As the upper part of the Virgin River (the one I work with fish on!) has flowed through Zion National Park, it has cut an amazingly deep, narrow canyon that is one of the parks quite famous hikes. There's no trail, you just start walking up the river where the road ends. In the river specifically, as the canyon is too narrow to have riverbanks.
The forecast said the water temperature was about 51 degrees fahrenheit. I attempted to figure out what this was in Celsius...as I have a science job all our work thermometers, and hence my reference points for how cold is too cold, are in Celsius.
Ah well. I headed up the river wearing my shorts and sandals. As I walked by other hikers, I noticed that all of them were wearing drysuit pants and canyoneering shoes that they had rented. Many of them looked at me askance and asked me whether I was freezing. It was a quite cold, I definitely could not feel my feet so well by the end of the day.
As I hiked further up, the canyon got narrower and twistier, with walls rising a thousand feet above and crazy shapes carved by the river. The water was perfectly clear, much different than the muddy lower Virgin River where we work. It was quite nice being able to see the rocks so I didn't destroy my shins on them as I normally do. It was also neat seeing the river I work on upstream, in an area that isn't full of invasive fish, crowded by tamarisk trees, and diverted for irrigation.
I ran into an amateur photographer who wanted a subject for his pictures - his are the two lovely pictures with the really nice light from long exposure times and tripods, they are quite nicer than the dark, somewhat washed out pictures from my little camera.
