Supai is kind of a dichotomy. Or an oxymoron. The waterfalls are beautiful. The people are friendly. But the trash piles up in the campground and along the trail. The floods have scoured the campground and there aren't many flat camping spots left.

In the National Park, numbers are limited below the rim. In Supai, anything goes. Reservations are "required" but arrive without one and you are still allowed to stay. You pay twice the fee, but they don't make you hike out (note, this has since changed -- no reservation, no stay).

Group size is not limited. When we left, there was a group of 70 people hiking down. Seventy! They will spend the whole weekend just keeping track of each other. And we were thinking: 70 people swimming in Havasu Falls. 70 people climbing up, or down, the Mooney route. 70 people lined up to get water from the spring. And I know they all didn't wait in line for the bathroom: they would have, ahem, taken matters into their own hands. No matter how careful a group is, there will be 70 people's worth of microtrash, kleenex, water bottle lids, and general mini debris that is so easy to lose track of.

We hiked down on Monday. With an early start we had shade until we reached the creek. I picked up a bag of trash, and upon entering the village, a woman took it from me to put in her trash can.

Once we left the village, it was horrendously hot with sun reflecting from the white sand in the road. It was lunch hour at school, and three kids stalked us. They tugged on our packs, giggled, and ran. They jumped out at us and yelled, "boo!". One little charmer trotted along in the shade from my umbrella, very pleased with herself indeed. The Havasupai are a mischievous people when they like you. Gosh knows what they do when they don't like you.

On a Monday, the campground wasn't too crowded. My favorite spot was available. It is pretty far from the campground entrance, and I know everyone was eying closer spots. There's one. There's a nice one. There's one in the shade! But my spot was better. There were two milk cartons full of trash in the site, so I picked them up and took them back to the ranger when I went for water. There was the lady who had taken the bag from me earlier in the day! She laughed, and said, "Is all you do is go around picking up trash?" Well, pretty much, yeah.


The second day we hiked up the West Rim. I had asked in the Tourist Office for permission to do so, and was told to ask the campground rangers. The first ranger I approached said, No. I was disappointed, and she looked at me closely. "Have you been there?" she demanded. "Yes," I lied. "Will you be careful?". "Very," I said sincerely. "Okay," she decided. When we started up in the morning, I told the ranger on duty that we had permission to climb the West Rim, and he sighed. "Will you be careful?". "We won't get into trouble," I promised. I think the climb is a lot easier than Mooney: I don't know what they are worried about.

The third day we climbed down Mooney (no one told us to be careful) and hiked to Beaver. The rope climb was harder because the water was higher, and we had to wade to the climbing spot. The climb on polished Temple Butte is hard enough when your shoes are dry. And the rope is getting pretty frayed. We had about an hour to ourselves before anyone else showed up.

Day four there was supposed to be an Indian Day parade, so we walked into the village, picked up another bag of trash, and bought a cold soda, but the parade was canceled. So we hiked up Carbonate to see some fossils and played in the water. I guess they have decided to call the new falls Rock Falls. There had been some discussion as to if they should be Sinyalla Falls, or Whatohomogie Falls, or Manajaka Falls, but I guess Rock Falls won't offend anyone.

Day five we hiked out early, passed the 70 people and various other groups, and I picked up five bags of trash. About a dozen people thanked me, and one Native gal asked me if I had an extra trash bag. She had meant to bring one, but it got taken down in the helicopter before she remembered.

It would be interesting to go back in a week and see how much trash has accumulated. I think it is a minority who throws trash, but it only takes a few groups of 5 or 70 to decide that it is cool to toss their water bottles and Gatorade bottles. 99 percent of the trash was for drinks: water bottles, gatorade, pop cans, a number of beer cans, three whiskey bottles, and a six pack of hard lemonade. Considering the Supai Nation is dry, and the stuff would have to be drunk warm instead of cold, that is a lot of work to bring in some booze.