Memorial Day Weekend. Jerad put in for permits to hike the Narrows 3 months prior and was awarded them for Sunday/Monday hike. The hike starts at the beginning of the Virgin River and navigates downstream 18 miles, exiting the river at the Narrows site in Zion National Park. We hired a Shuttle services Red rock Adventure Shuttle that drove us out to Chamberlain Ranch to start our hike in through the canyon. The shuttle service was the way to go for sure. We started our hike in about noon and arrived at our campsite, #5, about 6 pm that evening.
I admit I was exhausted for sure. The last mile or two of our hike that 1st day was over boulders and rock. I was wearing NARS water boots, and while there was great traction they did not have a hard soul to keep my feet from feeling each rock. Shoes are important on this trip and while I am not sure I would do much different in shoes, I would consider renting the canyonairing boots from the facility outside the park as they have the traction and also the firmer soul to protect the bottom of your feet. My muscles ached for sure. I would say the weight of my dry pack backpack was about 25 pounds. I had my Marmot Ultra light tent, my Nemo sleep pad, camping pillow, jet-boil/ fuel and food items. Dry clothes to sleep and sweatshirt, and a pair of Chacos for the evening. I was wore out and was in bed by 8 pm that night for a good nights sleep so I could do it again.
I felt like I had walked across every type of boulder/rock size there is. My feet were sore, who am I kidding, my whole body was sore that night. It felt good to sleep by a river and just listen to the water flow over the rocks. Love sleeping to that sound in nature! Monday morning was slower moving for sure. We were all pretty sore. In the hike you are just crossing back and forth across the river as you go into the narrow slot canyon, working your way across big rocks and the deep parts of the river. Most places were about waist deep the first day, but I would say we crossed the river well over 200 times in the two day hike. We each had a wood staff for bracing in the river current, by the end of the day I had 3 blisters. The second day we made breakfast and packed up and were headed out to finish the hike, stilling about 10 miles to go. We had a couple of miles to get to the spring to get fresh water from our campsite. Not that we were out but knew we had to conserve till we got there. The river had a cya-no toxin growing in it so we couldn’t just get water to filter out of the river.
Second day was much more technical as the canyon got more narrow and big rocks would mean deeper parts of the water. We had to climb over, and several times had to swim with our packs on in the deep water. 2nd day I wore my wet suit for the first 6 miles as we had a lot more deeper water spots to cross and the water temp was about 40 F degrees so pretty chilly. For clothing both days I had on my water boots, a pair of neoprene socks, a pair of Zyia leggings and long sleeve sun shirt the first day and a tank top the second day because I had the wetsuit on most of the day. I will say walking so many miles in a wetsuit is not the easiest thing. It makes you sweat inside and you’re wet, but body heat is warming the water. I needed to make sure I was drinking lots of water because it was warm out temp wise in the high 80’s both days. But being in a slot canyon it didn’t get much sunlight directly due the canyon walls.
At Big Springs it changes from the permitted area to an area where for day hiking from Zion National Park to hike up the narrows so the closer we got towards the end of the hike the worse the traffic was because the people everywhere and it was waiting in line for people to move through the river crossings. I would say that the hike is very technical due to having to always be gauging and watching where you are stepping. I kept thinking how easy it would be to sprain, twist or even break an ankle it would be stepping over and on all the different rocks. It was a great trip and would hike the Narrows for sure. It was amazing there was a dad and his 8 year old son, Brent that rode the shuttle out to start the hike. We passed them quickly on the first day as they were only going to Camp site 1 which was at least a couple miles before our campsite at #5. But it was amazing to watch this little boy navigate with his dad and at the end seeing him accomplish Top down hiking the narrows. Now to load pictures, I didn’t take many the 2nd day and left that to Matt Jackson as I put my phone in the dry bag inside the dry bag backpack. I can say I was lucky that everything stayed dry on the trip and protected. I will add more photos when I get them.
