Hiking the Narrows

I already alluded to this in a previous post, but I didn't have time to post any details. So, several weeks ago Rosey and I hiked the entire length of the Zion Narrows from Chamberlain Ranch down to the Temple of Sinawava in Zion Canyon. The total trip was 16 miles, most of which was hiked in the middle of the Virgin river.

The trip was originally planned as a Birthday trip for my sister M who, like me, had attempted several times to hike the Narrows but always had plans fall through for one reason or another. Unfortunately for her, this weekend ended up being one of those times. She had recently had some surgery, and her doctor, at the last minute, disagreed with her that she was well enough to go on a hike like this. I would have just rescheduled the entire trip but all of this happened two days before we were scheduled for the trip and I already had reservations for everything.

Rosey and I took the day off on Friday and drove down to Zion. We needed to get there before 6PM in order to pick up our backcountry permit and to rent our river hiking gear. The river hiking gear consisted of neoperene socks, special boots that are meant to shed water easily, hiking sticks, fleeces, and a dry bag. Actually we could have just brought our own fleeces but it didn't occur to us how cold it was going to be in the Narrows early in the morning.

The trailhead at the top of the Narrows is an hours drive away. We made arrangements with the rental company to shuttle us up there to start the hike. Even if we had two cars with us, it's just so much more convenient to not have to worry about driving an extra 2 hours at the end of the day to go pick up your car.

Our shuttle left bright and early at 6:30 in the morning. We should have been on the trail by 7:30, but one of the groups on our shuttle was hiking in a different area of the park and we had to drop them off first. So, we didn't get started until sometime after 8AM.

The first three miles of the hike followed a dirt road that ran alongside the virgin river. At this point in the hike there was no canyon and no narrows to speak of... just a river running through a field. It was still a beautiful area though.


The walls of the canyon began to grow around us as we ventured further down the river. It was kind of neat to see the canyon forming like that.

And then, about 4 or 5 miles into the hike, really before we had even gotten int o the Narrows proper, tragedy struck. Rosey had just gotten a brand new digital camera from her Mom for her Birthday a couple of weeks earlier. As Rosey was removing the camera from it's case, it accidentally slipped out of her hand and fell to the ground.

The camera really didn't drop far enough that the impact did any damage. It actually had a pretty soft landing in some really fine sand. However, in the instant that the camera came in contact with that fine sand, the sand somehow infiltrated all of the inner working of the camera and bound them up. We could no longer even get the camera to turn on. So, we were stuck without a camera for the rest of the trip. It was a little sad to be without a camera but I was still just happy to get to do the hike after trying for so long.

I'll spare you the narrative for all sixteen miles of the hike and instead point out a couple of highlights:

• We ate lunch sitting on a log beneath a waterfall. The waterfall was only a 10-15 feet tall but there was a massive amount of water pouring over it.
  
• In the heat of the day we found a nice large boulder to jump off of into a deep pool in the river.
• There were several spots when we were able to take a short swim through some deep parts of the river. We never had to hike in water deeper than our thighs but sometimes we would jump in just to cool off.
• Rosey was pretty excited to spot some fish in the Virgin river. I'll admit that even I was impressed that the fish seemed to be doing so well in such a small and seemingly isolated river. She thought that they were some kind of trout.
  

Sixteen miles is a strenuous hike even on flat ground, but it is all the more so when you have unsturdy footing on the bottom of a rocky river bed. Although Rosey and I were beat by the time we made it back to the Temple of Sinawava, there were no serious injuries or complaints.

Some other people that we passed were not so lucky. There was one guy that we met about 3 miles from the from the end of the hike that was hobbling along because he had blown out both of his knees. I felt bad but there just wasn't much that we could do for him. He was close enough to the end of the hike that I wasn't too worried about him making it back before nightfall. Somehow, I'm guessing that guy didn't do much hiking for the next couple of days.

Rosey and I made it back to the Temple of Sinawava trailhead at about 6PM... nearly 10 hours after we had started earlier that morning. On the one hand it was kind of frustrating to have to take the park Shuttle back to our car, but on the other hand it just felt damned good to sit down :)

The few pictures that we did get before the camera puked are here.