We've talked about doing this for years- hiking the Narrows in Zion. The whole 16-mile hike from the top down, spending the night, backpacking, all that. But we had to get all the required gear, and get the permit 3 months in advance, and arrange to leave our kids for a couple of nights... so it took a while to make it happen. But I'm so glad we did! It was AMAZING and now we don't know what other hike we could do that would ever compare with it! The constant beauty, the challenge and novelty and adventure of hiking in a river, the solitude of our gorgeous campsite...it was as great as we imagined and heard it would be.
So it was a pretty great early-10th anniversary trip! (Since our anniversary is in the winter, we tend to go on our couples vacations in the summer instead so we can actually enjoy the outdoors!)
Here we are after driving to Hurricane and spending the night in a hotel, driving to Zion to get our permit, taking a shuttle for 1 1/2 hours to the start of the hike, shouldering our packs, and starting off!!
The first cool overhanging arch thing
when we started having to walk in the water more! The river's not very high this year, I imagine it's a lot harder of a hike when it's high!
love the red rock and green trees- it was so green down by the river, LUSH and almost jungle-like in spots!
First little narrows spot- even though the water was only ankle-deep!
So many awesome spots like this where the water had worn away the rock in wavy patterns!
more wavy rock
the walls were SO tall!
a spot where it nearly closed in overhead!
I love the vertical breaks.
and then when we were almost to our campsite, it started to rain! it got harder and harder as we rushed to get our tent up, and then it POURED for almost 2 hours, with the LOUDEST thunder we've EVER heard echoing off the giant walls surrounding us! We just rested until it finally stopped and we could go out and cook our dinner. We had wanted to find a deep spot to jump off rocks and swim, but by then it was getting dark and we just went to bed! Oh, and the river did rise because of the rain, and there were big flash floods farther down, as we discovered the next day! But we were fine that far up.
Our campsite
look mom, I'm actually eating oatmeal!
Then came the dreaded putting-back-on-of-the-wet-shoes!
And we were off for the second day of our adventure, after taking pictures of the amazing scenery on the bend in the river where our campsite was. seriously has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth.
this was one of the views, with this cool arch...
really high up there!
a cool little side canyon that dead-ended in a little spring
notice the size of the people at the bottom of the picture! these were 2 of the only people we saw most of the way down- a cute newly-wed couple we kept passing back and forth.
Big Springs
Eric emptying like a gallon of sand out of his socks- the last couple miles were really muddy because of the flash flood.
walking in the water! So fun! the deepest we had to go was chest deep.
another cool orange arch
classic narrows photo!
I love Eric. :)
you guys are SO STINKIN' CUTE!! some of these places look gorgeous!
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