Where the Land goes Up

The Anasazi and the Paiute called the Zion region home long before the most recent waves of European immigration.  The Paiute called the region the place where the land goes up and does it ever.  The walls are vertical faces that rise 800 to 1000 feet in all directions.  It is a place for use to test our mettle at slot canyon hiking.  We hiked the Narrows, bottom - up which is easier than the top down through hikes and meant for day hiking.  80 % of people don't make it to the end of the route, we now count ourselves among that group.  We are proud 80 percenters! We rented sticks for $5...yup we paid thirty dollars to use sticks in a national park...they came with canyonnering boots as well as neoprene socks.  It was required equipment for a terrain we had never encountered.  We hiked for over 5 hours and the deadhead to the trail was still more than 3.5 hours upstream when we turned around.  It was cool in the canyon, water temps were in the mid fifties and the air temp was in the low eighties, so it was our most comfortable hiking temperature of the trip.  We also started early enough that the sun couldn't shine directly into the high walled slot canyon to keep us out of the direct sun.  We had some challenges along the way, Grace got some bad chaffing and Ella twisted her knee and fell in the stream (Virgin River) landing on her patella tendon.  It was badly bruised but after a brief rest she soldiered on and we kept continued on our rheopositive stroll.  The return trip was faster as it normally is, but also aided by the swift current sending us back to an entry point that was over a mile back to the shuttle.  We could see hikers on Angle's Landing from the shuttle, but we never did hike it, everyone being exhausted from the hike we instead decided to head into town and replenish the calories at the Zion Brewery instead.  A little shopping around in the Springdale for the most expensive aquapor ever sold (chaffing is common and profitable in the slot canyons) and some ice cream and it was back to the hotel pool.