Hiking the Narrows

Over the fourth of July weekend Neil and I were invited to go on a two day hike with our friends Chad and Bekah Hughes and Ryan Howell. Sadly Neil had to work and finish up at his store so I had to go without him. I was a lot of fun and most of the hiking was done in water. As you can tell from the pictures. I was very tired after the hike but I had so much fun.
Here I am with Bekah just as we are getting to the river to begin our 16 mile hike down in the water. The water was really warm and clear. Thank goodness for walking sticks, we used these to help us keep our balance and fall all over the rock. It helped a lot when some of the time the water was waist deep.
Here is Bekah posing behind me while her husband took a picture. I was a very slow hiker, so she stayed with me while the boys took off a head of us.

Taking a break. We all took our water shoes off at this point and rinsed out all the rocks and dirt that we had collected along the way. Pictured (Left to right) Ryan Howell, Chad Hughes and me. Bekah is taking the picture.

Entering the first Narrow. We had to hurry through this part because it started to rain and as you can see there is no high ground in case it floods. Which by the way it did. We just made it out as it really started to pour and climbed up into cove that was carved out of the rock. It rained hard for about an hour. We were trying to decided how long to wait before hiking again incase it does flood. So we waited about another hour. We climb down and see another group coming through the narrow. Just as we are getting ready to leave the water comes. We were stranded. Whats crazy is that we were only about 15 min. from our camp. Luckly we were at a place were we could camp. But looking up the Narrow was a group of about nine stranded on a rock. Literally, a rock. After being stranded up there for about 2 hours and 2 more floods they chance the water and make their way down. The water as you can see from the picture was ankle deep. After the flood was over it was chest deep in many places. Thankfully everyone made it down safe and we all ended up camping together.

From this picture you can see just how muddy the water was. You could not see the bottom so you didn't know how deep it was. Thank goodness for walking sticks. Anyone want to go next year?