Zion: Narrows of the Virgin River

Zion turned out to be an annoyingly preprocessed park -- the shuttle through the valley takes forever, and most of the trails are paved. But there was one hike I wanted to do: the Narrows, at the north end of Zion Canyon.

It turns out that this is more a wade than a hike. It was completely unlike what we were expecting, or like any other hike we'd done before. Most of the time, you just hike in the river, which ranges from ankle deep to mid-thigh (for me). In October, it was cold but not bone-chillingly so; we got used to it after a while.

One fun thing was to see whole families doing this hike. If I thought the water seemed deep, imagine what it's like for an eight-year-old kid -- but the kids seemed to be having a great time.

This was the last hike of the trip. After we left Zion, we headed for home. We were going to stop in Las Vegas, but we were tired when we got there and didn't want to deal with the crowds and the traffic, so we went on to Jean, NV (and got a nice room and prime rib and steak at the casino, and I came out $.15 ahead after playing one each nickel, dime and quarter slot). Home was an easy drive the next day.

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