The Narrows

November, however, is a different story. The water temperature hovers not far above freezing, cold enough to numb unprotected limbs in a matter of minutes. Undeterred, intrepid explorers such as ourselves rent waterproof pants and shoes and Neoprene socks to protect against the frigid water. Armed with sturdy walking sticks to help us keep our footing despite slick rocks and swift currents, we plunged into the heart of Zion.

This was our first river hike, and it’s a fun but tricky skill to acquire. It takes some trust to splash fully clothed into the knee-deep, icy cold river. The water rushes into your socks and momentarily chills your toes, but this is normal. Soon, your body heat warms that water and keeps your feet even more comfortable than if they were dry. Meanwhile, a rubber gasket around your ankle prevents any water from rushing up your pants legs and freezing the rest of your body. Instead, you feel a strange sucking sensation on your legs as the Gore-Tex material forms a water-tight seal against your skin.

Using your thick, shoulder-height pole for balance, you can walk relatively comfortably even through the more shallow rapids. The trick is to realize that you have three points of contact with the riverbed: two feet and the tip of your walking stick. As long as two of these are secured at any given time, the going won’t be too difficult.

If you can see the bottom of the river, then stepping there is safe. Beyond that, your stick is also useful for probing the depths of the murky, dark green sections where you can’t see the bottom. We were wearing only waterproof pants, so water that came up over our waists would be a disaster. Fortunately, the low water level meant that we could traverse the entire 16-mile length of The Narrows, if we wanted, without ever wading deeper than our thights. If we could remain on our feet, that is.

Generally, the river was shallower near either wall of the canyon, but when it did start to get deep on the side where you’d been walking, the only option was to cut horizontally across the deepest water and strongest current at the center of the river in order to reach the opposite shallows. Sometimes, particularly because of the low water level, we were able to walk across dry ground or very shallow sandbars.

Even during the hottest part of the afternoon, the bottom of The Narrows receives very little direct sunlight. The light does reflect magnificently off of the amber walls that tower overhead, however, making for some brilliant colors and an awe-inspiring atmosphere. You quickly become accustomed to the cliffs that soar hundreds of feet directly above you, because at a sharp angle you can’t really appreciate their scale anyway, but sometimes you see another hiker in the distance and realize just how tiny he, and therefore you, are in relation to the massive canyon walls.

Just as in the rest of the canyon, there are occasional crags, waterfalls, caves, and even side canyons hidden along the way. It’s a real challenge to pay attention to your footing with so much fascinating scenery constantly seducing your gaze.

The best place to pause and take it all in is on one of the larger ‘islands’ where heaps of sand and stone rise well above water level. The highest of these sustain shrubs, grasses, and sometimes even deciduous trees. In November, the leaves of these trees have all turned yellow, orange, and pink, falling from their branches and blanketing the land around them in a pastel carpet. When illuminated by the soft light filtering in from the crack of sky far above, these islands adopt a heavenly glow, and I feel like Odysseus venturing into the Elysian fields (look it up, cretin).

November is generally a dead month in Zion, but Thanksgiving weekend is a tremendous exception. We waited in a line of cars 100-deep to get into the park and had to improvise a parking spot in the overcrowded lot near a rock formation called the Temple of Sinawava.

It’s a different story in The Narrows, however, and we encounter only about twenty other hikers during our four hour tour. These range from grizzled veterans carrying packs large enough for multi-day hikes and ropes for thorough exploration of side canyons to other novices like ourselves wielding red-tassled walking sticks that mark them as renters from the same company that outfitted Emily and me.

We even encounter one particularly fool-hardy couple carrying no walking stick and wearing only sandles with jeens rolled up to their knees. “Can you still feel your toes?” Emily asks them.

“Barely,” replies the woman, who seems much less excited about this trek than her partner. When they are out of earshot, we joke about how we will manage to carry their hypothermic bodies out of the canyon.

Unfortunately, we got kind of a late start on the day and have to turn back well before we would have preferred to avoid being caught in The Narrows after sunset, when the temperature plummets and the canyon is pitch black. Still, it was a great hike, one of the most interesting and beautiful we’ve done and also unique in its challenges.

The only bad news is that we forgot the replacement battery for Emily’s camera and were left with only a cheap disposable that was no match for the majestic canyon. Those also haven’t been developed yet, so unlike the pictures from my previous posts, the ones on here all come courtesy of PDPhoto.