Kayaking Zion's Main Canyon, Temple of Sinawava Down- with Satin's Staircase- 800cfs-April 2023

Have you wondered why we always have these bright-colored kayaks on the roof of our Winnebago Revel? Well, one of the main reasons we travel is to explore whitewater rivers all over the world. The main reason we sold our house over 9 years ago was to explore the rivers we had always dreamed about. This requires being at these rivers at a certain time of the year when they are flowing and at prime levels. The flexibility of living in a van has made this possible. Mostly…

The North Fork of the Virgin River that runs through Zion National Park has been on my to-do list for over two decades. It’s a very fickle river with a small window that runs at boatable flows. Sometimes years pass without an opportunity to paddle it. But April of 2023 is the year everything has aligned with a huge snowpack in the mountains above, and nice spring temperatures make for a solid med-high level. Perfect for kayaking the Main Canyon of Zion. Note, this isn’t the fabled Narrows. Actually, with the NP regulations, the flow is too high to get a permit for that. But we are hoping when the river subsides, we will get an opportunity for the Narrows too.

This video is about kayaking the North Fork of the Virgin River through the Main Canyon of Zion NP. This is a permitted section, and we got an NP paddling permit from the Back Country office. I was happy to meet local paddler Adam Freeman for this adventure, and he was just as keen to explore this as I was. We paddled the whole river minus one small 50’ portage around a dangerous log strainer. We did run the infamous Devil’s Staircase, a committing and potentially dangerous nearly mile-long section of class 4/5 rapids starting near the horse stables. The flow shown in the video is around 800cfs +/-.
There are options to make this run much easier by doing smaller sections, and you should scout carefully and be very confident in your ability and experience on whitewater rivers. DO NOT RUN THIS SECTION WITHOUT A PERMIT FROM THE PARK. The boating community needs to continue to be good stewards to hopefully get more boating opportunities in this amazing park.

Thanks to Adam Freeman for the thumbnail image.

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