Zion-Bryce-Grand Canyon

*This story has been posted with Isabel’s permission. She said she wants the world to know what a badass she is.*

As previously detailed, we hiked The Narrows Monday. I told the kids before we started that this would be our physically most demanding day. I had no idea.

We rented e-bikes in town so we could avoid the lines for the park shuttles (think Disney World at peak). E-bikes rock. I’m a new fan.

It is about an hour ride to the trailhead and Isabel, the great independent spirit that she is, asked if she could ride ahead of us. 1) She’s a good rider, 2) the only real traffic in the park are shuttles, and when they approach, bikers are required to pull to the side of the road and stop, and 3) it was a single road up to the trailhead. She wouldn’t get lost. I was fine with it. Off she went. A while later, Bodhi and I round a bend and see her off her bike. “Mama, I chipped my tooth.”

She’d fallen on some loose gravel. Amazingly, AMAZINGLY, she wasn’t scraped up too badly (other than the huge chunk of tooth now gone).

She was shaken up and we started to turn back. She was afraid to get back on her bike immediately and wanted to walk the bikes at first. This wasn’t going to work though because e-bikes are heavy and it was fricking hot—and we were about seven miles from the start. We had almost reached the trailhead.

So we found some shade and chilled for a few minutes. And then, again amazingly, she decided she wanted to keep going to The Narrows. So she got back on that bike like the badass she is, finished the ride, and then did the hike.

The Narrows is a slot canyon through which the Virgin River runs. Hiking it has been described as walking on submerged bowling balls, and I’d say that tracks. To get to the water, there is a 1-mile paved hike that is utter misery in the heat. So it wasn’t an easy time.

But the kids and I had so much fun. I hoped they would like it but to see them marvel at it was thrilling for me, especially as a mom who sees them usually glued to their screens. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I’m so grateful we were able to do it and that Isabel persevered through something truly frightening and shocking.

Her tooth seems to be holding its own. I’ve spoken with my mother-in-law, who is a former dental hygienist, and Izzy’s dentist’s office, and we have a plan in place if things take a turn for the worse. But for now, we forge on and we’ll see the doc the day after we get back.Read more