Zion National Park

Zion National Park Highlights
Nights without a shower: 3
Bathroom Quality: Not as good as Arches, were a little older and the sink area gross, but still okay. We got spoiled at Arches.
Something new: We saw wild turkeys that were roosting (flying to the top of trees to sleep for the night). At a certain time, they all go to their trees and go to sleep. We also found out that we have more room inside our sleeping bags if we zip them together (we have those adjoining sleeping bags). I thought having a sleeping bag to yourself would give you more room.

Zion is located in the southwest corner or Utah (pretty much bordering Arizona). We got to the park and started to drive to the trail that Chris had read about. I was the navigator and felt pretty confident we were driving on the right road until we got to all these tunnels. Chris questioned were we were and I found out we had gone the wrong way. Figures. We turned around and were trying to get on the road to that trail and noticed that it wasn't open to the public - you had to take a shuttle up to all the trails. Okay - now we know that going to the visitors center is very helpful to find out all about the quirkly rules at each park. We put on our hiking clothes and off we went. We had the funniest and most helpful driver... cute older man who convinced us that The Narrows was THE trail to go to at the park. I didn't know what I was in for. We hiked to the river and found people were actually hiking on the river... as if the river water was the trail. Wow - we got hiking sticks (left by some rocks by previous hikers) that were actually broken tree limbs and we went "hiking" along a canyon. The trail that you followed was the river with water that went up to your knees at some points. By the way, the water was very cold. Chris found a deeper area of water and since we hadn't taken a shower in days, he took his shirt off and inside the "pool" he went. After letting out a yell (because the water was so cold), he had a huge satisfying smile on his face. Of course, I followed and got in to take my "bath" and it was super nice...yet so cold.

I was starting to get a little worried about half an hour into it as we were one of the only hikers going "inside" the canyon. It was around 3:30pm when we started our hike. Well, we kept on going and got to some really fun areas where the canyon was very narrow and the sun hit the rocks in a really cool way.

The actual hike was a little hard because even though you aren't climbing very steep mountains, you are hiking over rock and water current, which can be slippery and tricky. After about 2 miles, we found a couple trekking back and they said that they had gone for a while and the river didn't stop... so we decided to head back since we were getting cold and tired. We later found out that the trail doesn't really end, it's a river system that would take us north into Utah. Yikes! Glad we got out in time. That night, we had some delicious hot dogs, smores and went to bed pretty early as we would have to get up and head to the Grand Canyon the next morning.

This part was my favorite as the trail and experience was very unique.