Not the expected start to our hike of the Zion Narrows.We had been denied advance permits for some other places, and we wanted to be certain we got out here! As it turns out, waiting 90 minutes before the office opens that early in the season was a bit excessive. Only 3 other people showed up before 8:10, and they all wanted permits for different sections of the park. However, the forced downtime provided us the opportunity to read a few relevant sections of guidebooks together and sample our GORP.
When the office opened and we told the ranger we wanted to hike the narrows, he asked a few questions and quickly realized we didn't actually know what we were doing. He explained that the Narrows just opened for top down hiking a few days prior, the water temp was 50°F and would be chest deep in a handful of places, waist deep 30% of the time, thigh deep 50% of the time, and below knee the rest of the time. Consequently, we needed some wet- or dry-suits which could be rented down the street. We also needed a shuttle to take us to the trailhead since top-down is a one way hike.
Snowpack: the reason why the water was so cold.
Equipped with this information and our permits, and lucky to have gotten such an early start, we went to make necessary arrangements and pack our bags. At noon we were in a shuttle van with obscenely attractive drysuits accessible in our packs. At 1, we were hiking through a boggy meadow and following the Snake River as it started to carve the canyon around us.
The canyon grows around us!
We wore our regular hiking boots and had neoprene booties in them to keep our feet warm. Walking through a river for 6 miles and reading topo maps in reverse is extremely disorienting and tiring. 20 minutes before we hit our campsite, we crossed a 4 foot deep pool and I got very cold very fast. Wet, without sunshine warming me anymore, kind of out of shape...I got pretty cranky at that time. Thank goodness we had tasty chicken pesto pasta to look forward to.
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