Havasu Falls

Havasu Falls is one of those places that, when mentioned, usually draws a smile because it somehow sounds familiar, even if one hasn’t seen a picture, or hasn’t even heard of it before. And it is one of the most famous spots in "America not visited all that much."
I don’t mind. I’ve been there, and I’m not sure it could tolerate more casual visits. It’s too delicate.
Access is only eight miles from a parking area, and the site is only an eight mile walk past a Supai village; but they’re not the easiest eight. You know you’re downstream from the Grand Canyon; but there aren’t any classic views during those eight, not until you reach the falls. Then, as if a door swung open, you find yourself within an Indian myth. You are in a glen by a stream delicately decorated with soft green life. Even the water is so, descending basins of lime green chalk handing filmy water along, dribbling it over its rims and down perhaps a foot each descent. Off the surfaces reflect shimmering oranges from the towering mesas that cup this Shangri La.


Gradually, a steady background, purring sound reaches your awareness. You look to the south a bit and see Havasu Falls, the force that creates, modifies, and recreates the delicate series of stair-stepping ponds. Even as you see its reality, it is more like a painting than a spraying, diving plunge of water. Your first reaction might be you’ve come upon a Kinkade painting. At once you regret that you have brought insufficient supplies to allow you to be here for a month.


Inevitably, in fact, the more you watch the cascade, you feel the compulsion to learn where all that water is coming from. After all, this is Arizona. The Colorado comes through it, not from it. So, you climb up beside the falls and start trailing upstream.
As you do, the stream narrows. Eventually, you find yourself standing by a bathtub sized puddle. There is no river, or stream, or anything wet. The source of that fairy like cascade is this humble seepage. And so soon!


Reversing your course, you return downstream. Without visible cause, it grows and grows and begins to ripple. And, in shouting distance from its source, you can see the mist that signals the lip of a waterfall. Havasu is, in fact, Gluck’s fairy tale creation of "Treasure Valley."


So, having seen and photographed Havasu from in front, below, above, and its start. I had to get a view from inside. Nature was especially kind that day. A gentle wind trailed across the falls cliff that day, brushing the descent of water just enough toward one side that I could pick footholds to directly underneath the lip. A brilliant Arizona sun lit up every water drop in the air, creating several miniature rainbows in the spray. I’ve never cared so little that my clothes were soaked.


A distance below Havasu is Mooney Falls, taller, lovelier, and truly hidden in the narrow canyon descending to the Colorado, more than worth the extra journey, probably missed by most who do press on down to the great river. And that is their loss. But they have seen Havasu Falls, the one that comes from nowhere.