Hiking the Narrows Without the Crowds (Top Down)

The Narrows was truly one of the most spectacular and unique hikes we’ve ever done. Between the epic canyon views, the perfect weather, and the utter lack of human presence on the Top Down trail, it was absolute bliss. I’ll break down everything you need to know about which route to take to maximize enjoyment and minimize crowds.

WHAT IS THE NARROWS?

The Narrows is a gorgeous slot canyon hike in Utah’s Zion National Park. You hike alongside (and inevitably, in) the Virgin River. You will often wade through the water on slippery rocks, so it’s important to have the right equipment.

TWO ROUTES, THREE OPTIONS

There are two primary routes to hike the Narrows.

The grand majority of visitors will hike the Narrows Bottom Up, starting at the Temple of Sinawava, hiking as far as you’d like up to Big Spring, and turning around to venture back the same way you came. This is the easiest option both logistically and physically, as you can choose to turn around at any time and you don’t need a permit to hike this route. The downside is it tends to be very crowded.

My strong recommendation is to hike the Narrows Top Down, starting at Chamberlain’s Ranch and finishing at the Temple of Sinawava (the same location you start and end at doing Bottom Up). The National Park Service website lists this as a 16 mile hike, but the ranger at the Wilderness Desk at the Visitor Center explained that that distance is the length of the river. Since the hike involves weaving back and forth to either side of the bank, the total hiking distance is more like 20-25 miles. We personally logged 24 miles.

There are two ways to do the Top Down Hike, both of which require a permit. You can do the hike as a day-hike or you can camp at one of the 12 campsites overnight. We originally planned to attempt this as a day hike, but after talking with the Wilderness Desk, we opted for an overnight stay, and are so glad we did. The view of the stars at night was magical, and we were able to take our time and soak in the gorgeous scenery with next to no crowds. We highly recommend camping overnight and attempting the hike Top Down.

HOW TO GET THERE?

To get to Zion National Park, I recommend flying into the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada and driving 2 hours 45 minutes to the park.

If you’re completing the hike Top Down, you’ll need to reserve a shuttle to transport you to the starting point of the hike: Chamberlain’s Ranch. We reserved ours with Red Rock Shuttle. The shuttle takes 90 minutes to get from the flagpole at the Visitor Center (the meeting point) to the starting point of the hike. If you’re doing the hike in one day, you really need to be on the 6am shuttle. Since we had two days to complete the hike, we opted for the 9:30am shuttle.

To get back from the end point of the hike (for both Bottom Up and Top Down) at the Temple of Sinawava, you can use the free shuttles to get back to the parking lot.

WHERE TO STAY

We stayed in Zion National Park for 3 nights and 3 days. We stayed at Zion Ponderosa for the first 2 nights, which is conveniently located inside the park and very close to the shuttle for the Observation Point hike we did the first day. (Observation Point is very close to the famous Angel’s Landing as well). Zion Ponderosa is a 45 minute drive from the Visitor Center, however, which is where the shuttles for the Narrows hike will pick you up.

We camped for our last night in the Narrows.

WHEN TO GO

The absolute best time to go (in my opinion) is September and early to mid October. We did the hike October 13-14 and had perfect conditions. The one downside is that the days are slightly shorter in the fall than the summer, so the last shuttle out from the Temple of Sinawava is earlier in the day, leaving less time for the hike.

The summer months are great, especially with long daylight hours and warmer water temperatures, but with perfect conditions come crowds.

It’s very hard to reliably plan to hike the Narrows in the winter, as winter brings cold water and high water levels, especially as the snow melts in the spring. If you plan to hike in the spring, don’t plan your trip before the end of May or June.

HOW TO GET A PERMIT

To hike the Narrows Top Down, you will need to secure a permit in advance. You can obtain an Overnight permit or a Day Hike permit. A permit is not required for the Bottom Up hike.

Permits are released 4 times a year at 10am MT and, depending on the season, they go quickly. I highly recommend setting an alarm for your desired time and booking as soon as the reservation opens.

Here is the date schedule:

• Hiking Jan 1 - March 31: Permits available December 5
• Hiking April 1 - June 30: Permits available March 5
• Hiking July 1 - September 30: Permits available June 5
• Hiking October 1 - December 31: Permits available September 5

If you can’t secure a permit, you might be tempted to try to do the hike without one. I highly recommend against this. You get all essential tips and safety/weather checks talking to the Wilderness Desk. In addition, most camp sites are small and private, so you can’t just camp without a secured spot. Furthermore, you will need a shuttle to get to the hike start point and they will check your permits. Lastly, your license plate will be registered with the park and will be removed at night if the plate is not registered with an active overnight hiker.

DO I NEED A GUIDE?

You do not need a guide for this hike. It’s practically impossible to get lost, as you just follow the river through the canyon.

SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS

There are a number of safety precautions you should take before hiking the Narrows.

First, make sure to monitor the water current, which fluctuates day to day. When the current is below 70 cubic feet per second, the hike is considered only moderately difficult, but the difficulty level increases as the current increases. At 150 CFS or above, the park will close the Narrows.

The Narrows is also prone to flash floods, which can be very dangerous conditions for hikers. The National Park Service website recommends monitoring flash flood warnings on this page, but you’ll also have to visit the Wilderness Desk at the Visitor Center the night before the hike, so you can chat to them about any potential weather concerns for the day of your hike.

The National Park Service also warns you to bring plenty of water on the hike. They have found toxic cyanobacteria in the river, which means it is not safe to drink the water even if you use purification tablets (except from Big Spring, located after campsite 12).

Lastly, the water is cold. Ensure you have the proper gear, including drysuits when necessary, to do this hike. Hikers without proper gear have succumbed to hypothermia in the past.

DO I NEED SPECIAL GEAR?

We rented canyoneering boots, Neoprene socks, wooden walking sticks, and drysuits from Zion Guru. They outfit people for this hike daily year-round, so they were able to make recommendations on if we should rent a dry bib or a drysuit. You have the option to rent gear for 1 day or 2.

For camping, we bought sleeping bags and sleeping pads at Zion Outdoor. It’s a small shop with a limited supply, and it’s quite expensive. The nearest alternative was a Walmart 45 minutes away.

HOW TO CAMP

When you make the permit reservation for the Overnight Top Down Narrows, you will select a campsite. There are 12 campsites, most of which are private (only for you and your group) and a few of which are large enough to accommodate multiple groups.

I recommend selecting a campsite in the middle of the list (ideally sites 4-8). You want your hiking distance to be relatively balanced over the two days. In particular I recommend against selecting one of the last few campsites as you might be scrambling to make it to your campsite before dark on day 1. All campsites are structured so that you hike slightly more on Day 1 than Day 2, so it’s okay to get one of the first campsites if that’s what is available. You can refer to this map to see where the campsites are and which ones are available for online reservations. The reservation system will also have distances for Day 1 and Day 2 listed when you click on each campsite.

The campsites are numbered, but they can be hard to miss, so we recommend building in some extra time into your plans to ensure you have enough time to find the site and set up your gear while there’s still daylight.

We had not planned on camping overnight originally so we scrambled to buy gear last minute. The guide at the Wilderness Desk told us we didn’t need tents, and that we would be fine if we purchased sleeping bags and sleeping pads. We thought it was magical camping directly under the stars, and were plenty warm and comfortable with the gear we had. Our campsite (number 8) was on a sandy patch that was partially covered under rock, so it was quite cozy.

OUR EXPERIENCE

Our original plan was to hike the Narrows Top Down in a single day on a Saturday. Those plans fell through when we realized we needed to pick up the permits in person the night before the hike to discuss safety protocols and we wouldn’t make it to the Zion Visitor Center before it closed at 5pm.

Plan B was to hike it in a single day on Sunday, but after talking with the employee at the Wilderness Desk we quickly pivoted again to Plan C. He told us that hiking in a single day would be very strenuous and stressful, and made a strong recommendation to switch our permits to the overnight ones, especially given my recent POTS diagnosis would mean I was moving slower than usual.

We spent the remainder of the day frantically running around town securing drysuits and walking sticks and purchasing sleeping bags, sleeping pads, snacks, water purification tablets, and everything else we would need for the journey. Alex hadn’t brought an overnight backpack, so he made do with a tiny daypack and strapped a bunch of gear to the outside.

We elected to take Red Rock Shuttle’s 9:30am shuttle to the trailhead, which took about an hour and a half. Then we were off to the races!

The first few miles were on a traditional trail outside the canyon. The only other hikers were those that came on our shuttle. After about an hour, the group naturally dispersed as we hiked at our own pace, and we entered the canyon.

At first, the canyon is quite wide and short, with lots of trees around and very shallow water. The water stayed shallow the entire first day and we barely ran into 10 other people. It was so peaceful and awe-inspiring.

For the first half of the first day, it was pretty easy to avoid walking directly in the river, and we constantly crossed back and forth to walk to larger banks on either side. As the canyon narrowed, however, we were forced to walk directly in the Virgin River. The main challenge was walking along the giant rocks at the bottom of the River, which really slowed us down.

We took our time and stopped for photos and snack breaks, and barely made it to our campsite (number 8) before the sunset. We heard other hikers pass our site shortly afterwards in the dark.

Our campsite was a private, secluded, sandy patch a short walk away from the river. There are signs by the river denoting the campsites, but we walked by ours a number of times by accident. It was just large enough for two people to comfortably set up camp. Since we made these arrangements last minute, we took the guide at the Wilderness Desk’s advice to camp without a tent, and loved sleeping right under the stars.

We woke up bright and early on Day 2. The sleep quality was better than expected. We made our way past the last campsite, number 12, to Big Springs, where we could refill our water. This was where we encountered our first hiker doing the Narrows from the other direction: Bottom Up.

These hikers had braved the deep stretches that were to come. There were just a handful of sections that were waist deep or higher, and none that lasted for more than a minute’s swim.

Day 2 is where the drysuit came in handy, and we zipped it all the way up to make it across the water. The current was pretty strong, so all we had to do was float. It was an odd sensation walking into the water with all our camping gear and our backpacks got absolutely soaked. You could feel the ice cold water through the drysuit, but it kept us safe and warm. I couldn’t believe I saw a hiker attempt this in shorts. It was practically suicidal!

After the last of the deep water stretches was where we encountered the hoards of tourists. We quickly realized that we would not have had anything resembling the incredible experience we had had we decided to do the hike Bottom Up. At times, we felt like we were at the water park in Disney.

We made it to the Temple of Sinawava mid-day with plenty of time to spare. There were long lines waiting for the shuttle back to the Visitor Center, but they moved quickly.

Our watches reported an incredible 24 miles total hiked between the 2 days.

IS IT WORTH IT?

Without question, this hike is worth the effort and the cost. It was one of our favorite hikes of all time, and better still one of our favorite travel experiences of all time. It felt like we were in a dream having such a gorgeous place mostly to ourselves.

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