Girls’ Camping Trip to the Bottom of Horseshoe Bend: What We Learned

The night before our girls’ camping trip, we stood at the top of Horseshoe Bend and looked down. The Colorado River curved through the canyon far below us. Somewhere along that stretch of water, we would set up camp and sleep the following night. Seeing it from above made the adventure ahead feel both exciting and a little unreal.

By the next morning, our perspective had completely changed. We were no longer looking down at Horseshoe Bend. We were on the Colorado River with paddleboards loaded with tents, food, chairs, bedding, and everything else we needed. Four women would paddle roughly 15 miles and spend the night beneath those massive canyon walls.

We had barely unpacked when we sat down to record this episode. Our shoulders were still sore, and the trip felt fresh enough to remember every little detail. We wanted to recap the adventure, but our conversation quickly became about something bigger. Being outside had reminded both of us how different life feels when there is nowhere else to be.

We noticed how little we needed when our days became simpler. We also noticed how capable we felt when we had prepared well. Without our normal routines and constant stimulation, ordinary things started getting our attention again. The trip gave us a kind of perspective that can be hard to find in everyday life.

How a Paddleboarding Goal Became a Girls’ Camping Trip

This adventure really started last summer, when Paige decided to use the paddleboards sitting at her house. She set a goal to paddleboard ten times before her kids returned to school. Ten outings eventually became 23, and she brought 17 different people along. Many of them had never paddleboarded the river before.

By the end of that summer, paddleboarding had become something Paige genuinely loved. She and her neighbor Krystle started talking about where else they could take their boards. Horseshoe Bend kept coming up, and they discovered people paddle the Colorado River below the famous overlook. The idea quickly grew from another day on the water into an overnight adventure.

At first, Paige invited her husband, Alex, because he had years of backpacking experience. She had never strapped camping gear onto a paddleboard and relied on what she could carry overnight. Then Krystle mentioned that she thought they were planning a girls’ trip. Paige realized that was exactly what she wanted it to be.

The timing also felt different because Paige had recently completed her first backpacking trip to Havasupai. She knew more about camping gear and felt more comfortable sleeping outside. Alex graciously got kicked off the trip, and Jenna joined instead. Paige’s friend Sarah flew in from Washington, completing a group of four with Paige, Jenna, Krystle, and Sarah.

Seeing Horseshoe Bend From the Other Side

We hired Kayak the Colorado to take us and our gear upriver by boat. Our inflatable paddleboards and dry bags came with us. The boat dropped us on a beach near Glen Canyon Dam, roughly 15 river miles from our endpoint. From there, everything we needed traveled on our boards.

The first stretch of the trip took us toward Horseshoe Bend, where we planned to camp. We had stood at the overlook the night before and stared down at the water. Now we could look up at the cliffs where we had been standing. Experiencing the same place from those two perspectives made its scale feel completely different.

At one point, Paige looked across the water and saw Jenna beneath the canyon walls. Jenna looked tiny against the rock surrounding her. Paige remembers feeling incredibly small, but not in a negative way. The size of the canyon made her feel connected to something much larger than herself.

The landscape kept giving us reasons to stop as we moved downriver. We drank spring water coming directly from the rock and explored near ancient petroglyphs. We saw areas that recent storms had reshaped and eventually spotted a bighorn sheep. Someone had told us we probably wouldn’t see one, which made the sighting even better.

The paddling itself wasn’t overwhelmingly difficult, although the second day required more work. The water moved more slowly, so we couldn’t rely as much on the current. We felt those extra miles in our shoulders the next morning. Still, the physical effort never became the defining part of the experience.

The Luxury of Having Nowhere Else to Be

One of the best parts of the trip had almost nothing to do with paddleboarding. For two days, we had very little to do except move down the river and take care of ourselves. We didn’t have reservations, errands, meetings, or a schedule waiting for us. Nobody needed anything from us.

We technically had phone service in parts of the canyon, but Paige kept her phone in airplane mode. Jenna also found herself uninterested in checking hers, even though we both used our phones for photos. Without our normal responsibilities pulling at us, the rhythm of the day became surprisingly simple. We ate when we were hungry, drank when we were thirsty, and slept when we were tired.

Jenna described the experience as almost primal. There was something strange and wonderful about having so few decisions to make. Our girls’ camping trip temporarily reduced life to a handful of basic needs. Once those needs were met, we could simply enjoy where we were.

That didn’t send either of us home swearing off hotels, restaurants, or comfortable beds. We love those things and plan to keep enjoying them. What felt special was experiencing the opposite for a little while. Life became simpler because we had temporarily removed so much of what normally fills it.

What We Heard When Nothing Else Was Playing

Paige used to bring a Bluetooth speaker whenever she went paddleboarding. On one trip, she and Krystle went without it and noticed how peaceful the river felt. That experience made Paige intentionally leave the speaker behind for Horseshoe Bend. She wanted to see what happened when nothing filled the quiet.

Without music playing, we talked when our boards drifted close together. When we floated farther apart, we simply paddled and looked around. Paige found herself staring into the water and noticing shapes along the shore. Her mind had room to wander without a podcast, playlist, or another voice directing her attention.

Jenna noticed the same thing after we reached camp. At night, she could hear owls in the distance, crickets nearby, running water, and the fire crackling. The canyon wasn’t silent at all. We could finally hear the sounds that constant stimulation often covers.

Neither of us started the girls’ camping trip with a goal of having some profound digital detox. We weren’t trying to prove anything by putting our phones away. We simply noticed that removing some of our normal stimulation changed the way we experienced our surroundings. There was more room to notice where we actually were.

Preparing for the Part We Couldn’t Control

If anything made us anxious before the trip, it was the weather. Rain had appeared in the forecast, and recent flooding elsewhere in the Grand Canyon had gotten our attention. Neither of us wanted to be careless about weather in a canyon. At the same time, we didn’t fully understand the conditions along this particular stretch of river until we arrived.

Our backhaul guides gave us more context and checked on us during the trip. We still watched the sky closely, especially when thunder started getting louder during lunch. Rather than stay where we were, we decided to keep moving toward camp. We wanted our tent set up before heavier rain arrived.

In the end, the anticipation caused more stress than the actual weather. We got some light rain after setting up camp and even hiked around in it. By the next morning, we had blue skies again. The situation gave us another reminder of how much preparation can change an experience.

That led us into a larger conversation about being women outdoors. Jenna shared that the wilderness can make her nervous, especially when she thinks about weather or being far from help. For her, preparation creates confidence. Knowing the route, understanding the gear, and thinking through possible problems changes how she feels before an adventure.

Paige felt relatively comfortable because she already had experience paddleboarding rivers. She had also gone through the gear with Alex beforehand. We carried enough food, ways to filter water, safety equipment, and options for contacting someone. We knew things could still go wrong, but we trusted the preparation we had done.

Confidence Didn’t Appear Overnight

Neither of us became comfortable with outdoor adventures all at once. Looking back, we could see how previous experiences slowly changed what felt possible. Each trip gave us another piece of evidence about what we could handle. By the time we reached Horseshoe Bend, we weren’t starting from scratch.

For Jenna, hiking the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim became one of those experiences. She originally planned to hike with friends, but circumstances changed. She ended up completing much of the hike on her own. Starting in the dark around 3 a.m. felt both scary and exhilarating.

Not long after Jenna started, another woman appeared on the trail. She was in her 60s and had hiked through the night from the opposite side. Seeing her shifted something for Jenna. She remembers thinking, “I can do this.”

That hike became evidence Jenna could carry into future adventures. She knew she could prepare, make decisions, and handle herself when plans changed. When this girls’ camping trip came around, she already had that experience behind her. The confidence came from remembering something she had actually done.

Paige had experienced something similar on her first backpacking trip to Havasupai. She had never carried everything she needed into a canyon before. The hike challenged her physically, especially on the way back out. But the difficulty wasn’t what stayed with her most.

She remembered the bright blue water, waterfalls, river crossings, ladders, chains, and feeling of adventure. Instead of coming home determined never to do it again, she wanted to return. She also wanted to bring people she loved with her. The experience changed what she believed she could handle outdoors.

The Point Wasn’t to Be Uncomfortable

It would be easy to turn this story into a lesson about choosing discomfort. We could say hard things make us stronger or everyone needs to leave their comfort zone. But that isn’t really what either of us said during the conversation. Paige was especially clear that she doesn’t enjoy discomfort simply for the sake of it.

Sleeping on the ground wasn’t what made Paige want to take this trip. She wanted the experience that existed on the other side of that inconvenience. She wanted to paddle through an extraordinary place and see Horseshoe Bend from below. She wanted to finish and know that she had done it.

Jenna saw the discomfort a little differently. For her, its value came from the contrast it created. Everyday life contains so many comforts that we barely notice most of them. Hot showers, soft beds, easy meals, and climate-controlled rooms quickly become normal.

After spending the night outside, those ordinary things felt different. We came home exhausted, took showers, and climbed into our beds. Everyone slept hard that night. The trip hadn’t convinced us that comfort was bad; it made us notice how much comfort surrounded us every day.

Remembering How Little We Actually Need

That contrast became one of the biggest themes of our conversation after the trip. For two days, there simply wasn’t much to manage. We needed food, water, shelter, and enough energy to keep moving downriver. Once we had those things, the rest of our attention could go toward the experience itself.

Nature provided most of our entertainment. We watched the canyon walls change as we paddled and looked for wildlife along the shore. We stopped when something caught our attention and talked when our boards floated together. At camp, we didn’t feel pressure to fill every minute with another activity.

Jenna kept coming back to how little we needed to feel happy and safe. Carrying only what we needed made “enough” feel much easier to recognize. It also made everything waiting at home feel abundant. That contrast stayed with her after the trip ended.

Paige kept thinking about how present she felt without constant stimulation. There was space to look around, think, talk, or simply paddle quietly. She didn’t need to turn the experience into a productivity exercise. She just noticed how different her mind felt when less competed for her attention.

Our girls’ camping trip didn’t leave us with a universal lesson about how everyone should live. It gave each of us a break from routines that normally feel invisible. In that break, we noticed simplicity, capability, quiet, and the comforts we often overlook.

Getting outside changed our perspective for a couple of days, and some of that perspective followed us home.

We also came home wanting another adventure. That may be one of the clearest patterns we’ve noticed in ourselves. When an experience challenges us and gives us something beautiful in return, we rarely want it to end there. We start thinking about where we could go next and who we would love to bring with us.

Rays of Sunshine

We ended the conversation with our rays of sunshine from the week. For Paige, it was the music video we filmed throughout the trip, singing the same song in different spots along the river. It was silly and joyful, and part of the fun was letting go of caring what anyone around us thought. By the end, even one of the other campers was humming the song.

Jenna’s ray of sunshine happened just before the trip, when she had a Reiki and energy healing session with Melissa Seil-Butler. Jenna had been noticing an almost headache-like feeling around her third-eye area when she meditated, and even though she didn’t tell Melissa about this until afterwards, during the session Melissa identified and cleared energy in that same area. Since then, Jenna has felt more spaciousness when she meditates and described the experience as leaving her feeling lighter and happier. Listen to our full conversation with Melissa about Reiki, sound healing, meditation, and energy here.

Listen to the full episode: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube*

*We recommend watching on YouTube because you can watch footage from our trip!

Other References/Links:

• Kayak the Colorado
• Paige and Alex’s Backpacking Havasupai Vlog
• Luxefly Basecamp