In late April 2024, we spent two great nights at Havasupai Gardens campground in the Grand Canyon and enjoyed perfect weather. We started down the Bright Angel Trail at 6:30 AM on Tuesday as we knew it was going to get hot as the day progressed. The unrelenting down did a number on Sue’s quads and she was in bad shape when we got to the Three Mile Resthouse, so I carried her pack on my front for the final stretch to camp. We arrived in camp around 11:30, picked a site that had some shade, set up camp and then relaxed the rest of the day.

It’s hard to sleep in when camping down in the canyon, as everyone starts packing up before it is light out in order to get an early start. So even though we had a layover day, we were up around 5:30 AM. We decided to move to the shadiest campsite when it was vacated by another group, and then I wandered off for an early morning hike on the Tonto Platform. I headed west past the closed Plateau Point Trail and then ventured off trail to find another place to look down on the Colorado River. I was rewarded with lots of prickly pears in bloom and a lovely vantage point to sit and contemplate the river. When I got back to camp, Sue and I headed down the Bright Angel Trail for not quite a mile and found a great spot to hang out in the shade in the Tapeats Gorge and have our morning snack. By the time we returned to camp, it was registering 90 degrees in the direct sun, so we were very happy to have so much shade at our campsite.

We got up just after 4 AM the final morning, packed up, and were on the trail by 5:40. The sun didn’t hit the trail until we were half way up and even after that we were thankful for a front that was coming through, as there was a nice breeze and several big clouds that kept the trail cooler. We arrived back at the South Rim at 10:30 and were back to our camper before it started raining (and snowing a little) around noon.