Zion National Park - Riverside Walk

One of the star attractions of Zion National Park is the Riverside Walk.

The park's promo materials give the walk a well deserved rave review: "Beautiful, shaded walk meanders through forested glens, following the path of the Virgin River into a high-walled canyon. Easy, 2 miles/1.5 miles round trip."

That certainly sounds like an obvious stop for a single day visit. The walk is cool and peaceful. On the right, a tall canyon wall sprouts vegetation from the trickle of damp seep springs.

On the left, the Virgin River flows cold and clear over rounded river rocks.

The vegetation even supports a mini freshwater swamp right here in the middle of a desert canyon.

The Riverside Walk ends with a small sandy beach at the bottom of the deep canyon. The walls are so close together that the river fills the entire width of the channel. This is the beginning of The Narrows, a 16 mile mostly wading route, where the Riverside Walk becomes the River In walk.

I was willing, but ill prepared. The water was intensely cold and I had only one pair of shoes about my person. I considered returning to the Cream Puff for backup footwear and a change of trousers, but knew that returning via the park shuttle would take hours off my adventure. Instead, I rolled up my cuffs, tied my shoelaces around my neck and decided to wade on until hypothermia kicked in.

Unfortunately, that didn't take very long. My teetering steps with numb feet on slick river rocks were exhausting work and made me very nervous about the $2500 camera hanging over my shoulder. It can't have been much more than a mile before I gave up and turned back. It was a wise choice. The last few chilly steps back to the Riverside Walk were absolutely the last of which I was capable until I'd thawed out my feet on a sunny rock. It must have been a fairly alarming performance because a passer-by offered to help me balance with a foot on the rock. I declined his kind offer out of sheer humiliation, a humiliation that increased several hours later when we met again and he said to his wife "Look, it's the hopping lady."

My feet screamed vilification at me for the remainder of the day, but I maintain that the view was totally worth it. I was hugely jealous of my better prepared companions who forged on ahead in river shoes, wetsuit stockings or, in the case of an inventive group of German tourists, tall garbage bags fastened around their legs and feet under their shoes.

If you ever go to Zion National Park, and you really must, be prepared; wear waders. You don't have to do the whole 16 miles to get amazing views ... just around the next bend.