Halfway down a 200-foot cliff wall, I was clinging to a ladder. The rungs and ropes were wet and slippery from the mist of Mooney Falls right next to us.
Up to that point, I’d been thinking this was a trip I’d love to bring my older kids on. On that ladder, I changed my mind. No way. Far too dangerous.
Then a second thought hit me. My own parents would be horrified to see adult me climbing down this cliff.
Eight friends, 34 miles
This was Havasupai. Four days, 34 miles of hiking, eight of us.
We flew in from New York, San Francisco, and Singapore to hike the canyon together. The core of us goes back 26 years, to our Stanford draw group — the friends you team up with to pick dorm rooms. It’s really draw group++ now. Over the years we’ve added a few folks, and they’ve stuck.
Havasupai gives you two options. You can carry everything in and camp. Or you can put your bags on a mule and sleep in the lodge.
We picked the mule and the lodge. No regrets. The point was to be together in a beautiful place for four days. It wasn’t to prove we could still carry a full pack like we did at 20. (We probably could. We’d just complain the whole time, and nobody would sign up for the next trip.)
EY’s question
At a snack break on the trail, EY asked: could we do this same trip in 10 years? What about 20?
I want to say yes. I’m not so sure.
We’re all in our mid-40s. In 10 years, we’re in our mid-50s. Probably yes, if we keep training. In 20 years, we’re in our mid-60s. Maybe. Somebody needs a new knee. Somebody’s caring for a parent. Somebody’s back says no. We don’t get to pick which one of us it is.
The odds that all eight of us can hike 34 miles in four days go down every year.
I kept thinking about that ladder. My kids aren’t ready for it. My parents would hate watching me on it. Right now, the eight of us can still climb down. That won’t always be true.
How we got ready
Staying friends for 26 years takes some work. We meet every year — some years it’s a girls’ trip, some years it’s families and kids. We have a WhatsApp group to keep up with each other’s lives between trips.
We also have a second WhatsApp group just for fitness. We started it about four years ago, when people began turning 40. You post when you work out. That’s the only rule.
It was super handy for this trip. It’s a lot harder to skip your own workout when everyone else is posting theirs. We trained together across three time zones without ever being in the same gym. By the time we got to the trailhead, everyone was ready.
Front-load the hard stuff
Most of us treat our bucket list like it has no order. We’ll get to it someday.
But some trips need your knees, your lungs, and your back. Others just need a plane ticket and a good restaurant. If you wait, the first kind gets harder. The second kind doesn’t.
So we’re doing the physical stuff first.
We’ve already booked the next one: Chicago, for some urban adventuring. Not exactly a canyon. But we made a deal — every trip from here on includes something physical.
Mostly, though, I’m grateful. For seven friends who got on planes from three cities to walk 34 miles with me. For 26 years of group chats and yearly trips that made this one easy to say yes to. And for the fact that this year, all eight of us made it down — and back out of the canyon.