You have two way of hiking the Narrows. The tourist way is about the lower section. The adventurer does the whole thing en 2 days. Needless to say our group chose the second option. After all the minor setback from yesterday and this morning, we’re finally in the bus for a 2 hour drive in the mountain to reach the beginning of the trail. It’s not that simple to reach it actually. The region is dug by countless canyons and we drive on roads excavated from the cliff. It’s a bit scary but the views are amazing. The bus drops us in the middle of nowhere and leaved us. It’s a weird feeling to find ourselves 2 days walk away from civilization. We have everything we need for camping, eating but no other option but to walk these 16 miles.
Our camp for the night is the last of the 12 camps available on the trail… sadly. It’s 10 miles away from the trail head and it’s already noon. We don’t waste any more time and are on our way. We’ll try to keep a good pace the whole afternoon to avoid having to finish by night (and to have to set up camp by night…). The beginning is easy but you still have to get used to carrying a full 65l backpack. Little by little the patient work of the river reveals itself to us, the canyon get deeper little by little, the cliff are higher and higher and the trail is forced closer to the river and forces us to cross it more frequently. Our rhythm is good but with breaks for snacks, water and photography. The afternoon goes by quietly in this grandiose setting. After a few hours, we try to figure out where we are exactly on the map. Not that we could get lost, it’s just not possible in a canyon but to figure out where we are at time-wise. And what we find out is scary. We walked for 4 hours already and according to the map we’re not even half-way through…Another group of hikers who started at the same time came to the same conclusion…sadly. The beginning of the hike is not very detailed on the map but we arrive to a major landmark: the fall.
Time for a little break; we check the map again, take a few shots and get back on the trail, forcing the pace. We’re done with the easy part of the trail, everything now is going up and down, in and out of the river, walking on stones, walking with water waist deep,… It’s tiring, especially after 4+ hours of hiking but we have no choice but to press on as fast as possible. Nobody wants to set up camp by night but even less walk on this treacherous terrain by night with our headlamps. I use my goat/monkey DNA to lead the group so we keep a good rhythm. We finally reach the first camps and to our relief, they go by faster than expected. The map was not to scale! We take a quick break at camp 11 even though camp 12 is supposedly very close. The last bad news of the day is.. It’s not that close, and it’s not easy to get to. The last half-hour of hiking is really tough; it’s very technical, with a lot of climbing and crossing. We finally reach district 12 as the sun is setting for the night.
Camp is set up quickly and we now work on feeding 12 hungry hikers. For that we need hot water… simple enough but loooong. We need to filter the water from the river (thanks to Nick’s filtering pump) and boil it on the tiny tiny travel stove (thanks Kristina or Nick). The bellies are finally full, now is the time for photographers to use the tripods and intervalometers they have been carrying for the last 10 miles :D The night is super clear and free of any light pollution. It’s a paradise for night photography and time lapses. Since we are in the middle of nowhere, we can go to sleep and leave the camera out doing its work by itself. It’s time for me too to go to sleep and imitate my fellow hikers who are already snoring happily. For whatever reason, I have been chose to wake up everyone the next day… I still can’t understand why knowing my reputation of ground hog. Surprisingly I’ll do it during the entire trip without problems…. Go figure ;)
The next morning, the same chore for hot water takes place for coffee, cereals and to refill our water bottles. The 10 miles yesterday and a night in a tent took its toll as most of us are passed 30 but 2. Hopefully, today’s schedule is much easier. We only have 6 miles to go and we’re starting much earlier on top of that.
The canyon keeps on getting deeper and now that we are not on a schedule anymore (and to spare our poor bodies), we take our time to enjoy the scenery and take pictures. After 24h without seeing anyone, we once again meet tourists hiking the lower section of the Narrows. We have to get wet every now and then to keep on going but most of the time there is a way around to avoid getting wet. One of these ways around will turn into pure climbing; not everyone will appreciate ;) Only once during the whole hike we’ll have to swim and that’s because the river was not that high… It’s the Narrows baptism!
A few stops and a water gun fight (more ambush than fight true) later, heat will incite some of us to use a nearby rock as a diving board. It’s refreshing and we get some good shots out of it :D The closer we get to the end, the more touristy everyone looks and the last hundred yards are the grand finale. It feels like being at the beach in the middle of summer with all these people in the water. We meet with Bex who could not hike with us due to injured ribs and elbow (she fell during a race in the forest…) Strangely, even though we all are in shape usually, everyone was getting hurt one way or another in the weeks coming to this. As well as Bex, Narjiss was struggling with her Achilles, Nick with his hip and I with my ribs (boxing injury). We looked a bit like old people to be honest but with experience and a lot of Ibuprofen :D