(Originally posted August 15, 2012)
I started creating galleries from our most recent trip to the Southwestern US… a trip that included stops at Bryce Canyon & Zion National Parks! This shot is from the hike we did in The Narrows in Zion. Hiking The Narrows is something my husband has always wanted to do. Thankfully, the weather and the water levels cooperated and we were able to do it!
Hiking The Narrows can be easy or hard or somewhere in between because you hike in a river the entire way. The only times you’re not up to your knees (or deeper!) in water is when you pop out onto little rocky sandbars along the edge of the canyon. In many places, there’s nothing but the Virgin River flowing around you and sheer rock walls 1,000 feet high. Pretty spectacular stuff to see, and pretty difficult to hike and photograph!
The day was pretty nerve wracking for me for 2 reasons: 1) Do I trust the dry bag with my camera in it? and 2) How will my nagging foot injury react as I’m hiking in a river? I’d say we were more successful with the camera than we were with my foot. (It’s at that point where my husband enjoys telling stories of my occasional complaining when we started to head back to the trail head and the foot pain was, shall we say, unacceptable. I’ll leave that colorful story to him to tell in an offline format over adult beverages.)
So, back to the hike and the picture… This hike offered some really amazing views that were really challenging to get on camera. And as much as I wanted to take a picture of everything, I resisted because we wanted to cover as much ground as we possibly could and the unpack-shoot-repack process took a long time because of all of the waterproof precautions in place. Thankfully, I came home with some pretty amazing shots of this really unique place within Zion that we can’t wait to go back to!
-JC
Alpha Pup Photography 