Zion- Day 3, Hiking The Narrows On Thanksgiving Day

Hi.  Happy Saturday, I hope you have a great day and this post provides a good read on this Saturday morning, last one of the month as we get ready for the 4th of July summer holidays.  Views and Likes would be very appreciated.

Our third day in Zion (Thanksgiving Day) was the day we had designated to go canyoneering (hiking) up the Narrows in Zion National Park.  We dragged our new (to us) tiny pop-up trailer up to the park with us and used it as a basecamp, with our teenage daughters opting to sleep in their own tent.  The day before the hike, we had gone to Zion Outfitters late in the afternoon and sized, tried on and picked up our gear.

-If you don’t know….it’s HIGHLY recommended to rent the right equipment to safely navigate the Narrows, as you have to walk through the river (flowing) and along narrow rocky and sandy shorelines to go up the canyon.  Different companies rent gear, we opted for Zion Outfitters and just got the package deal for each of us.  This consists of: Canyoneering Boots (think…traction), Neoprene socks (Insulation….your feet are going to be wet), Hiking Stick- balance and Dry Bibs (keeps most of you dry).  We saw folks trying to navigate the Narrows as we came back down without any of this gear…and they were miserable.  Plus…the later in the afternoon it is, the higher the river flow is…another reason we went early.

So, all of our gear…together by size and ready to go….with a six am wake up call.  We wanted to be on the 7am shuttle, so we got up early and stumbled around the cold trailer….getting the stove heater going and getting coffee and a cold breakfast rustled up.  The kids woke up and got into the trailer to get their gear…and we trooped down to the shuttle stop at the Visitors Center wearing our gear, ready to hike.

Ok, once the shuttle gets to it’s final stop up at the Temple of Sinawava, you troop with all of your gear down a 1.1 mile (one way) paved trail until you get to the end…where it literally ends in water and if you want to do the Narrows, you start the real hiking, through various depths of water up the slot canyon.

The Narrows

The Narrows hikes consist of two different hikes…up or down.  Most folks like us choose the up hike, which is a total distance of 10 miles roundtrip.  The down hike is a longer hike that may require a permit (certainly if you are going to camp you need one) and you can go all the way through the canyon.  Our goal on this day was to do a total of 4 miles up and down (8 miles total) to get up to the Wall Street Area.  We made it to Wall Street, turning around there.  But in truth, we probably only made the bottom portion of Wall Street, which is more like 6 miles roundtrip. 

Hiking the Narrows wasn’t much like traditional hiking that we’ve done.  But it also wasn’t what I would call traditional canyoneering either, simply because of the crowds of people and the ease of travel.  So we’ll call it a hybrid hike.  Immediately upon getting up to the end of the trail, you need to get into the water.  Yep, you can try to hug the sides of the canyon for a few hundred feet, but eventually you are going to get into the water, which is colder and in some spots deeper than you would expect.  But it was also refreshing.  Wading through slowly running water in the gear….upstream while surrounded by the massively high walls was an otherworldly experience.  It quickly turns into some tough work, especially if you have not thought through the fact you are going to get wet, cold, hot and tired…at the same time.  Travel upstream must continue at a decent pace if you are going to make miles….as the cool stuff is miles upstream…..Wall Street and the waterfall ect.  Yep, you gotta move and you gotta keep going, often following where others have gone as it’s easiest….especially the paths you will see on the small pieces of land.  There’s obvious paths where the crowds of people have gone ahead of you….follow them instead of making your own through the rock fields, trust me it’s faster and easier.

Back down we came after a brief lunch stop in Wall Street, as it was starting to get colder and we knew time was moving on.  By then, the crowds were there and lots of people were coming up the Narrows, which slows travel back down.  But we headed down, then back onto the 1.1 mile of trail to get back to the shuttle.  It was nice to get to the shuttle, settle in and know that we had achieved one of our goals…..hiking the Narrows as a family and getting all the way to Wall Street then back.  Once back at the Visitors Center, we immediately took our gear back to Zion Outfitters….which was less crowded in the afternoon.  Since it was Thanksgiving Day….we were bent on making our own dinner via either the fire or the stove (barbecue still didn’t work) so we cooked.  By now, we had two working burners on the stove and we have alot of experience cooking fairly complex meals via fire, so we spent the next couple hours cooking.  While cooking, we were able to watch the buck and doe (deer) who had settled right inside the rear area of our campground, snoozing away the lazy afternoon.  In the evening, I was able to get the Rivian on charging….making life easier for the next day.

While we were in the Narrows….the girls made you a surprise video:

Gandalf At Floating Rock

Here’s the other stories I’ve written so far about this trip:

Early Winter Camping In Zion National Park….A Primer

Zion- Day 1, Getting There

Zion- Day 2, Messing About In The Park