2005-07-02 Dam Tour 2005-07-03 Cedar Breaks and Bryce Canyon 2005-07-04 Red Canyon and Grand Canyon 2005-07-05 North Kaibab Trail 2005-07-06 Virgin River Narrows 2005-07-07 Zion Canyon and Gooseberry Mesa 2005-07-08 Water Canyon 2005-07-09 Red Rock Canyon

Day 5 (Wednesday, 7/6/2005)

On Wednesday morning, we retraced our journey back across the Kaibab Plateau and the Marble Platform, up through Fredonia and Kanab to the Mt. Carmel Junction, where we headed west this time toward the base of the White Cliffs and Zion National Park.  We arrived at the park's eastern entrance around 11 AM local time (back on Daylight Savings again) and proceeded up Route 9 toward the Visitor's Center at the southern and opposite end of the park.  From Zion's eastern entrance, Route 9 passes through the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel, a narrow one-mile Depression-era tunnel that is unique in that it is self-ventilating.  The builders carved small windows into the mountainside every 1/4 mile or so, and these windows afford a breathtaking view of the East Temple, the Twin Brothers, and The Great Arch to the north.  The tunnel then spits you out onto a series of sharp switchbacks that lead down to Canyon Junction, the intersection with the Floor of the Valley Road leading up canyon and the continuation of Route 9 down canyon to the Visitor's Center and Springdale, UT.

We ate a picnic lunch by the river and explored the Visitor's Center for a bit before boarding the shuttle bus up canyon.  Like many other national parks in recent years, Zion has restricted the use of some of its roads to park-sanctioned shuttle busses only.  These busses run on clean-burnin' propane, and you can take them all the way from downtown Springdale to the very end of Floor of the Valley Road, with stops at all of the major trailheads and other scenic points of interest.  Today, we'd be going to the end of the line, the Temple of Sinawava and the gateway to the Virgin River Narrows.

The Virgin River drains an extensive area of Southwestern Utah, but most of the continuous flow coming into Zion Canyon comes from snowmelt in the higher regions of Dixie National Forest near Cedar Breaks and Brian Head,   The river, while usually docile, is also prone to flash floods, and these violent torrents are responsible for carving out Zion Canyon over only the past few million years ("recently" in geological terms.)  The river's tendency to flood violently but only occasionally has produced a canyon profile that is relatively narrow but also very deep and sheer.  In particular, the upper reaches of the canyon (the Virgin River Narrows) are a long and exceptionally deep slot canyon with nearly vertical sandstone cliffs on either side and the crystal blue river running down the middle.

As previously mentioned, there had been a late snowfall this year, so the river was flowing fairly briskly through the canyon at about 125 cfs.  That may not sound like much, but with rock walls as narrow as 20 feet in places, 125 cfs becomes a deep and strong flow, moreso considering that we'd be hiking against it for half of our trip.  We found out later that we had lucked into being able to hike the Narrows at all, as July 6 was the first day of the entire season in which the river was low enough to hike through safely.  We reached the end of the one-mile Riverside Walk at about 2:30 PM and started into the Narrows, but we didn't get very far before we were faced with a dilemma.  The river had pooled up to about 7 feet of depth near the outfall of Mystery Canyon, and we stood there scratching our heads for a bit trying to figure out whether it was going to be passable.  But then a couple of guys not affiliated with our group jumped in and unceremoniously swam upriver, discovering that the deep section was only a few yards long (probably a flash flood dugout from the Mystery Canyon pouroff.)  But it still took a bit of figuring to determine how I could get across without getting my camera equipment wet.  Ultimately, David found a small ledge up against the left-hand cliff wall that I was barely able to tiptoe across, holding my pack at arm's length above my head.  The water got shallower on the other side of the outfall and eventually became knee-deep again, but it was still very slow going up canyon.  The lower part of the Narrows at least has some solid ground to walk on, sand bars that have formed around the canyon bends.  But we still spent more time in the water than out.  It was hard on the muscles, but being partly immersed in 60-degree water felt refreshing as the air temperature crept up into the high 90's.

David and I plodded upstream against the current, which threatened to knock me on my keister at least a dozen times.  After about an hour, we had only gone maybe 3/4 mile into the Narrows, but we figured that we had better turn around and find the rest of the group.  They were only five minutes behind us, as it turned out, having decided to swim across the deep section after all.  I showed them our farthest point of advance, and they too decided to turn around and call it a day.  The hike out seemed a lot easier than the hike in, but for unexplained reasons, it still took about the same amount of time.  I guess that, hiking in water, one can only achieve a certain speed, but it requires less energy to hike downriver as opposed to up.

We bussed it back to the Visitor's Center and our waiting van, driving the remaining couple of miles into Springdale and to Flanigan's Inn, our lodging for the next two nights.  Flanigan's was more like a traditional hotel and somewhat less rustic than the lodges we'd been in thus far.  But Zion Canyon in general is less rustic and more heavily traveled than either Bryce or the North Rim, so it's hard for even the in-park lodge to maintain that "out of the way" feel with the onslaught of tourists it has to endure during peak season.  We checked into our rooms for a much needed shower then made our way into downtown Springdale to enjoy a Mexican dinner at the Bit & Spur.