Through the Narrows

Alright, we made it.  You are now officially at the day when I stopped wimping out and hiked the Narrows.  This actually ended up being my favorite, I think, of all of our hikes.  It was just ridiculously fun and beautiful.

[ALSO, more important sidenote: WE FINALLY HAVE INTERNET so the rest of these updates will all be done today so we can all be on the same page]

So the cool thing about Zion National Park is that they only let cars drive on two roads through the park and then the rest - and majority - of the park is only accessible through park-run shuttle buses that stop at every main trail head and landmark.  Jimmy found out on our first night that the first bus left the Visitor Center at 6:45 in the morning so we made a point of being on THAT bus to get to the Narrows.  Mostly to ensure that no one would be ahead of us, there would be no crowds and we would only be hiking with like-minded people. 

I'm not really sure how else to describe the Narrows other than how I had already explained it... just a bit less dramatic.  It really is just a hike through a river.  In the biggest slot canyon in the USA. To get to the Narrows we walked about a mile and a half up a paved trail that winds its way along the river.  At some point, the trail just sort of stops (probably because it's blocked by a huge wall of the canyon) and there is this small set of three steps that leads you down to the riverbank.  We closed everything in our backpacks up in plastic bags tied shut and each picked out a walking stick (people leave them leaving up against the wall for future hikers... they're highly recommended for this sort of hike) and started wading in.  At first the water is maybe about shin-deep at most but it's a good introduction to how fast the river is moving and how to walk along the riverbed, which is entirely rocks of various sizes.  Then, within less than 5 minutes of walking up-river, the riverbed drops out and you're suddenly chest-deep in water. 

making our way to the river

jimmy going in deep

I had to pack up my camera after taking that picture because seeing that the water was chest-deep on Jimmy meant that it was going to be even higher on me.  The good news is, that was really the only part of the river that was that deep.  Everything else ranged from trails along the river and then knee-deep to waist-deep in the river.  We hiked into the canyon for about 4 hours before we finally came back.  I'm just going to share the rest of the pictures with you because I can't begin to describe how amazing it was.  Early morning is DEFINITELY the time of day to do the Narrows - the lighting is soft and perfect and each time the sun gets a little bit higher, a little bit more light sneaks down the canyon walls. 

sunlight behind us at the trailhead

jimmy crossing the river.... just to cross the river

look at how clear that water is

a friend we made along the hike - ben moody

logs caught between rocks from the last flood- they were blocking the majority of the river

a little bit tired and a little bit soaked, all around a lotta bit of having fun

red walls

this section of the wall reminded me of cathedral walls for some reason

this is why they're called the Narrows

one of my favorite pictures of the walls

sunlight

just walking into sunlight

I know, I'm sorry. That's a lot of pictures.  Actually, I'm not that sorry... because I have about 90 more where those came from.  And this way you now have a much better idea of what the Narrows are like - as opposed to me, just a couple days before I took all of these pictures. 

By the time we turned around - sometime in the early afternoon - and as we made our way back closer to the entrance, there were huge crowds making their way up river.  It was a zoo.  Just too many people in ridiculous clothing (flipflops, bathing suits, jeans)... we even saw a girl with an ipod. Yes, that's another ipod, if you've been keeping count. All in all, the only time to really hike the Narrows is definitely ridiculously early in the morning.  We returned to camp and just spent the afternoon relaxing and reading in the shade.  And Jimmy built us a little cooler using the stream next to our campsite for some "refreshments" we had bought the night before...

Next up: the final leg to California.