the web? If you want to add your own videos or pictures, I can change a lot of things. I'll add some links.

Email me at kaggie at gmail dot com.
http://www.havasupaiflood.com