Most of this hike was in knee to thigh deep water (2-3 feet) walking against a fairly swift current. It took us about 2 hours to get up to Orderville Canyon, the first major tributary of the Virgin River along this section of the narrows. Shortly beyond this Robin dropped out on me and found a dry spot to rest. I think she was experiencing early symptoms of hypothermia and needed to get out of the water. The water was cold as was the early morning air and very little sun reaches to the bottom of the narrows to warm you during this hike. There was also a pretty stiff and cool breeze flowing down the narrows which tended to rob even more heat from your body. I rather enjoyed it.

I continued upstream for maybe another 1/2 to 3/4 mile, to the narrowest section of the narrows. Here the walls are only 12-15 feet apart and soar up hundreds of feet. Because the channel is narrow here the water tends to be a little deeper and sometimes came very close to my waist. It is very dark and very wet. You have to be very careful hiking in the narrows as there are some deep pools along the course of the river which will be over your head if you stumble into them. We had our hiking sticks (Leki) with us and were able to poke ahead and around as we moved along the river and managed to find all of them before they found us. Other people were not as fortunate and it can be quite amusing to watch peoples reactions as they are walking along and suddenly disappear into the river.

After taking some photos in the narrow section I headed back to meet Robin who claimed to be feeling a lot better. We went back about 1/4 mile or so to Orderville Canyon and did a small side trip up that. There was a lot less water in there but there were also a number of waterfalls that were somewhat difficult to negotiate. The problem with the waterfalls is that a deep pool tends to form on the downstream side and you have to walk through 3 or more feet of water to get to the fall and then try to figure out how to climb over it. The first few falls were fairly easy and then we came to one that was causing people some trouble. It was about 10 feet high and there was a party of 5-6 people trying to figure out how to get up this thing and just couldn't figure it out. I think they must have been amateurs as I managed to find a projection to step on and another rock to hold on and was up in a few seconds. This was a wasted effort as shortly beyond that fall you come to another one that appeared to be impossible without swimming or technical climbing skills. On your way back downstream we encountered the same party trying to figure out how to get down the 10 foot falls. One guy decided that jumping into the pool was the best idea. He was successful and landed still standing in water maybe 3 feet deep. All of the others in his party failed miserably at this, ended up on their butts and were soaked head to toe. Robin and I simply climbed down the way we came up and probably annoyed the crap out of them. Amateurs?! I love 'em :)

Beyond that there was no real difficulty in getting back to the Virgin River and following it back downstream. We had only gone about 3/4 mile up Orderville. When we reached the Virgin the mass of people coming upriver at this point was incredible and it truly was a highway. Of course it was Sunday and it was the Labor Day weekend so it's probably not that bad all of the time. We were glad to finally work our way back to the parking lot and leave the crowds behind.