Our visit to Zion was one of the most memorable times of my life. We dedicated our entire day trekking down the Narrows Trail, which is basically a shallow river cut through a canyon. I had never quite experienced anything like it before. In the beating peak heat of the day we were completely cool wading through light teal waters and shielded from the sun because of the 2000 foot walls of orange rock on either side of us. My dad is not much of a hiker, but he said if he had to do one hike before he died, it would be the Narrows, and I completely agree. I already mapped the route from my new home in Santa Barbara to Zion, and it only takes seven hours!
To partake in the Narrows Trail, one had to be clad in some sort of rugged water shoes. A lot of people rented out these fancy waterproof hiking boots, but we didn't have the foresight to do that. I luckily was wearing my water sandals and my dad, only bringing flip flops, opted to take his shoes off all together. But no problems were had with this lack of proper footwear. The rocks we stepped on were all smoothed by years of the river flowing over them. It was interesting and fitting to find much of the trash to be bits and pieces of broken flip flops discarded as people smartened up to the barefoot method of traveling. Luckily most of these pieces of trash were not on the trail itself, but closer to the shuttle stops.