Havasupai Campground — Hotel in Four Corners States

The campground in Havasupai is surprisingly nice. The bathrooms are clean and don't smell and are surprisingly bug free. They do seem to close a lot at random times for cleaning and other reasons which was confusing. We chose a campsite almost directly across from the middle set of bathrooms and loved it. Plenty of places for all of our hammocks and tent and we were right by the river. ||||People say the squirrels are awful and they meant it. We put all of our food in plastic buckets and hung our backpacks high in the trees w/ out any food in. We went to a waterfall one day and someone in our group left some granola bars in his backpack for about 30 min and by the time we got back they were gone and his bag had a hole in. I was sitting at a table one morning reading w/ my backpack on my back (no food inside) and a squirrel climbed onto my back and tried to get into it. ||||When you get to camp, you can't leave your bag on the ground w/ food in for even 10 min or you're in trouble. When you hang it, make sure you hang it higher than 3 feet off the ground. (Also take a day pack. An absolute must. your life will be so much easier) ||||I didn't take any flip flops or sandals to wear around camp and HOLY COW i wish i had. Everyone in our group wished they had them. Your water shoes or Chaco's tear up your feet after 3 days of hiking in them wet and then dry and then wet and then dry. Even if you've broken them in, chances are they'll still hurt your feet a little. Flip flops would have been really nice to have at the campsite to slip on and give my feet a rest. ||||On the last day there, we discovered you can float the river from Havasu Falls to our campsite which was SO FUN. There is a spot or two where you have to hop out and go around some low bridges but other then that it's super fun. We hiked down 3 pool floats and ended up with about 7 so you can definitely find them down there if you look. (You won't want to float the river w/ out a tube of some kind) ||||Overall it was a blast and I was super pleased with the campground. We didn't eat anything from the fry bread stand and only saw it open about twice the entire time we were there. We sent down our food, camp stoves, plastic buckets etc on a mule and then hiked our gear down ourselves. We got to camp around 9:30 AM but our bags from the mule didn't show up until around 5:00 pm. It wasn't a huge deal but I wish we would have known because we didn't have much food with us and the food we did have had to be tied in trees because our plastic buckets were with the mules as well. ||||There is a spring down at the bottom with drinking water. The water comes out of a PVC pipe type faucet and is just always running. We never had to wait in line very long to get water. We took a collapsible water jug that could hold a few gallons to fill up and take back to camp which was GREAT. Way better than going down to fill up our water bottles each time. The water was usually pretty cool and totally clean. Never got sick or anything from it. ||||On the way out, we were told our stuff would arrive at the top around 11:30 am. We hiked out that night and when we got to the top, it wasn't there anywhere. We had to sleep at the top w/ out any tents or sleeping bags since we had stuffed those in the mule bags now that our food was gone. The next morning we were told there was an issue w/ the mules and they'd had to send our stuff up in a helicopter instead so it was down by the helipad. Again, not a huge deal but sleeping there was pretty miserable and i wish we would have known and could have checked the helipad the night before to get our stuff. (But still SO GLAD we decided to pay for a mule. Absolutely worth it) ||||The hike out really wasn't as terrible as everyone makes it sound. The first mile was a bit rough because it's uphill and in sand but after that it's pretty flat and even until the end. Everyone warns you about the switchbacks at the end which were rough but there is a straight hill BEFORE the switchbacks that's actually so much worse. It's pretty steep and just goes on forever. By the time you reach the switchbacks, they dont seem as steep in comparison until the very very end. I would definitely hike out again instead of taking a helicopter. I'm not in great shape and it really wasn't that awful. ||||We went down in mid June and the weather was GREAT. Too early for monsoons so we didn't have to worry about those but late enough in the year that it was plenty warm at night while we were sleeping in our hammocks. The first night i got a bit chilly and slept in my sleeping bag w/ a hoodie on but other then that i was fine in a T shirt and on top of my bag. I felt like it was the...

There are 2 parts of this to review: The Campground/Havasupai Indian Reservation The Beautiful Oasis

The Campground/Havasupai Indian Reservation: I cannot believe just how poorly run this place is. THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF INFORMATION: If you are injured near this reservation DO NOT HIKE OUT on your broken leg/ankle or whatever it may be. The "rangers" will try and scare you and say air rescue is $60,000. They tried to convince me to hike on my fractured leg (a 2hr hike on good feet and up a waterfall) to save the money when AIR RESCUE IS FREE due to the remote location. Send someone to the village to call the helicopter. DON'T WASTE TIME... I also use the term Rangers loosely as that's what they refer to them as - but it's really just a teenager with a walkie talkie. Now for the rest of the Indian Reservation from the animal cruelty with the mules and horses who are in brutal shape and mistreated with their fur even taken off from the sattles, to the -20/10 customer service... if you have any sort of problem with your ticket (we had multiple) or if you have any questions or need help you are pretty much completely out of luck. They don't answer the phones AT ALL. Emailing takes 2 weeks for a single reply and it's like they don't even read your email in their reply so it's completely useless. It took me over a month just to solve a glitch in their system where the seller didn't get money for the ticket, and the ticket showed on both our accounts. If you want to treat yourself and book a flight out of the village on helicopter to save a 5 hr hike out, the locals get first dibs on every seat, on every helicopter for some reason and it only holds 5 people - so you'll line up at 6am and not fly till 1pm or later on some days. They said they'd pick up my girlfriend from our camping spot with atv's, never showed up so she hiked up and was put on the bottom of the list, then when she finally got on the helicopter they forgot one of the bags and didn't care, she had to ask every flight for them to grab it when they landed - it took 7 trips before it came. For the amount you pay and how often the helicopter flies in... they can't even stock toilet paper in the outhouses, which i grew up around outhouses my whole life and those are the worst smelling ones I've ever been in. The Village in the Reservation is in brutal shape, the houses are falling apart with garbage littering everywhere, we even saw graffiti on rocks. It's just such a shame something so beautiful and magical is being given to people who do this and treat their lifeline (tourists) like garbage.

The Oasis: Once you walked past the village and removed yourself from all the very negative things - you will be in one of the prettiest things I believe to be on this planet. There are 5 different waterfalls, 4 of which you will need to do a dangerous and scary hike down a 100ft waterfall side by holding onto wet rusty chains on slippery rock. But once your down it's the most amazing hike. Crystal blue water surrounded by red rock/sand and almost neon green trees. I 110% recommend if you can do the climb down the waterfall to go on the 2hr hike to the bottom waterfall (Beaver Falls) it's a beautiful cascading pool waterfall, pack a bag with essentials, bring first aid stuff...

It is with deep regret & utter disgust that I leave a well deserved one star review for this beautiful place. I highly recommend you vacation elsewhere.

Positives - beauty of nature, the frybread stand staff, astrophotography, fresh drinking water, and reliable pack mule service. All were five star.

So why a one star review? Read on.

Hike into the area is advertised as 10 miles. We are experienced hikers and my wife's watch showed it as between 12 & 15 miles - they are accurate on known trail lengths to within a quarter mile.

Signage is poor. In the village we asked a young man which way to the campground, and he smirked, turned away, and started blasting music as he walked away from two weary middle aged hikers who paid his tribe money to be there.

In the village store, a lady dropped a penny & I picked it up for her and said "here you go, ma'am." The look of hate and lack of thank you was disgusting.

After the first night, the tribe decided to ban campfires with a severe winter storm warning in effect. The took rocks from firepits and threw them in the river, gathered all firewood - some sold days before to campers by tribal members - and detritus that could be used to build a fire and burned it.

You know when you book that campfires are at the tribe's discretion. Fine & dandy, that is their right. That being said, revoking campfire privileges for paid customers visiting with severe winter weather inbound is not an act of decency, rather one of contempt for humanity. It was despicable. Glad we were leaving just before the weather & pray for the campers staying through it.

On the way out, the tribe saw fit to charge some young ladies for pack mule services their injured companions who were helicoptered out had paid for because they were not the original names on the tags for their bags. That is unethical in all regards.

If you decide to visit, please show these people more respect than they showed us & other campers who were there in late February and give the fry bread guys some business. "Gum-yoo" is "hello" and "hang-ka" is thank you in Supai. They seemed to appreciate using it.

My wife & I both have native American blood. This is very disturbing behavior from anyone and ruins a great hiking destination. I hope others...