Rich Beckman

Havasupai Falls, Havasupai Canyon, Grand Canyon, AZ. I first learned of Havasupai Falls as a teenager reading National Geographic. I read it religiously during the years my parents bothered to subscribe. I don’t know why they did as my father was the least likely person to do anything or go anywhere featured in the magazine and my mother was busy raising me and my three brothers, although I did learn much later in life that she fantasized about being in all those places (and we did take her to some).

It was an article in March 1970 by senior writer Jay Johnston with photographs by Terry Eiler, who would later direct the photojournalism program at Ohio University. I spent a year at Ohio University, mostly studying environmental law, ethology and other such topics under the guise of getting a Ph.D. in Mass Communication. I didn’t know Terry well, but I do remember he was not satisfied with my answer for the comprehensive exam question he wrote and that he wanted me to write an additional essay before he would give me a passing grade. I never did, as a Ph.D. became irrelevant when I returned to UNC-CH as a tenured associate professor on a newly approved professional tenure track.

It was fifty-five years later before I visited the falls. I’d applied unsuccessfully for a permit numerous times, even before I moved to Arizona. It’s now a place filled with tourists who are not allowed to take photographs in the village, of its residents, or of the horse, mules and cowboys who transport almost everything from the canyon rim to the village and its guests in the small lodge or the large campground. It is an eight mile hike to the lodge and ten miles to the campground and the permit is good for three nights. I suppose if we both had gotten permits, we could have managed to stay longer. I remember that Johnston rode a horse into the canyon, but Cynny and I had to hike. It is only difficult on the way out as it’s a never ending series of steep switchbacks along the 2,400 foot climb.