Summer is the time to do water hikes in Zion. The most famous such hike is the Narrows - perhaps the most popular canyon hike in the world. You just head right up the Virgin River, wading and swimming in spots. It is great fun.
There are plenty of other similar hikes in that area, including the Subway. Some of these hikes are "technical," meaning you need to rappel and use other specialized techniques to get through the canyons. Permits are required to do the technical canyons.
Last weekend I lead a group on two such hikes and we had a great trip. Our primary goal was to do Echo Canyon, which is technical and requires a permit. Such permits go fast. Some can be reserved in advance using the Internet and some are held back and given out on a first-come, first-served basis beginning the day before you want to hike. We were not able to score a permit in advance and so we headed down hoping to get a permit for the next day.
You can get permits at the backcountry desk at the Visitor Center in Zion Canyon, or at the Kolob Canyons Visitor Center. I live in the Salt Lake area and so the Kolob VC is closer.
We left on a Friday morning and headed straight to the VC to see what permits we could get. I had several canyons in mind, hoping to get Echo but thinking we were prepared to do whatever canyon we could get. Luckily, Echo was available.
After getting the permits we had plenty of time to do an afternoon hike. We choose Kanarra Creek because it is close to the Kolob VC, because permits are not required there, and because I had heard it is a fun, very scenic, water hike that can be completed in a few hours.
Kanarra Creek (we have excellent photos from this hike)
Kanarra is beautiful and turned out to be more fun than I expected. From the tiny town of Kanarraville, you head east on 100 North and just follow a rough dirt road until it ends at the creek. Then you simply hike up the canyon. You are in and out of the water, which is clear and cool on a hot summer day. The canyon slots up and so it is shady, but you do have some sun exposure on the lower end.
To get up Kanarra you have to climb over two waterfalls. Logs have been placed against the cliff, and ropes extended along the logs, so you just hold on and climb up. This is a great hike for teenagers. Kids younger than 12 will probably need considerable help getting up the falls.
You just go up as far and you want, or have time, and then come back the way you came.
I was surprised at the number of people hiking the canyon. A couple youth groups were there, along with some college-age kids.
Echo Canyon (We have excellent photos from this hike)
It was getting hot by the time we dropped into Echo. The canyon slots up almost immediately and so we were in the shade most of the time.
We carried ropes and other technical gear and we expected to rappel. But I was surprised at how tightly the rappels were packed. We made our way down one dryfall after another, hardly having time to coil the ropes before getting them out again. None of the rappels were very high - I think the highest was about 20 feet. But some were tricky because the anchors are located right on the cliff lip, meaning you don't have any staging area to start leaning parallel to the cliff, and because some of the cliffs are concave and so you can't easily "walk" down them.
Water does not normally flow through Echo Canyon. In the spring when snow is melting, a river gushes through; it forms an impressive waterfall right by Weeping Rock. And rainstorms cause the canyon to flash, which can be deadly if you are caught in the flood.
Potholes in the canyon always hold water, even during the hottest summers. The canyon is so deep and so narrow, sunlight never reaches the bottom in some areas and so the water is very cold. This summer has been so dry, some potholes that normally hold water were dry, but plenty of others held cold water. We had to swim once. On a normal year you may have to swim 2-3 times. Two rappels ended in water, but it was never so deep that we had to tread water while disconnecting the ropes. On a normal year you may have to do that.
On both ends of the canyon the standing water was stagnant, smelly, scummy and gross. One pool had a dead snake floating. Nevertheless, you wade or swim through. You have no choice. When you drop into the canyon you are committed because it would be almost impossible to climb up the dryfalls you've just rappelled down, and because there are only a couple escape points between the top and the bottom. You've got to do down the canyon until you reach the bottom, or find a spot where you can escape.
In the center of the canyon the water was bitterly cold. If you stand in it for more than a few seconds you get seriously chilled. Some of the potholes are "keepers" where it is difficult to get out. Teamwork is required, pushing and pulling each other, to climb out. Without help, a person could easily die in this canyon so never try to do it alone.
In a keeper hole, with ice-cold water, you could get hypothermia quickly, even on the hottest summer day. Sporty wetsuits are advisable. We did not use wetsuits and we did all right, but we would have been quite uncomfortable had there been more water in the canyon.
We had to use ropes about 10 times in one mile of hiking. The hike isn't long, but it packs plenty of adventure into a small area.
Most experienced canyoneers can do Echo in 4-5 hours. We took 7 hours because some of the people in our group were slow getting up courage to rappel into deep, stagnant pools.
When we came down the last switchback, returning to Weeping Rock, the small stream that flows under the bridge there looked like the Garden of Eden. We couldn't resist jumping in and cooling off, and rinsing off the smelly mud we had picked up in the potholes. I'm sure the people sitting next to us on the Park Shuttle appreciated the fact that we had rinsed off.
It was a great hike.
This website has great trail descriptions for technical canyon hikes.
