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Tuesday, January 06, 2004

 
Escape from Flash Flood by Preacher John - a true story from my travels from 3/10/03

(Some of my friends wanted hear the full story of this so I've spent a couple of hours typing it in full, the long version is just below and for those with little time or attention deficit disorder a very short version (1 paragraph!) at the bottom!)

It was only my second day in Arizona and I had got up at the shockingly early time of 6.30am to be greeted with a cool day overcast by grey clouds... which ironically is perfect hiking weather... so I chucked my day pack in the Batmobile and lit out from Kingman where I was holed up in a Motel 6, heading due North for the Havasupai reservation...

The Havasupai are a Native American tribe of whom a few hundred still live in the village of Supai at the bottom of Havasupai Canyon, which is a side canyon branching off the Grand, where they've lived for uncounted years, or a bloody long time anyway... :) Apparently they've a whole bunch of gorgeous pools and waterfalls down there too, which I didn't get to see... but mainly I'd been interested in visting this village ever since I'd heard of it years before. I'd forgotten about it until I was headed that way and leafing through the Rough Guide... There's no road down to Supai, the Havasupai in the main (I think) mindful of income from their mule trains that carry tourists to and from Supai and also of protecting their traditions have always refused offers to build one... so you either have to hike, take a mule or a chopper down from the rim of adjoining Hulpai Canyon to reach Supai village.... It took me a couple of hours to reach the canyon rim, even going flat out along the mostly dead straight road through the scrubby desert...

I left the Batmobile in the crowded car park at the rim's edge, stuck my hiking boots on and taking only my light day pack (water, gatorade, bananas, chocolate, an extra shirt, waterproof, woolly hat and other survival bits) I set off down the switchback trail which drops about 1,000feet to the floor of Hulpai canyon. Within minutes it started to piss down with rain... and this in the state named "Arid Zone"! At the time I thought nothing of it, I was moving fast and making good time, so generating lots of body heat and was pretty comfortable... altho I was regretting the 2.5litres of fluids I was carrying on the Guide book's assertion of murderous heat!

As I strode down the path mule trains would pass the other way generally driven along by one or two Havasupai geezers who would say "Hi" to you when you passed, but looked pretty brassed off in the rain.
Interesting point: wet mules really smell bad.

I got down to the canyon bottom within 3/4hour and effectively turned right to follow the dry river bed along the bottom of Hulpai canyon towards Supai village.

Now I was walking along a "path" of loose stones, rocks and gravel between increasingly high walls of sculpted red rock, stained black in places with "desert varnish" and with the odd cactus perched on a ledge halfway up...

The rain was getting harder, but I could still hear the jingle of the bits and spurs warning me when a mule train was coming round a blind corner... One was actually driven by a bunch of Havasupai blokes... some of them wearing black bin liners poncho style in an effort to keep dry... One cheeky bugger asked me for my hat!

I'd been going for an hour (about 10am) when ran into a mother and son team who were resting, sheltered under an overhang, they were having a tough time carrying heavy packs to camp at Supai... I joined 'em for a few minutes out of the rain and scoffed one of my increasingly mushy bananas (travel tip: bananas do not = good hiking provisions, they get beaten to buggery in your rucksack)...

Cracking on down the canyon, the walls were getting higher and the path that much narrower. Small waterfalls were starting to form - spouting down from cracks and gouges in the walls... I was passing fewer mule trains now and more groups of shagged-out tourists plodding back up the way I came...

The last half an hour or so was really miserable, the cold was starting to bite and rain was driving hard and the dry river bed was not so dry anymore, there being a 3foot wide stream of fast running water gushing down the middle of the path, which started out clear, almost blue and quickly turned ochre... My two thin shirts & pack-a-mac weren't keeping me that warm so I marched on down as fast as I could move, which is pretty bloody fast!:) generating enough body heat that I'd have probably steamed like the mules had I been naked!

By around 11.15am the walls of the Hulpai canyon fell away behind me as the valley floor widened - flattening into pasture - and I came into Havasupai canyon proper. 5 minutes later I splashed through the puddles into Supai village. I passed the first couple of bungalows - where there were mules tied up next to swing sets... and made an immediate bee-line for the cafe... I did look for around for somwehre to pay the entry fee I'd heard of but nothing was obvious... The cafe was pretty depressing, very greasy spoon, except for a terrific mural of the waterfalls with writing re. their spritual significance for the Havasupai... that said it did contain lots of HOT coffee, not to mention cheese on toast and beans! Yay! I sat supping and taking in the scene... everyone looked pretty pissed off, 'cos of the stinking weather I guessed...Locals were sheltering in the cafe too, along with lots of bedraggled tourists in damp waterproofs... I chatted away to a few folks, including a geezer called Dan from London and found out the village office was back they way I came... I went back to the little cottage that housed a desk and wood stove and offered to pay my fee but they said no, not to worry... I asked directions for the falls and sloshed off to look for them... Passing the school along a dirt (mud) track I took the left fork and came to a single plank bridge that crossed a swollen, muddy stream... I wandered around for about half an hour past people's bungalows and through paddocks with horses roaming free, all in the shadow of the high cliffs of the canyonside proper (as opposed to the river walls). Eventually I admitted I was lost and as it was getting on for 2pn I needed to start the hike back to the rim so as to get out before sunset... I turned back to cross the stream and found that it had risen 6 inches in that short time, flooded a fair area of the bank and just covering the lpank where it sagged in the middle... I called in at the office to ask the bloke about the wisdom of hiking back in this flood... he said "Well, you could hike now but you'd have to wade for 4 miles" bearing in mind that I hate having wet feet and I was already generally cold and wet... so musch so that I was wearing both hats at the same time... I'm not sure this helped much -especially as my "sun" hat was soaked thro' - and I looked like a prize prat, but I couldn't fit it in my bag and I was desperate enuff to hope it would help conserve some body heat... Then the geezer says "But if you pay $80 that bloke will take you back to the rim on the helicopter..."

So I bopped over to the field where the chopper was coming and going with cargo (in) and tourists (out) every 10 minutes, coughed up the dosh and after half an hour of shivering I was in the bucket seat and we were zooming straight up out of the canyon! This was my first helicopter journey and tho' it was only about 10mins it rocked... The canyon looked incredible from that perspective, towers of red and black below us and I could just make out the redbrown river that was the path! And the mules who were picking their way up around the river walls - around the floodwaters... Once I was dropped off at the rim I jumped in the car and changed into all of my dry clothes, and wrapped up like Michelin man wandered about a bit chatting to folks in that spirit of Dunkirk just-survived-dodgy-thing-way... there was a middle aged couple scanning the canyon with binos waiting for their kids to come up (they were prob'ly OK they'd set off 3 hours before)... and there were 3 peeps getting changed on the back of a pick up... I asked them if they'd hiked back thro' the flood and the lead geezer (who was built like a shithouse) said yeah, they'd set off around 1pm before the flood was at its height, but they'd still had to wade for miles through chest deep floodwater, which of course was opaque with mud and silt so they couldn't see the rocky bottom... even this geezer who looked hard as nails to me said it was "Hell".... so seems I made the right call jumping in the chopper! :)

As I drove back to Kingman the skies cleared to perfect blue and it hasn't rained on me since... 3 months!

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Got ADD? Read short version here!
3/10/03 Me hike into Hulpai canyon, AZ to Supai village! Path on dry river bed! Much rain! Brrrr COLD! River not dry no more! Big flood! AAAAH danger! Me escape in helicopter! WHeeeeeee!!! FUN! Other peeps wade in river! Nasty! Me make right decision! :)