Lake Powell

LAKE POWELL By JOYCE ROCKWOOD MUENCH Photographs by Josef Muench

In the wings of a small plane four of us were aloft in the clear sunlight of early morning. Water below us might have been plate glass reflecting with stabbing clarity the strange redrock formations rising here and there and merging into cliffs around the edge. The only object moving on the waters was our shadow, hardly larger than a Gypsy Moth. It fluttered as we passed over the rock islands or painted cliffs. There was no eluding its playful game of tag, or the continual reminder of how small we were on the vast desert landscape. Yet even more than the immensity, it was the newness of the scene which amazed us. Far below, underneath the glazed face of the water was the Glen Canyon which we had known. Some fifteen years ago and how many times since, we had followed the winding course of the Colorado River through a wilderness, then remote and complete. The walls, sometimes rising eighteen hundred feet above us and always wearing the erosion-embroidery, the "Tapestry," had shut out all of the now visible larger, even more splendid realm. We had come this time, frankly mourning the death of Glen Canyon and with no intention of being easily pleased by whatever the upstart Lake Powell might have to offer. Yet, after one breathtaking view, we had surrendered. It was love at first sight. There was no denying the magnificence of the natural architecture, the shadowed side gorges with a hint of water as we whizzed by. The elaborate contours, the brilliant coloring, the potent allure of fantastic whole was more than we could resist.

As a touch of breeze began to ruffle the deep waters, splintering the reflections as in a broken mirror, words of the wise old tentmaker came back to me: "Ah, my Beloved, fill the cup that clears "Today' of past regrets and future fears."

Water is the wine of the desert and the "cup," Lake Powell, was being filled. Glen Canyon, as we had seen it, was gone into the past. As for our fears, it was already apparent that we had exchanged remembered grandeur for a still larger measure of it. Where mere handsful of people had enjoyed the canyon with, its dangers and difficulty of access, thousands, or even millions would delight in Lake Powell and be able to come here to find refreshment and recreation. For the one hundred and sixty-two miles of Glen, which we had turned in as old coin, there were being issued one hundred and eighty-six miles of lake with an indented shoreline of 1800 miles. No one is going to see all of that in a hurry, nor ever really exhaust its surprises.

Many readers will be asking themselves, "Where is this new water playground?" and perhaps with a double-take, "What do you mean 1800 miles of shore-line? Why that is as much as two-thirds across the continent!” A brief review of geography may be in place.

line? Why that is as much as two-thirds across the continent!” A brief review of geography may be in place.

The Colorado River, master stream of the Southwest, third longest river in the United States, has been called variously, pioneer-delayer, rock sculptor, trouble-maker (if you can blame it for lengthy interstate legal battles over who shall have its water to use). Its water comes down out of the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming and Colorado into Utah, nicks off a corner of northwestern Arizona before making the border with Nevada and then California, finally emptying into the Gulf of California under the Mexican flag. The Green River, actually larger but still considered a tributary and headwaters, wriggles through eastern Utah south from Wyoming. In Southeastern Utah the two join forces in the presence of cliffs almost two thousand feet high, right in the heart of the proposed Canyonlands National Park. Cataract Canyon carries the joint stream southwest and the lower part of its tumultuous white-water run will be smoothed by the extreme head of the new lake, with many side canyons fingering from the main body in Glen Canyon. New Mexico contributes the San Juan River, already tamed by Navajo Dam, east of Farmington, and Utah makes its principal addition through the Escalante River. Until the model town of Page sprang into being as construction town, operation headquarters, and tourist center, overlooking Glen Canyon Dam, there was no real settlement the length of Glen, and more. There was one highway, at Hite where a small ferry made a link in Utah State 95. Boats could put in the water there or at Lees Ferry, an historic site now fourteen miles below the dam.

People can be excused for not knowing where and what Glen Canyon was. Expecting a million annual visitors to change that, the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area was established and is being developed as rapidly as such an immense project can practicably be. Visitors need not, however, wait on full development of facilities. From the moment the Bureau of Reclamation plugged the lower diversion tunnel on January 21, 1963, Lake Powell was in business. It continues to stretch its arms, lazily when the run-off from above is at its minimum, flexing muscles when snow or rainfall feeds it faster.

Long before the water began to back up, other changes in the landscape were apparent. U.S. Highway 89 left the tinted plateau through which the Colorado River's Marble Gorge runs, switchbacked the steep Echo Cliffs and piercing the crest by a dramatically engineered “V” arrived topside at the site of Page on

"mist,” part of seven million fingerlings the Arizona Fish and Game Commission is planting. Impressed already by this land where fish drop from the air and water runs uphill, we basked in the sunshine as the boats scooted along, rather like frisky ponies, switching frothy white manes and kicking up their heels in the freedom of a clear run.

Spring Canyon, among the first we headed into, was hardly more than a bay. The red walls went straight up from the water and as we swung around to ride out again, a great pediment was visible, sharply delineated above the canyon entrance which looked for a moment as though it had closed behind us, the rock sloping down to a tight “V.” Not many miles beyond is the wide opening of Last Chance Canyon, enlarged by the lake waters into an expansive bay or arm. Great buttes stand back on their rolling peneplain of slickrock, and the horizon is high, along the tops of mesas which stretch clear off into the distance.

Fifty-Mile or West Canyon, opposite the Fifty-Mile Mesa takes the name because this is mile fifty as distance has always been figured on the Colorado, either up or downstream from mile “O” at Lees Ferry. The corridor turned this way and that with some new facet opening at each turn, some fresh play of light on the massive walls. I was reminded of some funhouse, more elaborate but quite as unexpected, although Nature had probably no intention of being either amusing or entertaining when she constructed it. Although there was really nothing to tell us so, in our twisting canal, we felt we were “climbing” and must eventually reach a point beyond which the water could not go. When we did, the boatmen had some magic of their own to offer. On a sandy spit, shaded by a great rock overhang and generously branching cottonwood tree for part of the stage set, they brought out a long flat board which acquired pipe legs with a few twists of the wrist and an open-air cafeteria lunch was laid out as though by the wave of a wand. The balmy air, reminiscent of one of Hawaii's most pleasant days, plus the ever present breeze on the water, had, we found, built our appetites to concert pitch.

Camping on the banks of the river in the “old” Glen Canyon had always been a matter of sandbar cum willows with night pulling down the blinds long before we had tired of looking at the scenery. The lake has covered all those favorite sites and lifted the procedure onto a new level, both literally and figuratively. There is a quite unreal look about the slickrock which billows and rolls. Evening and morning calm touches the lake with a soothing hand, doubling the effects by reflection and emphasizing the clarity of the air. A lion couchant overlooked our camp near Aztec Creek (up Forbidden Canyon leading to Rainbow Bridge), and a tomblike monument of gargantuan dimensions stood behind, perhaps the object of his vigilance. Sliver-thin, the moon grew brighter and brighter as the sky paled into baby blue and then slid through graduations of lavender to purple to black. Above us the velvet canopy was now sprinkled with stars. When dinner chores were over, sleeping bags on their canvas cots; photographers had readied cameras for the morning and checked their notes; boats were safely anchored like a covey of sleeping waterbirds, bobbing slightly below us, then came that moment of truth which binds the most widely assorted of people into a camping "party." Driftwood burned in a pleasant fire and voices took on almost a whisper to die out entirely when Al and Ouida Ball were accompanied by his guitar in one western song after another. Across a little arm of water another fire gleamed, a glowing, golden cup of light in the sable night. When we had scattered to our individual "rooms," content at last to let the panoply of stars continue on their way without supervision, we slept, secure in the knowledge that this new Lake Powell was not only a worthy successor to Glen Canyon, but a place of singular beauty, where we might find perhaps serenity, a retreat spacious enough to insure some solitude, and a really extraordinary setting. Nowhere on the globe is there a place like it.

Each of the following six mornings opened onto new adventure. From camp we traveled up or down-lake, hunting out special canyons and finding that no two of them were alike. In Lone Pine Canyon, where a small but possibly ancient conifer looks out from its eyrie in a rockcrack, hanging gardens were festooned with fern and columbine. Perhaps standing on some earthfault or fracture line, this side gorge specialized in large and small overhangs where seeping water could nurture informal plantings. If no actual spring bubbled out, the rocks could still husband a supply for the vividly green growth, always a matter for amazement in a desert land. Coming from the brilliance of the sunlight, which doubled as it bounced off red walls, shady grottos were as invisible as seats in a darkened theater. As the eye adjusted, nests of verdure seemed to spring into existence. One moment there was just a dark line in the deepest part of a cave and presto! a palely lavender and white columbine nodded its head from a bed of lacy fern fronds.

There are "magic lantern" effects as well. Light bounces the intricate pattern of moving water onto the ceiling of an overhang. As the boat moves through it, rearranging the circles and squares, a many-segmented "caterpillar" seems to move, and behind it, the design reverts to its kaleidescopic form.

Driftwood Canyon greeted us with a "gate" of logs, branches, river flotsam through which each boat pushed cautiously, its engine cut-out, and every passenger scanned the floating debris in hopes of finding a shapely piece to take home for table decoration.

On the opposite shore we rode into Cathedral Canyon under a spacious amphitheater with all the feeling of a cathedral dome, its quiet as well as "tapestried" walls preface to more inner chambers; rock cloisters they might be called. In one of these we tied the boats together to make a floating cafeteria, passing piled-up plates instead of walking by the "counter." Never, however, completely confined to the boats, we could get out and stretch our legs every now and then, hunt out a spring offering of shy flowers. There were cactus in bloom, a yucca with white panicle of lilies, and the luminous green of the Redbud Tree, hung with flat brown seedpots. In Pickax Canyon, where some early miner had left his tool to rust some years before, we disturbed a beaver family and watched them making long underwater swims between surfacings to see if we had left. Less industrious than his relatives in colder climates where an underwater house is necessary every winter, the beaver here nests in shrubby holes on the banks, finding food among the willows. They do however build dams when they settle in such places as Lake Canyon affords with a small running stream and ample supplies of small trees to cut and drag into place. They will now all be moving up canyon and are no doubt puzzled by the changes they find in a world which had seemed so settled and secure always before. On many of the walls we had noticed arches, some just taking shape in the leisurely manner of rock erosion. Watermarkings behind the span indicate that it was being shaped and eventually would offer yet another wonder. Little Arch Canyon boasts one already perfected, hanging on a cliff rim. At the proper angle the camera can catch a glint of blue sky, and the span itself must be supported by sky-hooks. Not all of the canyons breaking off from Glen are narrow, tortuous ones. One of the large ones, well deserving the term of lake arm, is the San Juan River, the mouth already captured by the lake. Arriving at it, the uninitiated is grateful for the sign indicating which is the main body and which leads more northeast in the direction of the famous Great Goose Necks. Rocks piled in tremendous broken cliff faces here look old and worn. Whole sections show the Desert Varnish, always an indication that there has been no shift of position or drop-off of stone for at least the incalcuably long time needed for this slow leaching-out process that produces a heavy black coating. Some of the walls appeared to be leaning back away from the vertical line and they bulged out in interesting contours. To add variety were big blocks, set squarely one layer on another with conspicuous striations and considerable hardy vegetation peppering every level ledge. An embayment with a green spot in the center was a hint to fill our containers with springwater. It came in a steady, trilling little stream out of a bower of dripping rocks and ferns. We landed, clambering first over boulders, then strolled through a little oak woods along a trail punctuated by elk thistle to find a deep little pool noisy with frogs. As a suggestion of the plants which appropriate such pleasant nooks, I noted down some to remember. There were redbud, currant, grizzly bear cactus, mormon tea, prince's plume in addition to the many small oaks, willows and thistle. As we proceeded upstream on the San Juan Arm we were aware of the vividly green tones of the water. The lake has a chameleon-like ability of shifting its coloring. Sometimes the reason is apparent. It may be that on an open stretch the sky dictates blue with as many graduations as early or late light, calm or windy air decide; again the red-brown cliffs can be admiring themselves and cast their shade as far as they can reach, making the water look like the muddy Colorado used to be. When a shaft of sunlight comes down into a narrow gorge, there the water may be chartreuse. In reflected light we saw the rich old-gold of polished bronze, and out on the lake a cobalt blue with goldtipped waves. Here it was deep and wide and we watched the seagreen lighten to the almost milky-white of a glacial stream. The seventy-six miles of lake water expected here will reach almost to the Goosenecks. Signs on the land approach to a lookout from Utah 261 already indicate that it is included in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Navajo Dam has already taken much of the silt from this river which had formerly been the biggest contributor of silt to the Colorado River below the junction with the Green. Float trips will now end on the San Juan where Lake Powell begins. Farther upstream it will offer such adventures as a controlled flow of clear water may still hold. There will always be camping and picnic spots in the arm and the scenery is splendid, wild, and colorful. Another large arm and long famous for its flashfloods, is the Escalante. It has its source near the Aquarius Plateau and is named, as is the town on its banks in Potato Valley, for the Spanish priest, scribe for an exploratory trip from Santa Fe toward Monterey, California. In December of 1776 the party made their famous crossing of the Colorado in Glen Canyon. Seen from the lake side it has a commanding entrance with caves set high on the big cliffs. A trail leads up a handsome dune, draped from cliff rim to shoreline, where an airstrip is used by river parties coming in for downstream trips or to explore the upper reaches of the canyon. Seen from the air the canyon burrows back toward its source like a worm trying to get under cover. A series of fascinating arches and bridges make it a goal for hikers and it will always be one of the popular areas, now reached comfortably from the water. As we saw it in our boats, it was big and beautiful with cascades of greenery every now and then. When the water became shallow motors were shut off and we poled for some more of the canyon before beaching and starting off afoot feeling the rapturous and enthralling beauty of the place. Side thrusts break into the channel and we took an unnamed one, mounting over the slickrock course of an ephemeral streambed, now completely dry. This meant a scramble with some pushing and pulling on everyone's part over two dry waterfalls, skirting a shallow pool alive with darting black polywogs, and arriving finally at a magnificent canyonhead where a cave arched at one side and Moqui steps went over a rim. Walls were modeled into foldings which caught light in half a dozen different facets to give them graduated shadings; luminous gold, delicate pinks. This whole realm of inner canyons, many of them without a name and frequented only by wildlife to judge by tracks and the condition of the grass, adds another whole dimension to Lake Powell. An inveterate hiker could spend a lifetime hunting up spots which will never be seen by more than a few of his own kind.

It seemed to us that one of the most fascinating of the canyons was Hidden Passage. It is shielded from view, as boats ply the lake waters, by a wall running parallel to the river and so easy to miss entirely. After one visit it is recognizable by a tall pylon and broad domed shapes outside. Within, the water turns between great walls to reach another of the spacious amphitheaters which have the acoustics Hollywood Bowl can envy. We noticed in passing, some fine stone fretwork that had just a hint of the decoration on an Austrian Castle, half a world away.

Twilight Canyon keeps the promise of its name too. Almost a labyrinth, bending back on itself in several horseshoe curves as walls overhead bend toward each other, shutting out direct sunlight except at brief times dictated by the season and hour of the day. When we ran out of water and left the boats behind, the floor of the tunnel" was covered with rocks which had been tumbled to admirable shapes and smoothness through flashfloods of countless seasons. No plants could survive, making it a world reduced entirely to rock, above and below but still leading on and gently up. We kept following one bend after another, calling attention to the delicate tinting of the walls, the soft effects of water markings, bas-reliefs made by wind-borne sand and the chiseling which made the most of cross-bedding to produce shapes of sunbursts, faces, and impressionistic designs.

Recalling one after another, the many canyons which we ventured into, brings back the interesting names until the whole series, some lovely ones yet unchristened, take on the effect of a rosary, or one might call them the bangles strung on the necklace of the long, spreading lake. Each tide gives a hint either of its formation, some special effect, an historical incident. Up Lake Canyon, in addition to some fascinating little prehistoric houses (to which you can easily hike) one at least weaving its original roof, a dry lakebed can be found. Dangling Rope, though the rope is gone, starts the imagination haring off to fit a tale of danger and perhaps ultimate rescue. Face Canyon wears a heavy rock profile at its entrance, Oak has an unusual number of the genus Quercus, Cathedral is notable for domed amphitheaters, False Entrance keeps one guessing at the proper entrance. Dungeon is dark and awesome, Labyrinth winds and winds, narrower and more twisty than most. In Music Temple the water covers the big chamber with its fine acoustics as well as autographs of Powell's first party. One half expects bells to ring out as they do in the song about the drowned city.

Hole-in-the-Rock, a mere canyon-top notch was the pathway, laboriously fashioned into a one-way, one-time road for a large party of exploring Mormons. Steep enough seen from the water, the slit takes on an even more perilous look seen from a plane. It is hard to believe that even those dauntless pioneers could have pushed their cattle, household goods, singing, we are told, in the evenings after another day of struggle with the rugged country, Rainbow Bridge is perhaps the fairest of all, jewels to which the new lake offers access. Back in 1936-my photographer husband had hiked there from Rainbow Lodge, the famous old starting point for mule-back trips over the flanks of Navajo Mountain. He signed the registry book as the 2,399th name since people began to sign after its discovery in 1909. By 1963 there were over 22,000 autographs. Many of those are repeats so that in roughly half a century only a few thousand have had the rare privilege of holding in their own eyes the world's largest natural stone bridge. The trip was stren uous, whether by land over either trail (the earliest and now again in use from Navajo Mountain Trading Post where Ralph and Madeline Cameron run horseback trips) or up Forbidden Canyon from the river. Four days was about the minimum for exercising that privilege.

Ser in moulded and bulging rocks which lift ukimately to the black mound of Navajo Mountain, it has a grace, a perfection, a wholeness seldom found on our our globe. The rainbow itself, symbol of hope and beautiful for its strong swoop, is here materialized in reddish-brown sandstone, retinted by spotlighting sun, softened by shadows, rendered magical under the moon. Withal it is still stable, comfortingly rooted in the crust of the earth. The archetype of all rainbows, it soars to the proscenium arch which is forty-two feet thick and 309 feet above the little meandering Aztec Creek entrenched under its feet.

You may view it variously along trails, on higher points, or from below where only a tantalizing bit may show. I was almost surprised to find the quiet unbroken, for since my last visit, before Glen Canyon Dam was begun, there has been such a noisy storm of controversy raging about it. Yet the facts themselves are quieting. A benchmark near the registry book, shadowed by the Bridge proclaims the elevation as 3.732 feet above sea level. That is thirty-two feet above the maximum envisaged for the lake level. No, Rainbow Bridge will never be flooded by the lake, nor will flashfloods from the mountain canyons carry it off. Engineers, with their objective viewpoint, have reported they see no inherent danger either to foundation or total structure even if water plays in the ravine below.

The Department of the Interior has made a state ment in response to queries, numerous enough to hide the whole bridge if all the letters and wires were dumped on it from a plane. Briefly they make three points. First, under the Colorado River Storage Project Act of 1956, the Department was assigned the responsibility of construction of such works as to prevent the lake water from entering the monument. Secondly, Congress (basically that means you and me) has not seen fit to appropriate the necessary money for any construction of dams or diversion tunnel. Thirdly, the Department continues to include the expense in their budget. Meanwhile it is probably the verdict of the engineers which has made Congress hesitate to spend some twenty-five million dollars until the need is proved, not just specu lated by laymen.

No brief article is broad enough to treat all of Lake Powell,, nor should the impression be given that it is merely a succession of canyons connected by narrow water in the lake. There are broad stretches and oper, tremendous vistas. The canyons which break off on one side or the other seem more numerous, particularly along the north shores below Aztec Creek, but there are others above, as well. Anyone who wanted merely the feeling of the expansive lake itself will have, remember, 186 miles of open water. The scenery is of a fine order and quite various. Tapestry walls, the ever and anon canyon entrances, the buttes; mesas and more distinct mountain peaks lend it further change. Dates on the complete filling of the lake are difficult for engineers to figure or for the laymen to wheedle from officials. In practice, they matter little except to boatmen wishing to enter the water far up.

More will be said in treating the Recreation Area about approach roads and future facilities both for launching and for camping. Presently boats go above Moqui Canyon which is is above Hall's Crossing and find glimpses of peaks in the Henry Mountains on the skyLine. Famous spots where mining efforts were made are in view with here and there an unimproved set of jeep tracks climbing toward the skyline. Early and late light puts the seal of tranquility and majesty on these open views. One rides along, marveling anew at the landscape.

Having revisited Glen Canyon and been completely conquered by the wonders of Lake Powell so that my enthusiasm, tinged with amazement overflows to anyone who cares to listen, I rather want to stand on some high point and using my biggest voice proclaim: "Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Lake Powell is open. Come and see for yourself the world's most dramatic lake. There will never be anything like it anywhere else. Come and play in the sunshine of America's finest and newest water playground. Lake Powell!