Virgin Narrows report

“we found out with 1 days notice that our good friend Ben would be
coming out from Florida (stationed there with the Marines) for 2
weeks. Ben had been pining to hike the Virgin Narrows again - his
favorite hike, and the last time he'd done it had been 5 years ago,
which was also the first and last time Dan & i had hiked it. the
hike had kicked my butt 5 years ago, but i was crazy enough to try it
again. after some last minute trip dropouts by folks who were
supposed to go with us, we ended up with a party of 4. Me, Dan, Ben,
and Dan's co-worker Guy. for those of you unfamiliar with The
Narrows, it's 16 miles of the Virgin River surrounded by sheer canyon
walls that are sometimes less than 20 feet across from each other.
it's a scenic wonder, although it can get a little claustrophobic.

Thursday night i dropped the baby off with my sister, and Ben and i
drove all night to Zion NP to get the permits. due to a wrong turn
and Zion's recent relocation of the permit office, we made it to the
permit window at 6:32, 2 minutes after it opened. due to the danger
of flash flooding, permits are not given out until 1 day before
hiking, so that the rangers can check the weather reports and make
sure the weather is clear. we were very far back in line and
despaired of getting a permit. finally got to the window and
amazingly there were only 2 parties before us for The Narrows on
saturday night. only 12 groups are allowed per night, so we got our
permit for 4 in campsite 11 - we would have danced, but we were very
tired. the ranger gave me 4 shiny aluminized "poo bags." yup, ya
gotta pack that out of The Narrows. the poo bags were to become one
of the weekend's most frequent jokes.

Ben and i spent most of Friday napping, getting last-minute
groceries, and trying to find someplace to camp that didn't cost $18
or more. a really cool guy in a climbing shop told us that there was
some BLM land out along highway 9 where we could camp for free. we
like free! we went back inot the park and took the shuttle to the
Temple of Sinawava, then took the Riverside Walk trail down to the
Virgin River. we napped on the sand and decided we were too tired to
try Angel's Landing. maybe next time.

Friday night we karaoke'd in Springdale (i should never be allowed to
do that again, but i probably will), then searched for our free
campsite. the first area was swarming with mosquitoes that gave me
silver-dollar-sized welts (we found out later it's called Mosquito
Cove), so we relocated over to Coal Pits Wash, which was hapily
mosquito-free. we taped a glow-stick in the window of the car and
left it parked out on the highway, so Dan & Guy would be able to find
our campsite. we bedded down 10 feet from the National Park border
and watched the stars come out. Dan & Guy showed up when the Milky
Way was almost dead center in the sky, probably 2 or 3 am.

saturday morning we packed everything into Ziplocs and garbage bags,
ditched car #1 in town and started the long drive up to Chamberlain's
Ranch, the trailhead for The Narrows. along the way, the guys
insisted we had to stop at a restroom so they could make their first
attempts at not having to use The Poo Bags. when we got to the
trailhead another group was just leaving, with about 8 adults and one
little girl who looked 9 or 10 years old. we finally got on the
trail at 10:15 Utah time.

the first couple of miles are along a jeep road, meandering through
private property made up of green meadows, irrigation ditches, and
lazy cows watching from the shade. the walls along the valley slowly
rise higher and higher. we passed the group ahead of us taking a
break at Bullock's Cabin, an old settler's log cabin that was in much
worse condition than the last time we saw it. the roof has begun to
collapse in the middle and one end sticks out at a 45 degree angle.
some one had placed a log under the center beam of the house. the
interior of the cabin is just as nasty as i remember - rotting old
mattresses and broken bottles. behind the cabin, countless shy
hikers had, uh, "marked their territory." yuck. the other group
told us they were headed for site 12, so we knew we'd be leapfrogging
each other all day.

we pressed along. the trail kept splitting, some following the river
and some leading up and over the canyon walls that kept slowly rising
higher and higher. we lost Ben for a while, but soon found him
sitting on a log where we all had snacks. i recognized it as the
same snack stop we had made 5 years ago - i vividly remember sitting
there and changing the bandages on my feet (i used to have TERRIBLE
boots).

all of a sudden, the walls got dramatically higher. we began passing
tributary canyons, all of which were dry. 2 of them looked promising
enough that we dropped our packs and scrambled up them to see what we
could see. one was gorgeous, a true sandstone slot canyon with
winding, undulating walls that pressed so close together no direct
light could penetrate. another one was cut in dark stone, the walls
went straight up and even in full sunlight it looked forbidding. Ben
scaled a section that i couldn't, and came back to report that it
ended in a rotunda that probably has a spectacular waterfall when the
canyon is flooding.

back in the Virgin, the trail kept getting increasingly scarce and we
spent more and more time in the water. i wore my Chaco Sandlas and
Guy had a pair of amphibious shoes, but Dan & Ben wore socks &
boots. Ben had insisted that i not wear my sandals, so i struck a
compromise and tied my boots on the outside of my backpack. i never
ended up using them, and threatened to make Ben eat them.

the rock walls along the river are amazing. some undulate smoothly,
some are scoured roughly. one side can be sandstone stained red with
rusting iron deposits, while the opposite side is somehow almost
black. some of the red stains are so pronounce it almost looks as if
vandals had poured red paint down the wall. the bottoms of the walls
are all stained a creamy white from the river water. the river was
much lower this year, probably 2 feet lower than the last time we
came through.

we stopped for lunch and were passed by 2 hikers we hadn't seen
before. Dan's filter temporarily stopped working, but he was able to
get it flowing again.

after passing through some of the narrowest sections, we began to pas
the campsites. 5 years ago, we had stayed in Site 1, which had meant
6 or so miles on the first day, and 10+ miles of hiking on the second
day. this time, we had site 11, which meant almost the opposite - 10
miles on the first day, around 6 on the second.

past Site 1, we came to the waterfall. 5 years ago, we had spent
hours jumping off the top of this fall, but this year the water at
the bottom was only waist high. wow. so we reluctantly pressed on,
hoping to find a decent spot for jumping in somewhere along the way.

none of the tributaries had been flowing, until we got to Deep
Creek. i went a very short way up Deep, and saw deer tracks - the
only non-human tracks i saw all weekend.

we began passing more people on the trail, and finding people already
set up in their campsites. the hikers who had passed us at lunch
were in Site 6. Ben had really wanted site 8, "the grotto," but it
appeared to have been taken by a Scouting group. he gazed at it
longingly as we passed by. site 10 was occupied by two twenty-
someting young ladies, and then we were at our site. good thing,
too, as evening was beginning. we ate dinner (don't know why i
bother with freeze-dried crap), filtered water, rolled out our pads &
bags and went to sleep. i had brought a tarp, just in case we got
any rain, but the flood forecast was "Low" so i didn't even get it
out.

in the morning we got up and out pretty early. the guys saw the
group in site 12, making their morning coffee, but i didn't see them
at all. we got to Goose Creek, whose canyon looked promising, but
which also had a big, deep, stagnant pool that none of us wanted to
muck through. the soil had begun to change at this point, and the
river mud was black, covered by a thin layer of sand, and smelled
strongly of sulphur in some areas. we had also begun passing a lot
of seeps, where water is just oozing out from the base of the rocks
and flowing in tiny streamlets to join the river.

just past Goose is Big Springs, a lush patch of tropical scenery at
the bottom of a desert gorge. this is where the low water level
really struck home. 5 years ago, i had tried to swim across to big
Springs and just couldn't make it, the current had been so strong.
this year, i walked right over to it. i know we're in a drought, but
this was an amazing, concrete example of it.

past Big Springs is the real Narrows, where for 2 miles there is no
high ground and no place to escape if a flash flood should come
through. if a flood hits while you're in The Narrows, you wedge
yourself into a crack and pray. i hear that at least 1 person dies
in there every year, but it's always someone who ignored the flood
warnings and went in when they shouldn't have.

it was still morning, and the sunlight was visible only at the very
top of the gorge. the river was cold and it took a while for our
legs to get used to it. there were occasionally banks of rock piled
up agains the walls, but for the most part it was a lot of river
walking. the scenery was incredible, indescribable. every turn made
me gasp and take a picture. we'd be in this deep, dark chasm and up
ahead the river would turn and the sunlight would blaze through,
giving us a glimpse of glowing, nuclear orange sandstone through the
dark walls we were between. we'd pass seeps with ferns and flowers
growing out of them, beautiful hanging gardens over our heads.

we met our first day-hikers, coming upriver, at Orderville Canyon.
we went a little ways up Orderville, which had some pretty weeping
walls and a few small waterfalls. after Orderville, the day hikers
got thicker and thicker. every once in a while, people would stop
us and ask us questions. "what's up there?" "how far did you go
up?" we finally found a rock for jumping off of. we all jumped 2 or
3 times, and the water was COLD. we'd come out hollering and made
quite a spectacle of ourselves, but it was fun. we'd been waiting
for a jumping spot the whole trip.

we passed the waterfall at Mystery Canyon (a good 50 to 60 feet up,
too high for an easy exploration) and then before we knew it we were
at the Riverside Walk trail. what? it was over? and i wasn't even
tired! i took off my sandals (they had unfortunately rubbed me raw
in a couple of spots) and trotted out to the shuttle. Dan & Guy
drove to pick up the other car, and 3 hours later we were all on the
highway home.”

“Holy On Topic Batman!!!
Another Trip Report!!!!

But please lose the formating next time. ;)”

“yeah, who knew anybody here backpacked? ;) sorry if the format bugs ya, i typed it elsewhere and did the ol' cut & paste.

you'd be proud of me, SS - except for those %$#@& boots i carried, i doubt my gear was over 10 pounds. felt great the whole time!”

“I soooooooooooooooo want to do that hike...where are the pics???”

“my pictures aren't developed yet, but if you want to sign into Ofoto you can see Guy's pics. they're unfortunately a bit out of order & have no captions. i'll try to get my pics up within a week or so.

Guy's pictures"”

“thanks for the photos...I now have gotten my slot canyon fix...I wish I was gonna go slotten this year...but, it don't look like it...boo hoo.”

“awesome report, sounds like a killer place!



we're gonna have to come up with a better name than "poo bags" though....”