Vaca 2021, Day 10 - Hiking the Narrows in Zion

The alarm went off at 4am sharp this morning. My head agreed with the alarm and wanted to get up, but my heart said, "to heck with it...", and I tossed and turned for a few minutes before Mama Chaos got up and started putting things into motion.

Today, we are hiking the narrows in Zion National Park.  It opens at 6am, which is when the shuttles start running, so our plan is to get there a bit before 6am to get lined up.  We parked at 6:09am and on the way to the parking lot, drove past the cattle lines of people already in line! Piles and piles of people!!!

We marched our happy heinies, complete with neoprene socks and special water marching boots, that we had rented the previous evening, up to the end of the line.  And we were WAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY back!!!!!

An early pic waiting in line.  Not bad for scenery while waiting in what seems like a never ending line!

That's a pic of a tired Rob!

My fams!  Rob is obviously tired.  Caleb looks worn down as well but Mama Chaos looks like she's just waiting and nothing else.

After about 15 minutes of the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit being in line, the line had grown by crazy numbers and was now being managed by park rangers and routed accordingly for maximum efficiency.

Within another 10 - 15 minutes, we could no longer see the end of the line.

More scenery from the waiting line.  We can actually see the bus terminal now.

We waited and waited like herded cattle and after about 1:45 minutes, we made it onto one of the MANY shuttle buses for the 50 minute drive to the narrows.

On the bus finally and we're finally starting to see some different stuffs...  Now we're getting somewhere!

Once you get dropped off of the shuttle bus, you have a nearly 1 mile hike to where you truly start hiking in the river, which is your main focus, but...  YOU'RE IN ZION NATIONAL PARK WHERE EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL!!!!    It's so amazing that it really doesn't really matter how far you're walking and whatever else.  Just savor each moment.

The next several pics are just out the window of the bus as the narrows is the furthest point on the route and the bus stops at all of the terminals.

This is early on into the hike from the bus terminal to where you get down into the river.

Oh man, this is going to be awesome!

How is that for a background!?

We finally made it, and it's super cool. Also, very glad that we rented proper footwear!!

Holy smokes!!

Can't believe my nearly new phone survived this trip to get these pics, but I'm sure glad that it did!

Around every river bend, there is another surprise waiting for you eyedrums!

Caleb saw how deep the water got on Rob and decided there had to be a better path thru this point.

Rob is a water nut and it's probably a shame that he wasn't born in an area near the ocean, but he was loving this!

This was one of the more difficult places to pass.  Rains leave timber deposits like this from time to time.  

We've turned around and are heading out now which means much easier hiking now since we're with the current.  My "old man knees" hurt for a few days after this, but it was worth every second of ache!

 Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the point that we wanted to get too, but we were all spent and at some point, you have to just pull the plug on it instead of saying, "Let's just see what's around the next bend.".  It took us 70 minutes to get back to the 1 mile hike to the bus terminal.

That's mama over against the wall on our way back out.

This is what I meant earlier when I said where ever you look, everything is beautiful!  This is back on the hike out.

I wonder what this road was like a week after we took this when they experienced the crazy heavy rain?

On our drive out of Zion as our time here is done.

After reuniting with our vessel,  some of us changed into dry clothes, visited the gift shop and go some snacks.  Then we drove back to Springdale (just outside of Zion to the South) to return our rental gear.  Once that was complete, it was time for some coffee and ice cream!

We then headed back into Zion as Rob had not seen much of it due to sleeping the previous day and this morning.  He sat in the front with me and was rightfully impressed with what he was seeing.

This was the night that we ate at The Wild Thyme for supper and I went to the hole-in-the-wall liquor store just across the Arizona border.  Here's what I wrote about it in my journal; "The place was ran by an old dude who looked like Sam Elliots older brother and sounded like him too!  He was happy to see a customer and told me many details about the different beers that I was buying. Cool old dude, and I wish that I had more time to spend with him to trade stories.".

That's a wrap!