The Narrows (Zion)

7-10-16 and 7-11-16

DAY 22-23

Obviously after a rest day comes a big hiking day, so we woke up at the crack of dawn (5:15 am) to do some final packing (everything had to be in dry bags because we were hiking in a river), eat a quick breakfast, and to catch a shuttle which would take us to the beginning of The Narrows hike at Chanmberlain Ranch. We have seen a lot of sunrises so far on this trip. The Narrows starts here at the North Fork of the Virgin River and ends at the Temple of Sinawava in Zion which is 16 miles.

The first few miles were on a dirt road that followed the river. Mama said it looked bucolic, so we learned a new word. Just before we dipped down into the river, we had a special treat of cinnamon buns (kind of a funny thing to take hiking). As we hiked down the river, the canyon walls started to get higher and higher. Hiking in a river is different than on land because you are trying to walk in water with slippery boulders and zigzag back and forth to find land to make traveling easier. I think you end up hiking about twice as far as the map says.

Let me pause for a minute to mention "poop bags." Now, when you are hiking in a canyon, you need to "carry in, carry out" including human waste. So, you use these bags that are kind of like extra strong ziplock bags in which to poop, then you zip them up and carry them with you. Luckily, there are chemicals to help with the smell.

Alright, back to hiking which seems to go on forever. We were able to track our progress by keeping track of the streams coming into the canyon, like Deep Creek, Kolob Creek, Goose Creek, Big Spring, Orderville, etc. It seemed to take a long time to get to each one. One of the landmarks was a big waterfall - we were so happy to reach it and take a power shower. James was going pretty slowly the whole way, but Maya thought of a game with "Sticky." She threw a small stick in the river and he had to keep up with it. You wouldn't believe how quickly he went after this game! My parents even had a chance to take a selfie, now that they didn't have to drag James along themselves.

Our camp site was #7 and boy were we happy when we reached it! There was a deep hole for swimming and jumping. We filtered a whole bunch of water for drinking, set up camp, and cooked spaghetti for dinner. For grace, we were thankful for "Sticky." We were beat from a long day of hiking and were in our sleeping bags by 7:30 pm, asleep by 8 pm!

An early start the next was important because we couldn't find out keys to the super van. We thought they had been left in the shuttle, but weren't sure, so we needed to get to the end of the hike to figure it out and trouble shoot the situation. It kind of stressed out Mama and Papa a bit. So, we packed up camp, ate oatmeal, and were back on the river hiking before 7:30 am.

We took bets on how long it would take us to get to each campsite (it usually took longer than we thought it would).When we got to Big Spring, the hanging gardens were beautiful. We looked for the microscopic Zion snail, but couldn't find any. The river kept getting bigger as each new creek and spring entered, so river hiking got more difficult as we got further downstream. Since the canyon walls were so high, we didn't get any real sun until almost noon. This made hiking in the river pretty cold, so Maya had on her wet suit and Mama and I used skin shirts (Maya was still cold). There were points that the water was so high that we had to carry our packs over our heads, but the river was never over our heads unless you intentionally ventured into a deeper area.

The further down river we got, the more people we started to run into who were hiking The Narrows from the other direction. At first it was just a few, but after a while it was crazy how many people were hiking up. After feeling like we were the only ones out there, this was surprising. There was a woman who was hiking the whole thing whose hiking boots had totally fallen apart, so Mama let her use her extra sandals. She was thankful and left them under our minivan just like we had planned - it was good to be able to help someone else out.

We made good time the 2nd day and arrived at the Temple of Sinawava just after 1 pm. As soon as we had cell service, Papa called the shuttle company and low and behold, they had our keys - hooray! So Mama took a bus to get there and the rest of us went to the Human History Museum in Zion for a 23 min. break in a cool building as the temperature had reached 100 degrees outside.

Mama got the keys and met us in the parking lot of the visitor's center. We couldn't wait to get back in the car for a rest, air conditioning, and the audio book. We started driving towards Yellowstone and stopped in Cedar City, UT for ice cream (Gordon is right, Utah shakes are too thick). Papa used his hotel points to get us a Holiday Inn Express in Springville, UT. The hotel was AWESOME! Back by popular demand were Hot Pockets for dinner (Maya loves them). Mama and Papa had salads that tasted out of this world. We all hit the hay to rest up for another day of non-restful vacation.