EDITOR'S LETTER

Of the planet bears little resemblance to our own," the script reads. "Much of it is obscured by cloud cover; even more of it appears to be cratered desert of reddish hue. We can, however, make out a few narrow 'green belts' and a patch of blue water."

"The topography

That's how Michael Wilson describes the view from outer space on page 4 of his 1967 screenplay for Planet of the Apes.

"In the final shots of this sequence," he continues, "we see the strange planet as it would be observed from a spacecraft plummeting from twenty thousand feet to one thousand feet. It appears that the ship will fall into a vast lake surrounded by soaring sandstone pinnacles. The water is blueblack, the pinnacles vermilion."

At the end of that action, in a parenthetical, Wilson writes: "This is the Lake Powell location, at Lone Rock."

If you've never been to the big lake, Lone Rock is a solitary monolith in the middle of Wahweap Bay, which is the launch point for many of the 3 million people who visit Powell every year. Some of them rent houseboats, others explore with kayaks and paddleboards, but they're all there for the same reason that Hollywood showed up: the breathtaking landscape. In his essay Reflecting on the Water, which we published in February 2008, writer Larry Cheek described the landscape as a "starkly dramatic juxtaposition of pink stone, sapphire sky and turquoise water."

Naturally, those shapes and colors have attracted more than just filmmakers and aquaphiles. Photographers from all over the world have made the pilgrimage, as well. One of the first was our own Josef Muench, who shot the lake for our January 1964 issue. "Nothing has given me the emotional thrill as a photographer as has Lake Powell," he said of the assignment.

In the decades since, we've sent dozens of others up there. And their work has filled books and calendars and magazine portfolios, including this month's portfolio. Most of the photographs this time are from longtime contributor Gary Ladd, but Jack Dykinga is in there, too. And so is Michael Melford, whose aerial shot barely beat our deadline - he was on assignment in India for National Geographic and couldn't send the photo until he got back on the grid.

As you'll see, the lake is beautiful. However, it comes with a price - a price some say was too high. Katie Lee is one of them. If you're a longtime reader of Arizona Highways, you know of Katie Lee we've been publishing her words since 1960. This month, we're publishing 877 more. They originally appeared as the prologue to All My Rivers Are Gone, her book about Glen Canyon, which disappeared with the creation of Lake Powell.

Whether you're a fan of the lake, or a sworn enemy, it's important to understand the significance of the world that existed there before the lake was created in 1963. Ms. Lee's prologue helps evoke that understanding. And so do the photographs of Tad Nichols.

In all, he made more than 4,000 photos of Glen Canyon. We feature a few In Images of a Lost World, a black and white portfolio that opens with his spectacular shot of West Canyon. "Peace and beauty and shade in the desert." That's how he described the photo.

As you flip through the pages, you'll see why those who knew the canyon, including Katie Lee, continue to mourn its loss. Yet, when you look at the gorgeous images of Lake Powell, it's easy to see why millions of people spend an average of 4.5 days on the lake - the longest duration of any national park in the country. There's a rigid dichotomy between those who love the lake and those who don't. Larry Cheek was among the latter, until our story assignment in 2008 forced him to contemplate his opposition.

"I never came here during the quarter-century that I lived in Arizona," he wrote. "I believed then, and now, that we humans hold a moral responsibility to tread as light as possible on the Earth. How can anyone reconcile that principle with the colossal bootprint of this desert lake?"

The question was rhetorical; however, after five days of kayaking on the lake, he did find some balance. In part by looking backward. "More than a millennium ago," he wrote, "the Hohokam created the largest canal system in North America in the valley that now cradles Phoenix." The Hohokams, the Sinaguans, the Anasazis... "It's dreamy naïveté to imagine that ancient Native Americans were more enlightened stewards than we are. We are rearranging nature whenever we design a garden, build a house or sculpt a figure out of stone or wood. If Lake Powell is, as Edward Abbey thought, 'the most beautiful reservoir in the world,' then it also serves as a stunning example of artistic success."

In the end, Larry concludes, the lake will prove to be a dramatic example of what we should or should not do. "All I know is that in this flicker of geologic time, I'm in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and no longer appalled."

That essay, by the way, won a national writing award. If you'd like to read it, it's on our website - I think everyone should read it. And if you'd like to watch Planet of the Apes, make sure you rent the original. Although Tim Burton's remake has some great visuals, the spaceship in that version crashes into a jungle, instead of Lake Powell. It's not the same. Not even close.