Two years ago a co-worker told me about this amazing hike in Zion National Park. Unlike most hikes, this one seemed a bit daunting and would take a considerable amount of planning. The Zion Narrows hike is a 16 mile hike, along the base of a canyon. For about 10% of the hike, you're walking along a beautiful river. For the other 90%, you're walking IN the river. Total hiking time, even for athletic hikers, 12 hours. Ooof.
Despite all of that, we started planning. First thing was buying permits to enter the canyon. With only about a dozen permits given out every day, they are hard to come by. Online purchases of them sell out in a matter of minutes, and are done so, three months in advance. Again, far more planning than we were accustom to. But, at this point, having seen a few photos we were in. Hopeful to recruit a few additional suckers, we snatched up 6 permits. We were locked into a weekend.
Fast forward a few months, we rangled a few friends into thinking this was a good idea. Ha! Suckers! and we started getting gear together. None of us had ever hiked for longer than just a few hours, so 12 hours was a bit intimidating, to say the least. We learned about renting shoes, hiking poles, and feverishly checked the weather as the hike approached.
The weather would be by far the most dangerous element to the hike. The possibility of a flash flood is always high and with canyon walls that are at times 2,000 feet in the air, even the smallest change in weather, miles away, can take to the canyon with zero mercy for the existed hikers inside. With stretches in the canyons hours long with no high ground, we were insured by the park rangers, we would certainly die. (Insert: Reality Check). We were well versed on the signs of a potential impending flash flood, but even so, the Park Rangers did their jobs when we showed up. A&E needs to hire some of these Zion Park Rangers, the've got scared straight down... pat.
Nonetheless, we charged on. The morning of, we woke up at 4:30, and immediately checked the weather. We made a quick breakfast and checked the weather. Packed our bags (multiple weather checks) and headed for the trail head. By 6 we lost service, something we wouldn't have again for 12 hours.... a long period of time for the weather to change. If the park rangers decided it was too dangerous, they would close the gates.... but only after we would need to start our one day hike. By 6:50 we started... later than expected.
For an hour we quickly hiked with our headlamps until we reached the waters edge. As we did, the sun began to rise and with it, an unexpected surprise.... tree lining the waters edge were all changing colors. Fall was at the base of the canyon, something we never thought about when deciding to book this weekend.
We hiked the first half slower than we should have. Before we knew it we were behind schedule, despite feeling as if we were moving at a reasonably quick pace. Our biggest mistake... assuming we weren't the usual hiker... that our fitness level would certainly get us out of the canyon under 12 hours. Well, we were wrong. We were mesmerized by the scenery and I have no doubt that slowed us down.
The colors were magnificent!!
(Posting Part 2 shortly)