Imlay Map

The approach hike starts from the Grotto up the Angle's Landing trail (solid red) to Scout Lookout (yellow diamond), then north

along the West Rim trail (solid red) before heading cross country.  Three hours of scrambling and bushwhacking up and over a

pass (dashed red) brings you to the Imlay "Crossroads" (faint yellow diamond), a decent place to camp.  Imlay ends on a rock

platform 120ft above the Zion Narrows (yellow diamond).  Once down, you have a good hour of river walking (dashed red) to

get back out to the trail (solid red) where it's a short walk back to the shuttle bus stop at the Temple of Sinawava.

Shoulder of Angel's Landing

... and the Main Zion Canyon

Long way to go

The route is pretty much straight ahead along the ridge and then through the leftmost notch

Burnt log and colorful fall foliage

Heading down into Imlay

Steep in spots

Lowering the packs down a chimney

Short narrows section above the campsite

Looks fun, but we wanted to stay dry until the next morning.

Whacko place for a tree

How can it possibly grow there?

Beautiful sculpting

There's our campsite ’Äì the cave up ahead

Camp sweet camp

Plenty of room to spread out

and a nice sandy spot for sleeping

Pool and slot upstream from the cave

Stars in the narrow slit visible from the cave

Sunrise from inside the cave

Cooking breakfast

Now the real fun begins

Sandbar between pools

Swimming through a debris choked pool

Towering walls above

Beautiful and wet narrows section

Rigging one of the many rappels

Down I go

The famous simul rap around the arch

You can just see a glimpse of the groove cut by ropes at the base of the column

Rigging the rappel

from a bolt to avoid scarring the rock further

Strange and beautiful coloring

in a deep dark cavern

A brief open area

in between the two narrows sections

Starting the final narrows section

Dan comes down a short slippery rap

The final steep section

Arriving at the Virgin River overlook

Notice the hiker down below

Dan standing at the brink

and looking far too casual

Rigging the final long rappel

Here goes!

Yahoo!  A free rappel after the first 20 ft.

Down in the Virgin River narrows

Time to relax, just hiking from here

Starting to open up

Back at the Tempel of Sinawava

just as the sun is disappearing