The Narrows

We decided to hike the narrows yesterday.   It's one of the best known hikes in Zion, so one of the more popular ones on the weekends.  For us that's fine... as we have nothing else to do mid-week when it's much less crowded.  There are three options for the hike.  The first takes about eight hours and starts from the furthest north point of the main park road and hikes upstream to "big springs" then back down again.  The second takes two days and hikes 16 miles from the top with an overnight somewhere along the river, while the third hikes the 16 miles from the top in a single day.  For the last two options only 40 backcountry permits are available each day, with only 12 camp-sites available along the way.  As we made last minute decisions, no camp-sites were left so we did the one day top-to-bottom hike.  About 60-80% of the hike is in the river bed, so its a fairly long 16 miles with an expected length of 12 hours from trail head to trail head.  We got our permit, and reserved a shuttle to take us on the hour and a half drive to the top (Chamberlaind Ranch trailhead I think) the night before.  We started hiking at 8AM.  It was a bit chilly.

Athena.  Staying dry and walking slow.  Lots of over exposed photos, so I tried color correcting.  Enjoy the terribly edited photos throughout this post.

The first bit of the hike is mostly dry, with frequent river crossings.  For a while you try not to get wet, as that's what you always do when you hike.  "Keep your feet dry!"  After 5 or 10 river crossings you sort of give up.  There is something joyful about walking up to a river and just walking through it without breaking stride. 

Oh you know... just walking THROUGH THE RIVER

The further you get the more time you spend in the water.  It's not that deep in most places but the bottom is unfriendly so the going is a bit slow.  Slow but fun, as the scenery is wonderful and you get to hike in the middle of a river in the wilderness.   After a couple miles the few other people you saw at the trail head either pull ahead or drop behind, so you hike alone.  It's peaceful and nice.

We met this little guy at the first section of narrows.  No way around.  It was a north going Zax and we were a south going Zax.

The first section of 'narrows'  is a few miles into the hike.  From there you spend the rest of the time with canyon walls towers above you on both sides for the rest of the hike.  We entered the canyons fairly early in the morning, so stayed cool most of the day.

We made what little way we could for the deer.  Someone was excited.

The canyons widens at points, allowing more light and letting meadows and small stands of trees along the water.  At other places the walls block the light and create long stretches with almost nothing green growing.

A narrow!  

"look natural.  I don't want a posed picture."

More pictures of a river...

Campsite one is just to the right.  It would have been awesome to stay a night.

Lots of flowers still! Everything is still blooming. Aquilegia formosa I think, or "Crimson Columbine"

A larger creek enters the canyon eventually adding more volume to the river.  Things get a bit deeper, and more interesting.  All along the way there were little black birds that at first i thought were drinking from the river.  But it looked like they were catching water bugs in the small rapids.  They would perch on a rock next to the flowing water, dip their bills in, and then dive under completely and pop back up.

"Big Springs"

The lower narrows.  This is what you get if you hike up from the bottom.

The bottom-up hikers without permits are only permitted to hike up to big springs.  Once you pass that it begins to get much more crowded.  Eventually its like angels landing, and the beauty of the place is lost in the hoards of people.  For some reason when you put some tourists in a canyon, they have to scream just to see if it will echo.  It's like an involuntary reflex.  They just realize they are in a canyon and start yelping.  When you've got 50 or so of them doing this it gets fairly annoying.  The last three miles or so were like this.   All the wildlife disappeared and was replaced with slow moving yelpers.

We were planning on a climbing today, but our bodies hurt.  Hiking in the river is a bit tough on your ankles and knees, and walking though water for so long apparently leaves you sore everywhere the next day.  So... we went to the park's "Human History Museum",  and drove to the west side of the Mt. Carmel tunnel to make lunch.

Just making some Chili.

We've stopped just outside of the north entrance to Zion for Kolob Canyons,  where we will climb tomorrow.  I got to make lunch with a western whiptail lizard for company.  I watched him hunt for bugs as I was stirring my chili.  And we saw a bunch of big horned sheep on the way out.  So that was a fun rest day.

This master hunter kept me company while cooking. Aspidoscelis tigris I think, the "western whiptail."