Havasupai

Havasupai is a Native American Reservation in Arizona.  The Havasupai Tribe now live in Havasu Canyon, which contains a campground and some of the best waterfalls on earth.  The water stays about 70 degrees year around, and has a strong blue-green color.  The turquoise water is caused by the high mineral content in the water.

The land is owned by the Havasu Tribe, and they don't follow the same rules as the NPS.  "Visitors to Havasu Canyon assume all risks while in the canyon and should come prepared."  This was one hell of an adventure, and I look forward to seeing what trip the crew embarks on next year.

Thursday:
I flew from San Francisco to Orange County, CA.  Met up with Nick at the airport, and the crew picked us up.  We then drove all night to the trailhead.  Not much sleep.

Friday:
We arrived at the trailhead around 6am.  Got started hiking around 7am.  For the entire hike to the campground, we had our backpacks.

The view from the top.

We hiked 8 miles through a lot of canyons, and finally made it to the village, Supai.  Supai is very poor and simple.  All goods are brought in by helicopter or by pack mules.  There are no roads that lead to the village.  In fact, the road just to get to the trailhead is 60 miles of desert highway off of Route 66.

We stopped by the tourism office, which is kinda just a shack, and checked in for our reservation.  It was then that we learned that the helicopter could shuttle our packs from the village to the trailhead.  We left the village in search of a good campsite.  The campground is first-come first-served, so we had to search a bit for a good spot.

Our first waterfall sighting.  Little Navajo Falls.

But it would not be our last!  Havasu Falls.

After hiking another 4 miles from Supai, we finally found a camping spot right as it started to rain.  A lot of our stuff got wet.  Because of the rain, and after getting only 2 hours sleep the night before, everyone took a nap at around 5pm.  The rest of the crew didn't get up from their "nap" until the next morning.

At 8pm, Nick woke me up and we went for a night hike in the rain.  We made it to the top of Mooney Falls, but couldn't see anything in the darkness.  Later we found out that the falls were just too damn big to be illuminated by a pair of headlamps.  We walked back to camp and retired for the night.  It kept raining lightly.

Saturday:

Rain and wetness.  Not the most pleasant way to wake up.

The campsite.

Aerial view of the campsite.  This picture was taken from the cave, I'll get back to that later.

We made some breakfast, and walked back up river to Havasu Falls.  We found some jumping spots, and swam around in the water for a few hours.  We noticed one or two groups come check out the waterfall, but no one else even went in the water.  Private waterfall and swimming hole?  We'll take it.

The swimming hole just below the falls.

Pretty close to the falls. Getting sprayed with mist.

We walked back down river to camp, and made some lunch.  Then we walked to Mooney Falls.  When we got to the top, the sky didn't look friendly.  Some people warned us not to go down if it started raining.  Someone in our group had to run back to camp to zip up their rain fly.  While we were waiting, it started to rain a bit, so we waited in a small dry cave.  By the time the group was all together again, the rain had cleared up.

Mooney Falls.  For scale, note the green dome tent in the top right corner.  It is a big waterfall.

When we got to this point, a group had just finished climbing up "the ladders".  One of them was so scared and relieved to have finished, that she puked a few yards from this sign.

This was the only shot I took from "the ladders", because it was one of the few safe places.

Our crew descending "the ladders".  The mist from the waterfall coats the chains and ladders.  When that mixes with the dry red dust, it forms a slippery mud.  So the ladders and chains are covered in mud, and are really slippery.  At times there are no ladders, and you just have to hang on to the muddy chains and climb.  Really scary stuff.

After we descended the side of the canyon to get to the bottom on Mooney Falls, the weather ended up being fine down there, and we chilled there for a long time.  Swimming, snacking, etc..

That's a big waterfall!

We did a small nature hike downriver.  Some of the trails are ridiculous.  Be prepared to scramble up and down rock faces, caves, cross rivers, etc..

Adi and Ryan in "Buddha Cave"

This drawing was at the back of the cave, and so we named it "Buddha Cave".

Adi walking along the rim of a small waterfall.

The water distributes the mineral deposits at the top of all the waterfalls in such a way that it forms a perfect rim.  It's cool because it creates a pool above the waterfall, and it makes the waterfall really ride.  It's actually really easy to walk along the rim of the waterfalls that have shallower water.

Eventually we went back to camp, and fixed some dinner.  Ryan got out his phone and we watched The Incredibles, and a couple episodes of Family Guy.

After dark, we laid out on the picnic tables and watched the stars for a bit.

Sunday:

After a night of rain, I peeked out of the tent and found lovely blue skies above the canyon walls.

This was the day of our big day hike to Beaver Falls.  I think Beaver Falls was about 7 miles from our campsite, so it was ~14 miles round trip.

The vegetation in the canyon is weirdly diverse.  It goes from forest, to tropics(we saw a palm tree), to desert, and back.

The crew descending "the ladders" again

There was a lot of little micro habitats in the canyon.  This shot shows a vast field covered in vines.  Where did the trees go?

Crossing the river.

Don't touch!

Rough hiking.

Beaver Falls.  We had the place to ourselves.

Me doing a little jump off of one of the falls that we scouted.

TODO: get GoPro footage from Adi.  Some good cliff jumps are on his GoPro.

We had heard stories from other hikers that Beaver Falls can get crowded.  But besides our group there was only one couple there.  And they actually left after an hour, so we had the place to ourselves.  Sweet!  Another private swimming hole.

Mooney Falls again on the hike back.

A feast for our last dinner.  Each bag is portioned for two people.

We ended up with some extra food, so instead of carrying all of the food back out, we decided to have a feast for our last dinner.

After dinner, Ryan got out his phone again, and we watched Despicable Me 2.  It still cracks me up that we had movie nights.

After the movie, Jeff, Adi, and I went to go explore a cave in the canyon wall.  It was near our campsite, and we had been curious about it.  When we went to explore it earlier during the day, we didn't have headlamps and couldn't see very far inside.  We climbed up the wall to the mouth of the cave, which is actually a lot harder during the night.  From the entrance, we could only see back about 15 yards so we weren't sure how deep it was actually going to be.  We kept walking, and the cave went back deeper and deeper.  Due to the bends of the cave, we couldn't tell how far it was going to go.  It kept getting more and more tense the further we went.  On the way back I counted 82 paces from the back wall of the cave to the mouth.  So we think it was probably 160+ feet deep.

When we went to bed, the view of the stars was amazing.  We could see the milky way, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.  Or at least the sliver of sky you can see from the bottom of a canyon.  After we went to bed, it surprisingly rained really hard that night.  Crazy thunder and lightning.  One of the guys said a bolt struck within a 100 yards of our camp.  I remember the thunder from that one, but I was in my tent at the time, so it just looked like another flash.

Monday:

The view of the cave from our camp.

After the big storm, the river got muddy.

Really muddy.

Muddy water makes a muddy waterfall.  Havasu Falls after the big storm.

We hiked from our camp site back to the village with our backpacks.  Instead of lugging our packs all the way back to the parking lot, we decided to put the bags on a helicopter for the low cost of $20/bag.  Then we used our day packs to make it all the way back to the car.  That may sound like a cop-out, but that was still an extremely hard hike.  4 miles with packs + 8 miles with day packs in the desert heat.

This would have been so much harder with full packs.

A line of pack mules carrying a big load down to the village.  The only access to the village is by helicopter or the 8 mile mule trail.

Panorama while taking a break in the shade of the canyon wall.

Panorama from the top of the canyon.  We made it out alive!

After we got back to the car around 5pm, there was some celebration before we started the 8 hour drive back to Orange County, CA.  Everyone was pretty exhausted, and we didn't get back to Adi's place until 1am.

Tuesday:
I woke up at 5am, and caught a flight back to San Francisco.  Home at last.  Time to sleep.

Blue Streak

This is a late post.  The trip happened about a month ago.  So it will be shorter on details, since they aren't fresh in my head. Last year's post about Blue Streak

Josh finally made it back to the Bay Area, and organized a trip to Blue Streak to end the summer.  The trip almost fell through, because there were some wild fires in the area.  But it all worked out.

We did an overnight stay at Blue Streak.  The water was still freezing cold even in late September.  I don't know where the water comes from, but I don't believe it ever really warms up that much.

Great cliff jumping and rock scrambling.  And it's always fun to just go camping.

After the first trip to Blue Streak that I did, I didn't remember how to get there or any of the key details.  So I kept very detailed notes this time.  I saved them in a Google Doc for safe keeping.

Instagram Cliff Duel Video

Above the rapid there is a big rock with three diagonal dark blue streaks.  That's where the name of this place comes from.

Camping in Napa

Day 1 - Arrival
Eileen and I left SF around 3pm, got stuck in some Bay Area traffic, but made it to Bothe-Napa Valley State Park just in time to reserve the last walk-on camp site.  The next day we talked the guy in the visitor center, and he said they had to turn around 30 people after us that night.

We setup camp, then went out for dinner to Mustard's Grill.  Truly roughing it at a James Beard award winning restaurant.  By the time we got back to camp, Abby and Ben had arrived, and they were all setup with a fire.

Day 2 - Hiking and Wine Tasting
Started off the day with breakfast burritos.  Very tasty.

The campsite

Eileen reserved an afternoon wine tasting at Frog's Leap, so we went on a day hike near the camp ground.  It was a reasonable hike, and we finished just in time to head off for wine tasting.

Wine tasting at Frog's Leap.

The crew.

More wine tasting and sandwiches at Sequoia Grove

Sequoia Grove Winery

Back to camp for chilling and dinner.  Made the Parker family classic "Hamburger a la foil".

Day 3 - Departure and Mountain Biking
Blueberry Pancakes.  Very tasty.

Packed up camp.  Departed

Went to Calistoga.  Ben and I biked up Oak Hill Mine Trail for an out an back of about 8 miles total.  The ride out was pretty much almost all uphill.  The ride up was pretty technical, and I had to walk some of it.

Views from the trail.

View from the top.  Cool volcanic rock up there.

Once we turned around and started going downhill, the ride was really fun.  After just completing a steep downhill section, and coming up a slight hill, I decided to not down shift and just crank really hard to power up the tiny hill with my existing momentum.

I wasn't paying attention for just a moment, and my front wheel hit a loose rock, and the handlebars swerved right.  At this exact moment, I was standing up and cranking super hard with my left foot.  So I was off balance at the worst moment, and I went down hard on my left side.  It hurt a good bit, and eventually we continued down and got back into town.  I took the rest of the down hill a little slower.  I washed out my wounds, and Eileen bandaged me up.

There was traffic on the main route back to SF, so Waze took us on a beautiful route through wine country to get home.  Not so bad!

Japan - Hokkaido and Tokyo

The snow situation in Tahoe has been bad for the last 4 years.  So we decided to hedge our bets this year with a trip to Hokkaido, Japan.  Niseko gets the most powder of any resort in the world.  While we were here, it snowed every day.  Currently my home mountain of Kirkwood has a base of 42 inches(106 cm).  During the week we were in Niseko, it snowed a total of 120 centimeters.

Day 0: Transportation
This was a long day.  And by day I mean from waking until bed.  Well over 24 hours, and two calendar days thanks to the the time zone change.

I took a Lyft from the Mission to SFO.  When the driver was on his way over, I called him to make sure that my skis(185cm Armada JJs) could fit in his Honda Fit.  He claimed they would.  Anyway we ended up folding the back seats up, and having them stick out the passenger side window in the back.  I was skeptical that it would fit, but it worked.  it even rained on the way to the airport.

The flight from SFO to Tokyo was fine, I just watched a bunch of movies.  I met up with Kaven in the Tokyo airport, and then we caught a flight to Sapporo.  Then we caught a bus from the Sapporo airport to Niseko.  Finally we got to Moiwa lodge late at night(Japanese time), and we crashed.  Daniel was already in bed when we got to the lodge.

Day 1: First day at Niseko
Woke up at 3:30am and struggled to go back to sleep.  Jet lag.

Walked into the office in Annipuri, and showed them my epic pass, and picked up a free 5 day lift ticket.  We did two laps at the resort, and were really unimpressed with it.  Very flat.  Then we found the side country gates.  Thank god.  We ended up doing side country laps all day.  Really fun terrain, and good snow.  Wind prevented us from traveling to other resorts, didn’t want to take the bus.

We had a traditional Niseko dinner.

After dinner in Niseko village, hit the bed hard.  I was circling the drain at dinner, and the other guys kept asking if I was ok.

Day 2: First powder day
Maybe a foot of new snow.  We did laps on gate 7 all day.  The wind at the top was so cold that I ended up getting frost nip on my right ear.

Yakitori in Annapuri for dinner.

A very quaint restaurant.

Day 3: Powder
Maybe a foot of snow.  Got first tracks through a glade off of gate 7.  Did laps in the sidecountry all day.  -10 degrees Celsius, and -30 with wind chill.

Izakaya food in Niseko village.  Delicious.  We asked the server, which dish was her favorite.  It ended up being taco rice.  Not my favorite, but we had some great food.

Day 4: More powder at Niseko
“Well, Niseko got nailed last night with 48-60cm of new plus plus of super dry crystal for the 24hr period. Still dropping as this goes to post. Low wind, its cold, its deep, its bottomless ! - Today is one out the box folks. Advise mask to breath between face shots and no faffing.” — Niseko snow report

We knew about a little zone that was holding good snow in previous days, but was a little funky to get to.  You had to take the quad and then do a little traverse around the edge of a boundary rope.  Since it wasn’t obvious/easy how to get there, we had it to ourselves for most of the day.

Daniel suggested we should pow farm it, so thats what we did.  Every lap, we would just ski the untracked snow to the right of our previous tracks.  In doing so, we conserved the pow for our next laps.  Daniel and Kaven went to eat lunch at some Soba place that was featured on one of Anthony Bourdain’s shows, and I kept farming the pow.  I did laps in that area all day, and only saw maybe 5-6 different people over there.  And I only saw one of those people return for a second lap.

The sun broke through the clouds, and it warmed up a bit midday.  This thickened the pow a little, but I’m used to that sierra cement in Tahoe, so it wasn’t a big deal.

I tried to film some go pro footage, but I’m not very handy with it.  I had it on a chest mount, and the lens would get covered in snow after one or two powder turns.  We were getting face shots all day long.

TODO: insert a crappy video clip to highlight my poor filming, but great snow

Onsen from the outside, no pictures from the inside.

I found this picture on the internet.  No cameras allowed.  We were there at night, so it was dark.  

Onson.  We finally went to an onson.  I really enjoy hot springs.  Lots of naked dudes, but that comes with the territory.  Very relaxing.

We had dinner at an all you can eat BBQ place in Annupuri.  Most of the food is raw, and you cook at it a little grill on your table.  The sirloin was ridiculously good.  Very well marbled, and so tasty.  Also the fried chicken was insane.  I realize that sounds stupid, but it is a thing apparently.  We were stuffed.

All you eat grilled meat.  We went through a lot of plates.

Beer vending machine

Day 5: Moiwa and the rest of Niseko
We started off the day with the grand plan of skiing Moiwa all day.  My 5-day pass was still valid at Niseko United, but I was going to let the 5th day expire.

We warmed up with a few runs on the groomer, before the quad opened.  When the quad opened, we took it to the top, and dropped into a glade that was on skiers left.  The powder was a little heavy, but still skiable.  Then we took the quad back up to the top for some more laps going out of gate 10.  There was some decent snow, but it was warm and the snow kept getting heavier and heavier.  When we started missing turns, we decided that we should probably call it a day.

Since I still had my Niseko United pass, I decided to ski over there, and explore the rest of Niseko.  This was our last ski day, and we hadn’t gotten farther than Annupuri.  I took the lift to the top and skied over through gate 6.  There were some really retro lifts over at Grand Hirafu.

One seater chairlift.  I think we only have one or two of these in the US.

I made it all the way to the edge, gate 5.  There were a bunch of people traversing far away from the resort, so I decided to have a look.  I traversed out pretty far, and then I descended a bit, so I could get some speed.  Before long I noticed that I had dropped over a ridge, and no one else was really around me.  Shit.

I wasn’t sure if I skied down that I would be able to get back to the lift.  Then three dudes appeared, and I skied over to them to ask them.  I noticed that they didn’t have packs on, so they were almost certainly lost.  The first thing they asked was how to get back to the resort.  Damn.

So knowing the resort had to be back to my right, I traversed as far right as I could.  Eventually I came to a cat track, and I skinned up the rest of the way from there.  Finally got to use my skins on this trip.  Then I caught a few lifts to take me all the way back to the top, and skied down to Moiwa.

Skinned back to the resort.  People!

By the end of this I was exhausted.  But it is interesting to note that the snow out of gate 5 was really good and untracked at this point.  While the snow out of gate 10 back at Moiwa was getting really heavy.  I was just too worn out to do any more laps.  Plus it wasn't a safe place to be skiing alone especially near the end of the day.

Niseko Retrospective:
A great ski trip.  We got lucky, and had great powder almost every day.  We learned that the Niseko resort skiing is mostly boring, but the sidecountry/backcountry is great.  Next time I would like to have our entire group properly outfitted for a backcountry trip, and I would also like to do a guided backcountry tour.

Even the cabs had ski racks

Moiwa lodge was a great place to stay.  Nice to get away from the big hotels, and they gave us so much good advice on where to ski and eat.  The other night, the owner even gave us a ride to dinner.  The owner Dirk is actually a famous cricket player, and he was super down to earth.  Everyone was just very helpful and awesome.

Dinner reservations were needed every night.  Normally on a ski trip, we would eat whatever we could scrounge up (think frozen pizza and beer), but the food in Japan is really really good and varied.  So we had to make the most of it.

Day 6: Travel to Tokyo
Bus.
Plane from Sapporo to Tokyo.
Met Israel for dinner.
All you can drink Karaoke.  Didn't get home until 4am.

Day 7: First full day in Tokyo
Went to the Imperial Palace and Gardens, and ate some delicious ramen.  This was my first day on my own in Tokyo, so I learned how to navigate the subway.

I left my heart in Ramen Street.

Imperial Palace in the background. Thats as close as you can get.

Kabukichō

Random sculpture covered in ceramic creatures and Japanese children  

I love the details in this picture.  A cute fluffy dog.  Evil eyes.  Sharp fangs.  Screams and Cries.  But at the same time, it is drawn in a cheerful and fun style.  Very weird.

"Beware of drunk Pandas on the subway.  They will get emotional and puke on your shoes."

Day 8: Tokyo

Buddhist Temple
Cat Cafe
Ramen
Tokyo National Museum - really great exhibit on neo-impressionism.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Gallery
Metropolitan Government Building Observation Deck

Burning incense at Buddhist Temple.

Sensō-ji Buddhist Temple

5 story pagoda.  Registered Buddhists only.

Saw this Cat Cafe from the street.

Had to stop in for some cat time.

At Tokyo National Museum

Walked into a random building to find this huge Rube Goldberg inspired clock.  A constant stream of water spins the water wheel, which rotates a vertical shaft, which causes the pendulum to swing, which causes the clock to progress.

Tokyo skyline from the Metropolitan Government Building

Day 9 and 10: Going back home
This was another one of those 24+ hour days.  Board a flight at 5pm one day, and get off the flight at 10am on the same calendar day.

Pastry shops
Udon
Flight back to SF

Counters and counters of sweet sweet pastries in Isetan department store.

"Please do not let your elephant throw trash into the air or discard its cigarette butts on the ground."

Tokyo Tower

Trip Recap:

A worthwhile trip.  Got some great snow, some great food, and explored Japan for the first time.  I would definitely be interested in returning.