The Narrows – our most anticipated hike of the 50 states! Done!

The Narrows is the narrowest section of Zion Canyon. This gorge has thousand foot high walls and a river running through it for miles. It’s like no other hike, anywhere. You can’t get out once you’re in, there’s only the one end or the other. This is the most popular area at Zion so we were eager to hike past the crowds and keep going until the crowds thinned out. There is seemingly a lot to think about: shoes, socks, supplies, weather, water temperature, flash floods, water flow (measured in cubic feet per second and reported by rangers daily) and how many miles you are willing to go. We ended up doing 2 miles up the river and 2 miles back. Plus there is a 1 mile hike just to arrive at The Narrows, so that was a total of 6 miles. The sign below shows the conditions for that day – the water was 53 degrees but because we chose to go right in the middle of the day with the sun shining down into the canyon, we were much warmer. I can’t believe they recommend starting at 6 am (for smaller crowds). We would’ve been freezing! The highest water level we walked through was upper thigh. This was just so fun!

This is the Riverwalk Trail which leads to The Narrows. It goes along next to the Virgin River. Notice lots of people coming and going.

Look at all the people! It was crazy at first, just literally wall to wall people. Many people get in just to get some pics and then they are done.

Panoramic of one area. It constantly changes and it so fascinating. Sometimes smooth water, sometimes little rapids, sometimes shallow, sometimes deep, sometimes rocks in the water, sometimes piles of sand. The panorama distorts the image a bit. The river does not curve at this point.

The river rocks make it look so cool but make it very slow walking. We also purchased walking sticks for this hike, one for each of us, and it really helped a lot with balance on the rocks and slopes.

One little waterfall near the beginning. We never saw another one.

Taking a lunch break. There were dry spots on the sides, some big, some small, which made it ever changing. Sometimes you could walk on the dry spots but sometimes it was easier to just stay in the water.

There were humongous boulders in the water at times and here the water is very still. How can it be the same river?

One of our favorite spots – it was so diverse. We had to go up and around the big rocks.

There was no way out of the canyon because the walls were so high. Hence, the reason to be very aware of the weather and any rain or flash flooding in the forecast. They told us even rain many miles away could cause flash flooding in this canyon.