Havasupai and mysterious meeting

It had to be the highlight of our Phototrip 2008. And to some extent it was even more! But let's start from the beginning...
After the very short night spent in Caverns Inn we packed our Hummer very early and headed to the Hilltop Parking. Arrived there about 6 a.m., left the car and started to hike down. Backpacks were heavy, but trail seemed to be easy. We passed the village at about 9 or 9:30 and only stopped by the post office to drop postcards, then went farther to famous Navajo Falls.
I was amazed with the amount of water in the fall - during my autumn visit it was much less water and the falls were more easily accessible. Besides weather was a bit windy and water was everywhere - especially on our cameras. I've to mention that taking good pictures of this waterfall requires crossing the Havasu creek, then standing on the terrace in knee-depth water to take pictures. Of course you have to set your tripod to be stable and sometimes it's not easy while having all the gear on your back, belt and everywhere else. We wanted to make the most of the morning light, but it was changing rapidly and I've only taken few pictures. The worst was endless cleaning of the lens, filters and cameras and covering gear with some protector - water was splashing in a really bitchy way. I must admit that autumn seems to be much better season for taking pictures in Navajo Falls and how later turned out, also other waterfalls. So after not very long fight with nature, we gave up about 1 p.m. and headed to the campground, where put up the tent and prepared some food. Weather was very hot and lazy. After so short previous night and good lunch I fell asleep immediately. Woke up late and was too lazy to go anywhere, so we used the situation to take some pictures of birds, lizards, bats, squirrels, dragonflies and other stuff. It was the first evening we could commune with nature and relax - decided not to take any more pictures of waterfalls that day.
On the next day we woke up early and went to Mooney Falls for some morning photos. Weather was good and not many people came to the spot. We've taken few memory cards of pictures and came back to the campground for breakfast. Sun was going higher and higher and we had a lot of plans - one was to go to Beavers, the other - to check the upper trail. But as usual, life verified plans, we were very lazy and quit both of them.

Instead we went to Havasu Falls to check some spots for the evening session and see how is the light about noon. It was good decision. Light wasn't perfect, but there were two "mermaids" swimming around the corner. I saw them, because just went to the small remote island. They weren't very shy and shown me everything, but I was too shy to take pictures :) On the way back to the campground we took some pictures of cactis and other flowers. Then had a very lazy afternoon - some nap and hunting for hummingbirds and other beasts with a camera of course!

Few hours before sunset we headed to Havasu again. This time with a serious sunset pictures in mind. Light was much better, but wind was blowing stronger and just after setting the tripod and camera on it, everything got wet. It was really a challenge to take a picture in this circumstances. I think we found pretty good spots, and recent ones even gave us some water protection. But this is not the most important thing that happened this evening...
While I was on the remote island (discovered earlier) taking pictures, I've just noticed the guy getting to me through the water like chamois. He came to me and start talking about the place, pictures and just general small talk. Seemed to be a very nice guy and had very deep knowledge of the place. I asked him about upper trail, good spots and some other stuff and he answered to all my questions. Once I started to wonder if by any chance it might be Derek von Briesen (this guy is my photo guru and has best pictures of southwest I've ever seen in my life!), but I've never seen his portrait, so it was just suspicion. My friend was away from me, so I couldn't ask him for opinion. Somehow it was not easy to ask the guy directly what was his name and we finished talking. He left Havasu.
Then my friend came and ask me about the guy and his suspicions. We discussed facts and myths and decided that we are almost sure it was Derek. Decided to walk along the campground and look around. Unfortunately we didn't find the guy. What a pity!
Next day first thing in the morning we packed our tent and all the stuff and started hike up. Just before 7a.m. we got to the Havasupai Office and asked the guy for backpacks transport by helicopter. The price was 20 USD per bag, so we decided to send the stuff up and not to carry it. It was very good decision. With only light bags we reached the top in about 3h30m (from the campground) - much faster then during my autumn trip when I had all the stuff with me. Unfortunately bags came over an hour later, but finally they came and we headed to Phoenix to pick up our new lenses (Canon 100-400), but this is a different story...

Monument Valley is not the same anymore

Today our goal was to get from Moab to somewhere near Grand Canyon South Rim for a night. So we started very early in the morning, but first visited less known Corona Arch at the end of Potash Road. This is a big arch not covered by Arches NP, because of its location on the other side of road 191. It took us some time to get there from the parking lot and we found quite interesting shortcut that allowed us to avoid ladders. Unfortunately it was a bit more risky, but we got fun. Sun wasn't favorable for us and allowed us to take only few pictures before hiding behind dense clouds. So we were waiting about 30 minutes and decided to go, because time flew very quickly and we were in the hurry.
Almost the whole day we spent in the car, but stopped by for a short visit in Monument Valley. We were lucky. It wasn't a classic sunny day - I saw thunders, clouds and lightnings for the first time in my life in this place. Everything was different and thus much more interesting. We headed to Navajo park and got surprised - Indian stalls being always down the road 42 disappeared! You can't buy jewelery here anymore or we didn't find it. Whats even worse they are building the big hotel with the Monument Valley view just on the edge - it destroys the whole atmosphere that were here before. But what can you do - it's Indian's land and they do what they want.
Because it was really late, we decided to quickly make the classic loop, take some pictures and go farther, look for the lodging. Weather was getting worse, wind was carrying a lot of sand that was everywhere - it especially came to like our gear, so we had a lot of cleaning later that day. We somehow managed to take some good pictures and left the place that isn't the same anymore. I don't like the changes introduced here...
On our way to the hotel we stopped by Indian's restaurant in Tuba City - they had very good ribs. Unfortunately there wasn't any hotel available there, so we went farther to Flagstaff and found Days Inn there. We arrived very late, but they had Internet so spent some much time browsing e-mails and webpages before fell asleep.

Toroweap

It's dawn. We've just clambered out of our tent and came here - to the edge of the Canyon. This place is known as Toroweap and if you want to see a real Grand Canyon you should definitely come here. Currently Toroweap is a part of Grand Canyon National Park, but as opposed to South or North Rim, it's only for privileged people. Why it's like that? Because access to this wonderful area is very difficult. You have to cover about a 56 miles of unpaved road and last 5 miles of very bumpy and rocky road. It's recommended to have a high clearance SUV for this (although I heard of people coming here with classic cars - I don't believe this after seeing the road with my own eyes) and of course spare tire and tire repair kit is a must.
We came here from Fredonia and it took us about 2.5 hours to get to the camping that is very primitive and has only few designated places for cars and tents - it's according to the rule first come, first served, so if you come late, you could have an option to get back to Fredonia or Kanab. We were lucky and found probably the last place to camp. Just after that we've prepared a kind of dinner for both of us and later went to the edge to take some pictures of sunset at Toroweap. What we've seen there was like a dream. Water about 1 km directly below us standing on the edge of fragile rock - very captivating and unusual view! I don't think there's another place like this in the whole Grand Canyon. Actually that's why we spent about 2 hours taking pictures and what's worse we filled almost all of memory cards. Of course another 3 hours of taking pictures we spent in the morning, but dawn light is much more difficult to photograph and I don't count on having even one good shot. But we'll see - there's always hope.
I'd like to mention another interesting story about Toroweap - we've just read that since Toroweap became part of Grand Canyon National Park, 5 people fell down off the rock. It's strange because rocks seem to be quite stable and secure, but who knows?
Now it's time to leave this little paradise and head to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, then prepare for a visit in Zion National Park. See u soon...

Welcome back home!

Finally we caught flight at 5:30 as last two passengers getting on board. Even lady with confirmed reservation that came literally seconds after us, was not lucky enough to get onboard, because it was after the final call. Sometimes we've luck!
It was another 4 hours in tight cabin of Boeing aircraft, but I somehow survived and finally arrived to Phoenix half past six local time (that is Warsaw-9). And we had even more luck - Weather here turned out to be great and we got nice car, but this is another story...
I've to say again that Alamo is really a good car rental company. They just didn't have Standard SUV as we reserved (that's bad), so guy at the desk, after short negotiations, gave us nice, orange Hummer H3 (that's good)! Wow, what a car! I've never though, even in my dreams, that'll have a chance to drive such a car. During my last visit in Las Vegas got Ford Mustang and now Hummer - still can't belive that.


But our happiness and luck was short. After reaching hotel it appeared that wireless Internet is just broken and I can't publish my posts today :( What's even worse, in the neighbouring hotel Super8, WiFi had such a weak signal strength that I couldn't connect. My practice in US is to catch the signal around any hotel, but this time it failed. Now I've to wait and find some good working Internet around here - just America - technologically developed but not everywhere...On the other hand I feel here like home, so can't still grumble...