June 24 - The Narrows Hike in Zion

This was our second favorite event of the trip: The Narrows hike through the Virgin River at Zion National Park. We woke up to chillier than expected weather - mid 50s - so we put off our hike a little. We ate breakfast at the lodge -- not a great idea by the way, expensive and not very good -- and put on our special neoprene socks and canyoneering shoes and grabbed our walking sticks -- we rented all from Zion Adventure Company -- and took off for the Virgin river. The river was about 55 degrees which felt good considering by the time we got on the trail around noon the air temp was over 100 degrees. We hiked back and forth through the canyon, crossing the river in multiple places. We even went so deep that it went up to our waists (or Jacob’s chest)! We floated down the river in one area of rapids and found out that the river’s floor is very bumpy with rocks… and they hurt too! When we got back to the lodge, we ate dinner outside while the wild turkeys, deer, and prairie dogs wandered around us, oblivious to us being humans. Our “short” after-dinner hike turned out to be a long hour long hike on the Emerald Pools Trail up and down the side of the mountains around the lodge. Zion is beautiful; the entire day we were surrounded by tall red and white sandstone mountains that were liable to fall on top of us at any second.