The Narrows

This last weekend Kayla (my niece) and I hiked the Narrows in Zion National Park. Yes, Jason got left behind this time to take care of Caleb. For those of you who are not familiar with the Narrows, let me describe it for you. It is a 16 mile hike through a spectacular gorge that has canyon walls up to 2000 feet high and is at times only 20-30 feet wide. At least 60 percent of the hike is spent wading in the river...and let me tell you...the rocks are slippery (I slipped and fell five times...and yes, Kayla laughed at me every time). To hike the whole 16 miles you have to get a backcountry permit so there is not very many people in the gorge until the very end. It was AWESOME! Talk about a hike though. We started hiking at 7:30 AM and didn't finish until 5:00 PM so we ended up hiking 9 1/2 hours. Let's just say that I was kind of tired.

This was actually not my first time hiking the Narrows though. I have hiked it two times before. The first time was in 2000 with my sister, Ann. We loved it so much that a few years later (in 2005), I talked Jason and a couple of our friends (Willie and Sheri) to go. If you are good with dates though, you will remember that 2005 was a flood year in Utah. Water levels were breaking records all over the state. Usually the Narrows is open in April but that year, unbeknownst to us, the Narrows opened to hikers only a week before we got there....in the middle of June. The Ranger warned us that the river was high and was moving fast (around 120 cubic feet per second (cfs)) and that we should probably not do it unless we were in tip top shape.

We ignored his warnings and decided to to it anyway (I know, I am so prideful...I thought I was tough). We started hiking at 6:30 AM. The water was so high and the current was so strong that we went pretty slow. When it got dark, we were still in the Narrows. We hiked for two hours more until 11PM and finally stopped because we were super cold and had come to a spot where we were going to have to swim. Talk about one of the most miserable nights of my life. I was five months pregnant (our friend, Sheri, was 3 months pregnant). Let's just say it was not a good situation. We survived though and ended up being less than ten minutes from the end of the trail when the sun came up (How sad is that?).

Just to give you an idea of the difference between this year's water levels and in 2005... Do you remember me telling you about that spot at the end where it was over our heads and we had to swim? Well, it was no higher than my ankles this year. Yeah, big difference. The river was also only flowing at 40 cfs instead of over a 100 cfs in 2005. In 2005, most of the time the water was waist deep and many times we had to swim because the water was over our heads. This year, it was mostly ankle to knee deep and we didn't have to swim once.

On a lighter note. Kayla made fun of me at the beginning of the day because I had to go pee as soon as we got off the shuttle. She said that I was probably going to have to go the whole way down. Yeah, she had to go seven times to my three...it was pretty comical. Also, kind of ironic....our good friends Tom and Beth decided to hike the Narrows on the same day as us. Kayla and I were on an earlier shuttle so we never saw them but I wrote a couple of messages to them and they found one! Here is a picture of Beth by my work of art.