Our campsite is right on the Virgin River, so we slept to the sound of rushing water all night. We received a gift from the campground gods… 2 bottles of propane for our camp stove, left near registration with a “FREE” note on them. This happens when people buy what they think they will need, have leftovers and can’t take fuel back on a plane with them. We’ve aquired white gas (Coleman fuel) this way. We’ve noticed a lot of foreign tourists here, many German and Japanese. We ran into town, about 15 minutes away for ice, firewood and to refill our water.
We hope to get the bikes out today. We got them down from the roof and Andrew put slick tires on the mountain bikes. It took two hours! It was after lunch before we got on the bikes to ride up canyon. We rode about 8 miles up to the Temple of Sinawava, also the location of “The Narrows”. This is a very deep, narrow canyon that when the water is down, can be hiked up stream for several miles. However, the river is up from snow melt. We were told at the Visitor Center that if we didn’t freeze, we’d be swept downstream. We can’t hike the Narrows, but we hiked up to the Narrows trailhead. There were beautiful canyon walls, thousands of feet high, towering over the Virgin River. The river is roaring and ice cold.
We got on the bikes and rode back down canyon (and downhill) back to the campground. We played hopscotch with a couple of buses. It was much better than dodging individual cars on a park road (like we’ve had to do at Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountain NP).
We splurged and got a shower at Zion Rock and Canyoneering Guides. $3.00 and we both got a shower with unlimited hot water. What a bargain! Some places have a timer on water.
We met our neighbors on on side, Matt and Cindy from Washington (State) and our neighbors from the other side, Dean and Rose, full time RVers from Grant’s Pass, Oregon. All six of us got together around our campfire and chatted about all sorts of things: campers, cities, National Parks, life on the road.