The next day at Zion National Park, we got in line to the shuttle at 5:30am. There was already a large crowd there. I really wish Zion would have a more efficient transportation system within the park. On the schedule for the day was hiking the Narrows via Riverside Walk.
We walked on a scenic path, called Riverside Walk, for 1.1 miles to get to the Narrows.
The Narrows is the narrowest section of Zion Canyon. This gorge, with walls a thousand feet tall and the Virgin River sometimes just twenty to thirty feet wide, is one of the most popular areas in Zion National Park. At least 60% of the hike is spent wading through water. Since it is a there-and-back hike in the river, we decided to just walk/wade for as long as we wanted and then turn around. The water does get deeper the farther you go, but we never got to the super deep sections.
We rented water shoes and socks. The package came with walking sticks as well. The shoes were helpful, as they were completely non-slip on the rocks in the river. By the end of the day, both my walking stick and Lydia's had been stolen after we set them down for pictures or eating and people presumably found them and thought them abandoned. Luckily we didn't have to pay for them when we returned our stuff.
The water was pretty deep in sections. After wading through particularly deep parts where the gorge was narrow, the river would shallow out again for a time. The hardest part was how big the rocks were that we were stepping on to wade through. Some rocks were a few feet x a few feet, and other rocks were about 12 inches wide. The big variation made it so you had to pay attention to your feet most of the time. When we went through the deep sections, Nate carried Derek (or sometimes I did). Lydia was occasionally carried through the deep sections or sometimes just held my hand or Nate's. The deep sections of the river in the gorge were chest high on Derek.
This was our randomly decided stopping point that we took a bunch of pictures at. We had been walking about 2.5 hours by then, and needed to make the return journey as well. Luckily the temperature was quite cool in the gorge because of the shade from the narrow and high canyon walls and the river water we walked through.
Some of the sections had some rougher rapids that were harder for the kids to walk through. Nate is helping Lydia below.
The next day we were up bright and early again and arrived at the shuttle bus stop in Zion's at 5am. This time we made it onto the 2nd shuttle of the day, just after 6am, so we were pleased with our timing. While waiting in line, we ate breakfast, put on sunblock, etc. The kids had gone to bed around 6:30pm to wake up on time. It was worth adjusting our schedule for a few days to be out hiking in the morning when it is 70 degrees, instead of in the afternoon when it is 120.
That day we hiked Emerald Pool trails. That included the Upper, Middle, and Lower Emerald Pool trails.
This is the Virgin River, the same river we waded through the day before in the gorge seen further downstream from the Narrows.
Since the Western United States is in the middle of a drought and temperatures 20 degrees above average, there was not much water in the pools. In this picture, the kids are standing in the middle of the Upper Pools, but there was scant water to be found.
Below, Derek is balancing on two rocks that the kids decided looked like dinosaur eggs. Derek even told random adults that we passed later on along the trail, that they were almost at the dinosaur eggs so they had something to look forward to.
There was still a little bit of water at this waterfall over the Lower Emerald Pools.
We passed a California kingsnake on the trail. It is a non-venomous snake that eats rattlesnakes! Most only grow to be 3-4 feet long, so the one we saw was an adult.
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