The Zion Narrows

In August I went to Zion's National Park to hike "the Narrows".  My brother-in-law from Phoenix invited me to go with him, my nieces (Naomi & Erika), and some of his co-workers.  I brought along a friend, Jeff, from Ridgecrest.

Hiking the Narrows is a slot canyon hike down the Virgin River in southern Utah.  We had permits to hike the top to bottom, an 18 mile hike we planned to do in 1 day.  However, the Narrows can be extremely dangerous with flooding, and the flood warning was high for the day we were suppose to go.

So, instead, we hiked the West Rim of Zion's, which included Angel's landing.  This was a really cool hike.  A little precarious, but with the chains it was pretty easy.  It reminded me a little bit of Machu Picchu.





The plan was that Jeff and I would hike it from the bottom up, while everyone else who would fit into my car would hike it top down.  That way we wouldn't waste several hours at the end of the day to shuttle cars around.  In the middle of the hike when we passed each other, we would pass the keys off so I could drive my car back.  Problem was that we never passed each other!  In the middle of the hike there was a loop.  We agreed that we would take the north side of the loop.  That was the problem.  So Jeff and I ended up waiting for about 3 hours at the car before my brother-in-law arrived to give me my keys.  Oh well.



The next morning we decided to hike all of the Narrows that we could from the bottom up.  We got an early start and the hike was fantastic!

It was amazing to see the high canyon walls and to be forced to go through the water.  You can see why this would be a dangerous place to be during a flash flood:  there is nowhere to go!  Water depth was sometimes only ankle deep, and other times it was waist deep or more.





We took a side trip up Orderville Canyon - another slot canyon.



Looking for a route.



So much fun!





Back into the regular Narrows canyon, this was our turnaround point.



We loved that deep water trekking!



Just keep swimming!



On the way down we ran into Paul's coworkers.



Even though we didn't get to do the whole thing, the Narrows hike was still amazing!  With the change in plans, we were also able to do a really cool hike in Zion's Park that we otherwise wouldn't have done.  It was great times with great people!  What an awesome trip!