Orderville Canyon is a major tributary to the Virgin River Narrows in Zion National Park. What makes this trip an incredible adventure are the red rock, 500 foot canyon walls with narrow (even arm length) slots you hike though the entire day. Because you follow a stream bed, it's a nice downhill hike and for 10 of the 13 miles you see nothing but nature - no other human beings.

After a 20 minute 4-wheel drive through some rugged back country and a 1 mile hike to the "jump off" point, you rappel 125' to the bottom of Orderville Canyon. Below, you'll continue with a 10 mile trek to the Zion Virgin River Narrows and another 3 mile hike down the Narrows. Orderville Canyon is a beautiful slot canyon formed by millions of years of erosion by a tributary of the Virgin River. Canyoneers spend the majority of their hike walking through a small stream that runs the course of the canyon. At several locations in the Canyon, the stream forms small pools and waterfalls. You'll have to use your ingenuity to swim, forge, or circumvent these obstacles. During the last three miles of the hike, Orderville Canyon joins the main Zion Canyon Narrows Hike, which is formed by the North Fork of the Virgin River. Our canyoneering team is then met by a shuttle van at the Temple of Sinawava parking lot in the heart of Zion National Park as we finish our day long rappelling and hiking adventure.

Hiker's Notes and Recommendations can be found at the bottom of the page, or Click HERE.

Life Experience Diary.
July 30th.
(Times are approximate, but close).

9:00A. We began our canyoneering experience meeting our local guides at the Zion Ponderosa activities center. Whoops! They forgot to mention we need a U.S. Park Service backcountry permit from the National Parks Service, even though the trip originates on private land.

10:30A. We're back from the main Zion National Park Visitors Center with the backcountry permit in hand. (Sure would have been good to know this yesterday, since we went right by the Visitors Center on the way to the Zion Ponderosa). We load up in 4-wheel drive vehicles and set off on our trek.

11:30A. We've driven 5 miles of backcountry dirt roads and about another 5 miles of what seem to be a narrow dirt trail through stream beds and dry brush. After unloading our daypacks and rappelling gear, we hike in about 1 mile to the beginning of Orderville Canyon. Guides from Zion Ponderosa set up our 125' rappel down into the Canyon. (They use a self adjusting anchor with twin 10mm static kermantle rappel lines, blue mountain harnesses, leather gloves, and helmet. Instead of a figure 8, they use a locking carabineer with SBG. It makes for a very slow rappel, but that may be what a commercial outfit wants...).

12:15P. Everyone has completed the rappel. As we look back up the cliff, we can see that we just rappelled down a dry waterfall. One of the guides says they often come down after a rain - rappelling right in the waterfall. We say good-bye to our Zion Ponderosa guides - they are not allowed to accompany folks on the Canyoneering trip under some antiquated Park Service rules.

The trail is simple however, just keep following the dry stream bed downstream. When you come to water, follow it downstream, too!

1:30P. We've walked a little over an hour and the cliffs surrounding us have gone from 125' high to over 300-400'. Beautiful red rock, dry vegetation. We stop for lunch, all sitting on a flat rock along the side of the trail. The way the cliffs have been cut by water forms incredible, colorful shapes and shadows.

2:30P.  The canyon is getting much deeper and narrower now. The cliffs are 500' or more high and only 20' wide at a number of places. Wow. What incredible red, orange, gold, brown and other colorations. 

We come up to the first of a number of "obstacles" we have to cross. This is a 15' straight drop where a boulder had blocked the canyon bottom and rock, gravel, and sand filled in behind. Fortunately we have a 30' piece of webbing with us to use as a down-climbing line and a permanent tie-off has been anchored into the rock wall. 

3:30P. We've come through an incredible stretch of red rock narrows, so deep you could not see the top and less than 10' wide a points. Sure glad it is a bright sunny day. I can see flood water marks at least 40' above our heads. A small spring is now feeding a tiny stream along our trail.

4:00P. The tiny stream has become larger, taking up more and more of the width of the canyon which is still only 10' wide at spots. We have walked up to another obstacle. This one is a huge boulder that rock, gravel, and sand has again filled in behind on the upstream side where we are. When we look up, there's another huge bolder lodged into the canyon walls maybe 25' above our heads. Sort of a tunnel in the canyon. We have to climb down another 15' and just barely get around the pool of water at the bottom.

4:30. We've come upon another obstacle. This one isn't as high (maybe 10'), but, HEY! there's a pool of water at the bottom that stretches the width of the canyon! Plus there's no tie off for our webbing. We get wet. The water was about 3' deep. Fortunately again was a warm sunny day.

5:30. Well, we've had to cross two or three more obstacles with water over 6' deep and no way around. We had to jump in and swim out. Sure glad we brought zip lock bags for the stuff we wanted to keep dry. (Also, we could have put our day packs into a large trash bag to keep them dry and lowered them to the pool.)

The most fun, though initially scary, obstacle was a water fall that turned out to be a water slide! On one side was a 20' or more overhung drop. Too difficult to try with webbing. On the other was a waterfall with no place to tie off webbing. But, being ingenious, we wrapped the webbing around a large boulder (probably 3' diameter and wedged in at the top of the falls) and carefully lowered ourselves into the waterfall and then drop the last few feet into the deep pool of water. BREATHTAKING is a good way to describe it! Kind of very cold water and the sun is not finding its way to the bottom of the canyon much anymore this late in the day.

The stream is much larger now, regularly taking up all of the canyon width (remember though, the slot canyon is only 50' wide on average).

6:30P. Now we see an incredible sight. Orderville Canyon intersects with the Zion Narrows (Virgin River) Canyon. Orderville is about 20' wide and the Narrows probably 50' wide. But, look up. It's easily 500' to the top of these straight cliffs. It's incredible. One notch right into another - no slanting back of the walls or gentle slop from the top to the bottom. You think "sure hope there's no upstream dam breaking" because it would be quite a ride downstream!

7:00P. The Virgin River fills the Zion Narrows through out this part of the hike. Its only a 6-12 inches deep (but there are 3' deep holes that pop up frequently, so use a walking stick to feel the river bottom before stepping). It's getting late in the day, but this time of year sunset is pretty late. Fortunately, there is a full moon tonight if anything else goes wrong...

We're stopped along the path by a strange sort of fellow, who asks if we are Christian and began a long tale of how the tribulation is upon us based upon a dream he had involving a cable television cartoon. Because Christ himself said we would not know the time or place of his return and since it was near sunset and some in our group were getting concerned, we excused ourselves and moved on downstream. ---It's always best to stick strictly to God's Word in the Bible in such matters. Adding manmade features such as cartoons isn't included.  

7:45P. We come upon the paved walkway to the Sinawava parking lot in the Park's Narrow area. Whew! What a relief! Yes, it was all downhill following the stream beds, but that last 2 miles felt like much more! It was constant crossing from one side of the river to the other as the trail ended and picked up again on the opposite bank. Plus we had just hiked a bunch!

It takes about 1/2-hour to walk the last mile on the walkway to the parking lot. 

8:15P. We get to the Sinawava parking lot and fill our water bottles again. We made the mistake of carrying only a quart per person and ran out 2-3 hours earlier. We should have taken twice as much. Yes, it would be heavy, but it sure is nice to have along the way...

A park service bus picks us up and begins a slow drive through a number of drop off points back to the main Visitor's Center. 

9:00P. At the Visitor's Center a Zion Ponderosa driver has been waiting for us (for an hour or two!). She takes us back to the camp.

9:30P. Our canyoneering day is finally over. Tired, we sit down for dinner (been a while since lunch) and reminisce a bit. We all say "Wow! What an incredible trip!", but it will be even more incredible to get to bed!

Hiker's Notes: Although it was the middle of the summer, the water temperature was quite cool and we began to get cold as night fell. Remember to pack additional layering. Take at least 2 pieces of 30' webbing or rope to traverse the obstacles (one was not enough!) There is a lot of water the last 3-4 hours of the hike - bring a backpack water filter and you can cut down on the weight you must carry. Do not underestimate your water needs - 1-1/2 or 2 quarts per person will be needed. Water is available near the tram pick-up point in the Temple of Sinawava parking lot in Zion National Park, but this is at the end of the hike.

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