COMING SOON HOUSE ADVERTISING ads_leader
Horseshoe Bend
The Colorado river just downstream from the Glen Canyon dam. I left an expensive raincoat on a bus somewhere in South America a couple of months ago. I left a favourite cap on a bus in Rio a month ago. I left way too much many at the roulette tables in Vegas a few days ago. And I left my soul in Lake Powell the first time I visited it many years ago. This time I left the tooth that was pulled in Buenos Aires there as well. I'm not sure whether this violates the 'pack out all that you take in' rules of visiting the park, but I'm pretty sure that worse things have been left there.
The lake was formed in 1963 after the construction of the environmentally contentious Glen Canyon dam, one of many dams along the Colorado river that provide power and water to much of the stunning but otherwise inhospitable south west. It extends nearly 200 miles back up the Colorado into Utah and fills a number side canyons off the main course of the Colorado. For nearly as much money as we (or more accurately I) lost in Vegas we hired a powerboat for the day and cruised the lake. After 10 years of
The Narrows
Entrance to the narrows. The white coloured rock shows how much the water level in the lake has fallen over the last decade. drought conditions the lake has seen better days. Canyon walls that have been exposed as the water level falls are a sandy white whilst the rock that has always been exposed to the fierce sun is orange/red. This leaves an unsightly scar on the rock some 100ft above current water levels. When the lake is full the sight of warm blue waters lapping against sheer orange rock is sublime. The channel from the marina to the neighbouring Warm Creek bay is now solid land and to get anywhere we have to spend an hour being bounced around in the Narrows, a choppy channel that links the main bay to the rest of the lake. This does not do C's recovering back any favours but we both survive the experience without being either paralysed or sunk. Many of the little coves we visited the last time we were here three years ago are now well above ground. Nevertheless we did eventually find a narrow side canyon that became our exclusive piece of peace and quiet, swimming in cool waters under a fierce 100 degree sun for the remainder of the day.
C has a more balanced appreciation of the sights
Canyon Cruising
The slow putter up a side canyon off the Colorado river at Lake Powell. we have seen around the world, and believe me what we have seen has been breathtaking, but if someone told me that I had to live the rest of my life here I would not be shedding any tears about it. Sadly those nice people in U.S. Immigration would have something to say about it and we don't qualify for any right of residence that I know of, and believe me I've looked into it.
Leaving Vegas on the I-15 north, popping in and out of Utah and linking up eventually with route 89A, the journey to the lake is also impressively scenic. The roads skirt the Grand Canyon to the north though we declined the 60 mile or so detour that would have taken us to the north rim. We've seen the Grand Canyon before and, impressive as it is, it doesn't hold a candle to some of the lesser known sights in this part of the world. The 89A takes us round the base of the Vermillion Cliffs, colourful and dramatic in their own right, before crossing the Colorado just down stream of the Marble Canyon. The road climbs up an escarpment which affords majestic, though un-photogenic
views of those same Vermillion Cliffs, across from the great scar the Colorado carves into the plain, before we cross the ridge and descend down into Page, the town founded to house the Glen Canyon dam construction workers. We also declined the opportunites to visit the brilliant Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park, both worthy stops, such is the lure of the north eastern Arizona and south eastern Utah landscapes.
After Lake Powell we travel on, passing quickly by the garage where I refueled a petrol engined car with diesel on our last vist, to Monument Valley, a Navajo tribal park that straddles the Arizona/Utah border to the east of the Grand Canyon. Arizona is the state with the largest amount of land given over to native American reservations, semi autonomous lands subject to federal but not state government. The Navajo reservation is the biggest of these and there is even a Hopi reservation contained within the Navajo reservation. Monument Valley will be familiar to fans of old John Wayne and Back to the Future II movies, featuring as it does red rock mesas and buttes towering out of the desert plain. It's hot, desolate, surreal, and unmissable. The
The Colorado River
Winding its way round a horseshoe bend down river from Glen Canyon dam just outside Page. park itself is run by the Navajo people, and if I were told that I could visit only one place in the world this would be it. I would of course be living on Lake Powell at the time.
This land is the
antarctic, on fire.
COMING SOON HOUSE ADVERTISING ads_leader_blog_bottom
Tot: 0.214s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 26; qc: 111; dbt: 0.1084s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
mike
non-member comment
what to pack?
we have a group going in July. 7 day trip 2 house boats. we like to keep it simple but smart! thanks mike