One of the most unique hikes in all of the National Park system is the Narrows, described by Henry David Thoreau as “the Grand Canyon of the West”, and one of the most prominent reasons to visit the Narrows is of course hiking the trail.
The Narrows are typically referred to as “the pink valley”, and it is hard to argue. The range is technically correct since it is chock full of canyons and arches, but they are viewable only by helicopter, and they truly are the pink valley.
The Virgin River flows through the Narrows, and high water levels have made it particularly marshy and prone to flooding. The river has also created lots of what’s called “insta-use” campsites, high currents and muddy places or “river to beach” crossings.
I’ve heard it said that the best time to hike the Narrows is late spring through the fall, but I’ve also heard that the Narrows are great anytime of year. Since I hiked the trail on a tandem nature trail near where the river flows into Lake Mead, I’ll have to stay on the latter end and add this information to my resume.
When I say the Narrows, I mean it as a unique and memorable segment of the trail, not one covered in mind-stuff. Looking at the aerial pictures of the valley, you can see the bright blue sky and the deep blue canyon down below, but beyond that, there is the faint suggestion of gray in the deep recesses of the canyon. It’s a very atmospheric view, and not one easily achieved anywhere else in the world.
When we left the south rim of the Grand Canyon, we knew that we would be back in the Canyon in the morning. It was soon thereafter that Roy made arrangements to fly us out by helicopter, since apparently there was a flight plan to the South Rim in the morning, and we were to rendezvous at the top of 16,000 feet.
We had also decided it would be good to have some food on us. So Roy called ahead to the local plants to pick up some freeze dried foods that he could bring down and cook in his hotel room. Most of us in our group had been on trail for a week and were already pretty tired. We were looking for some extra protein at that time, since the last several days had been very strenuous in terms of oneself.
After Roy returned and we had several conversations about our next move, we decided to try to hitch hike to the South Rim. The narrows weren’t as bad as they had been earlier, and we might be able to weave past the boulders and potholes. 189km of the 260km trip was down smooth volcanic sand. Most of the other a taka trails we had been on were off road and very smooth and long.
We didn’t have any problems finding the narrows, they are usually between 20m-30m deep. And we were also able to follow the rim from the top of the Inner Wall and Down Wall. The sand in this case helped us to see what was beyond the pines and forest trees. There were a few Misty trees up there, but we didn’t need to worry about them. There were boulder fields, but they weren’t very wide. We were on our own, but we didn’t encounter any other hikers.
What I did get the most was the view of Nevado Fiura, which is the highest mountain in the state of Arizona. Typically when I hike to the higher elevations around the Grand Canyon, I have to stop and admire the view, which is why I wanted to compliment Roy’s station by saying that I thought the view was outstanding.
Nevado Fiura was only a thin thin fraction of the way up the canyon, but it was the one we were going to hit in the late afternoon. We had basic directions from a trip report we had read, as well as a copy of a topo map Roy had made. I was a little out of my normal comfort zone, but I was also very excited and anxious to try a new route for the first time. Never having done any technical climbing before, I wasn’t sure how much my fit would be when I started in on this one.
I was in fairly good shape then, but not a whole lot of fun in the process. I soon found that I wasn’t going as fast as I wanted to go, and my actual fitness level was a little shaky. After throwing around the idea of skipping the pass on a low risk, I decided to go for it. My only concern was that I would fall flat on my face a lot of the time, which didn’t make me look too good.
