Havasu Canyon and the village of Supai

SUPAI, Ariz. — Have a recipe for a Southwest Eden? If not, we offer this one:

Imagine a tucked-away red-rock pocket without paved roads (let alone automobiles), where the hustle and bustle of modern life is almost nonexistent.

Add a remarkable, year-round, spring-fed stream of blue-green water that plunges off spectacular waterfalls, complete with picturesque, travertine-sculpted pools.

Mix in trees and plants not always found in such a desert locale, and include American Indians who have called this once-hidden chasm home for centuries.

There. You now have a barely adequate description of northern Arizona's beautiful Havasu Canyon and the village of Supai — perhaps the most remote town in the lower 48 states.

It is, as National Geographic once phrased it, the "Shangri-La of the Grand Canyon," of which Havasu is a tributary cleft.

"Even today many visitors to the Southwest learn with surprise of this community of Native Americans living within the Grand Canyon," Stephen Hirst wrote in an enlightening book about the tiny tribe, today about 500 people occupying an equal number of acres. "The people call themselves havsuw 'baaja — the Blue Creek people — and so number themselves among the few Native Americans who the Europeans call by anything close to their own name for themselves." They are the Havasupai — the final syllable meaning "people."

Of course, there is a catch to this scenic paradise. There are only three ways into the area:

By hiking.

By horseback.

By helicopter.

'Best swimming hole'

Supai itself is, as the raven flies, about 35 miles southwest of the South Rim's Grand Canyon Village. But getting there is really a bit of a challenge, as our group of nine — ages 8 to 58 — found on a spring trek.

For instance, after getting to Hualapai Hilltop — road's end, which is itself 60 miles from old Route 66 — the hike to Supai is an eight-mile trek down a cliff and through a sand- and gravel-bottomed wash. Then it's another two or so miles, one way, to the waterfalls — Navajo, Havasu and Mooney — just below the village on Havasu Creek.

Plus, to be one of the 25,000 outlanders who visit each year, you have to have an advance reservation to visit what Life Magazine once called "the best swimming hole in the nation."