Woke up nice and comfortable thanks to our borrowed power source. Dad and Ryan had instructions to meet us at 7am for a buffet breakfast at resort – earlier if they wanted hot showers. Ryan hasn’t had a bath in days and smelled worse than the horse stalls – they thankfully arrived early and Ryan bathed. At 7:15 we arrived at the breakfast buffet to power up for the day. It was ok – 6.5/10 but a fair price.
As we were leaving breakfast we got some bad news. Our “campsite” was not actually a campsite as some in our party suggested. The shed is a well house and it’s used by owners to fill up their million dollar fat cat RVs with fresh water and we are blocking the path with our RV. I got an email to move and a visit by a guy in a golf cart with a vacate asap order. So we unhooked from our power source and moved over 20 feet to the dry rv spot that I should have seen the first time. Guess we’re running the generator if we need AC. No time to think about that now – time to go see Zion.
The drive in to Zion was it’s own adventure. We were coming in from the east and need to drop a few thousand feet of elevation and get through two mountains to get to the visitor center. It involves a couple of tunnels and a ton of 10-20 mph switchbacks to traverse a red canyon wall. Like most drives so far, it was made more fun with the top down in the Jeep. The long tunnel should be interesting tomorrow when we have to drive through as we leave tomorrow.
We arrived at their campsite in Mathis campground around 9:45 and found out how hot the desert is. The low for last night in their campground was about 80 degrees and it was hotter than that when dad tried to go to sleep in it. Dad said as he laid there in his bed the previous night, he wondered if the air coming in was hotter than his breath going out. Ryan slept on the ground outside because it was too hot. Their site was beautiful though and probably worth the heat with climbing red canyon walls in view. When I booked the campground, I tried to get two spots but it sold out instantly 3 seconds after opening. We picked up some supplies and drove over to visitor center that was right next door. After circling the full lot for 5 minutes, we dropped everybody off and Ryan and I drove back to park at campsite and walked back.
Noelle and Jayne got information from a socially distant ranger in the park and we decided to take the shuttle to the last stop, which had the narrows. Line was fairly short and we were on with mandatory masks in about 5 minutes.
After about a 15 minute warm ride up, we arrived at the trailhead to the narrows. It was about a mile with some great canyon and river views and was fairly flat and concrete all the way up. It ends at an open area with a few benches, shoe changing rocks, and access to the river.
The Narrows was on the top of pretty much every list of things to do in Zion park (along with Angels landing that is too extreme for our group). It’s a 12 mile path where you wade through knee to ankle deep river that’s flowing between two narrow canyon walls. We changed out of our hiking shoes into water shoes. It’s a little more difficult than it looks. They suggest you have river shoes and hiking sticks. I had sandals instead of water shoes and no walking stick and was carrying the pack with waters and lunch and all hiking shoes and snacks – the slightest miscalculation would put me in the cold water. We’re planning on hiking up until we get tired, then turn around and wade back.
It was a really amazing hike. The Grand Canyon is massive, but it’s really cool to be down in the Canyon hiking in a nice cool river touching a canyon wall going up 100 get next to you. The rocks are fairly stable but it’s definitely easy to turn an ankle or stumble. Sometimes I’d forget to look up and enjoy the views because I was watching my footing.
Speaking of losing footing, Jimmy was wading through waist deep water and came upon a large hidden rock in his path and took a full body dive into the frigid water with 30 people watching. Before I even knew what happened, Noelle ran to his rescue to pull him up. Everyone around had a mixture of concern and laughter. Thankfully Jimmy was unhurt unless you count his pride.
With Jimmy now comfortably cool, we decided to stop at a high spot out of the water and have lunch. The ladies made a nice variety of sandwiches with chips and apples that we ate up, rested for a bit, then continued heading up stream. Next victim was Jayne who tried to reach for Noelle for support, slipped off, and went down.
We went past another hour or two of steep canyon walls, complete with waterfalls and excellent people watching then realized every muscle used to stabilize our lower body was aching and made the turn around while we still had strength. Picture of Ryan with X shows last point before we chickened out. The return hike went faster than the first going with the water. Before we knew it we were back at dry land and heading back to the shuttle.
On the shuttle, I half-heartedly asked the group on they wanted to do another hike. I received a resounding no, and we called it a day. We hit the gift shop up for a couple keepsakes on the way out and Ryan and I got the cars from the campsite and drove back up the mountain. We all ate at the on-site restaurant for dinner, and the girls got one more swim in at the pool. It was another great day. I have a feeling Zion will be my favorite park of the trip. Highly suggest the narrows it you’re ever here.
