Kayaking Lake Powell

LAKE POWELL

It was our fifth day out. The toughest so far. Early that morning, we had embarked from our campsite in a cove across the channel from Gunsight Butte near the mouth of Gunsight Canyon at Lake Powell. Already a freshening breeze out of the west had put a chop on the water, which was cresting

LAKE POWELL.

(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 20 AND 21) With its 1,960 miles of shoreline, Lake Powell offers unlimited recreational opportunities. Our kayakers had only to paddle a short distance to explore canyons few others have seen.

occasionally to foamy whitecaps. We had taken the precaution of fastening the spray decks around the cockpits of our two-seater Feathercraft, a folding sea kayak, and cinching the spray skirts snugly around our chests, straps looped over our shoulders.

Now, in midafternoon, we are making slow headway against a wind gusting to an estimated 35 knots and waves running from two to four feet. Ahead of us, Terry and Bill Bendt, in their faster molded-polyethylene Fulbot sea kayak, paddle in unison, windblown beads of paddle spray reflecting in the declin-ing sunlight like miniature Roman candles as they stroke and turn, stroke and turn, "feathering" their paddles to reduce wind resistance.

Beyond them, standing on a point of land where he has beached his kayak, photographer Jack Dykinga waves us toward a sheltered inlet on the lee side of the spit. As Jack rounded the point and headed into rougher water, a strong wind gust had slammed the bow of his boat, perilously lifting it out of the water.

Discretion rules. More than 100 pounds of expensive camera gear and the photographic record of our week-long sea-kayak trip on Lake Powell are in Jack's boat, stowed beneath the deck of the front cockpit. We decide to stay put, cook our final camp supper on the spot, and, later, when the winds have subsided, paddle under a full moon the two miles or so to our first-night's campsite beneath Romana Mesa. That would place us, weather permitting, within an easy half-day's ride of Wahweap Marina where we had put in a week ago. Conversation at dinner is full of relief. We're bone wary and hot after a strenuous day, much of it under a blistering early June sun. And we're glad not to have been hit by rough weather early in the trip. Now, though, we're ready for anything. We feel really fit for paddling, and our confidence in the seaworthiness of our durable little boats is absolute. But for duties that call us home, we're ready to resupply and head out for another seven days.

A week ago, Wahweap Marina had been a beehive, the launch ramp jammed with trailers hauling boats big boats and small, plain and fancy: fishing boats, mega-horsepower waterskiing towboats, pontoon boats, hydroplanes. And tethered dockside was an assortment of cabin cruisers, houseboats, and tour boats. Curious onlookers gathered as we loaded up, many of whom, it seemed, had never before seen a kayak: "Where does the motor go?" "You mean you're really going out on the lake for a week in that?"

You can cram a lot of cargo in a sea kayak, which has more than four times the capacity of an expedition-size backpack, and you don't have to hoist the load onto your back. Our boats carried food and beverages for a week, eating and cooking utensils, clothing, tents, sleeping bags and pads, water purifiers and containers, and assorted extras, much of it packed in waterproof bags. Loading gets easier after the first time. My shipmate, Kate McCarthy, became adept at diving badger-like into the front cockpit to stuff things beneath the deck.

Essential extras included wide-brimmed sunhats, bandannas, and sunscreen lotions slathered on freely, especially after swimming. Lashed to the decks were flotation vests to don in rough seas and spare paddles. Nonessentials were a spinnaker sail rig with a nine-foot aluminum mast (never used), fishing gear and bait, and a Frisbee. Bill and Terry even had an extra passenger Nikki, their 14-yearold Hungarian vizsla, an ancient breed of hunting dog, which seemed content to ride with its head poking from the front cockpit, muzzle resting on the gunwale.

As we paddled out of the harbor that first day, we wallowed in the wakes and backwash of powerboats and jet skis, many of them defying navigational safety to get a closer look at our odd little self-propelled boats heading out into the great lake. Some of the large boats sailing up the main channel at 20 knots undoubtedly were bound for destinations many miles up the lake.

Traveling 10 times slower, our goals were more modest. We reckoned them not by distance but rather framed in questions like, "How long do youthink it'll take us to cross over to Castle Rock if the wind holds, and we paddle for stints of two hours with rest stops in between?” Let the big boats gulp the miles. Our aim was to see Lake Powell in ways that could only be imagined from the deck of a pontoon boat: to slip into the side canyons, the narrows, and slots where no powerboat had ever been. And to do that, we didn't have to travel far. The first day out in a sea kayak is a day of getting used to things: the rhythm of paddling, the pace and coordination needed to make a kayak glide smoothly through the water, steering with foot pedals attached to rudder cables, and minor idiosyncrasies in the handling of your boat. We concentrated on those things, but our enthusiasm for the vastness and beauty of the scene around us bubbled over, And we shouted our excitement and awe back and forth across the waters. Eons of wind and water erosion of the rock around Lake Powell, chiefly sandstone, have chiseled a fantastic geometry of cones, towers, buttes, mesas, minarets, cliffs, domes, obelisks, turrets, amphitheaters, grottoes, steeples, and fins, in many shades of gray, ocher, and mauve, all brought into stark relief by the sparseness of vegetation. Tamarisk, that hardy invader, grows everywhere, as do some other ground-hugging bushes and shrubs. And in a few of the steeper rincons, where green things are fed by ephemeral waterfalls, we saw occasional cottonwoods and oaks. Camp that night was in a quiet bay. We bathedandforth

Eons

around

Eeled

mesas, amphitheaters, shades

Stark Tamarisk, do

And occasional Camp Text

Continued from page 23 and swam, a ritual repeated many times each day during the trip, the water temperature being an ideal 70° to 75° F. Instant relief from the burning air temperatures, which twice during the week rose above 100° F. in Page, the nearest reporting station. Bill caught three striped bass, which were filleted on the spot and panfried for snacks before dinner. We took turns cooking, and that night Bill's spaghetti alla carbonara set the standard of excellence for the week. Each evening meal was a treat,

LAKE POWELL

With Kate and Terry easily carrying off the prize as backcountry gourmet cooking champs of the West. We pitied the houseboat denizens stuffing themselves with hot dogs, hamburgers, and potato chips, while we feasted on curried chicken, wild rice with shrimp, and linguine with clam sauce, served with wine perfectly chilled, sort of, in a mesh bag plunged to five fathoms. The next day, shakedown cruise now over, we put ourselves to the test. Paddling for six hours, with occasional rest stops to stretch, swim, snack, or snooze, we logged 12 to 15 miles. The effort was worth it. As we rounded Dominguez Butte and headed farther into Face Canyon, the sheer walls gradually narrowed upon us. Weaving our way through a scattering of small offshore islands, some no bigger than large boulders, we discovered a strip of sandy beach where we could land. On shore we found good shade, a tabletop rock outcropping where we could set up the camp kitchen, and level areas out of the wind for pitching our tents. It was the best campsite of the trip.

The next day, shakedown cruise now over, we put ourselves to the test. Paddling for six hours, with occasional rest stops to stretch, swim, snack, or snooze, we logged 12 to 15 miles. The effort was worth it. As we rounded Dominguez Butte and headed farther into Face Canyon, the sheer walls gradually narrowed upon us. Weaving our way through a scattering of small offshore islands, some no bigger than large boulders, we discovered a strip of sandy beach where we could land. On shore we found good shade, a tabletop rock outcropping where we could set up the camp kitchen, and level areas out of the wind for pitching our tents. It was the best campsite of the trip.

Across the channel, beyond the miniature archipelago, more sheer cliffs rose many hundreds of feet. Looming above the entire panorama stood Gregory Butte, probably five miles away but appearing deceptively close in this place of such stupendous scale that one's sense of perspective is distorted. The setting reminded me of photos I'd seen of the Mediterranean coast of Sicily. The others saw the Galapagos, even scenes from the Arctic. Enchanted, we stayed two nights.

Our third day out, we found what we had come for. We moved farther into Face Canyon, paddling lazily in our now empty kayaks, glad to rest our aching shoulder muscles. We poked into nooks and crannies, measuring the height from our boat decks, a few inches above water, to Powell's “bathtub ring” - lime scale and silts deposited on the canyon walls by previous high-water marks. Occasionally we drifted apart to go our separate ways, coming together later to exchange news of discoveries.

The walls in some places folded inward, seeming almost to vault the narrow slot canyons, and when the channels became too tight to use our paddles, we thrust forward by pushing off from the sides with our hands. At the end of one crevice, the water ran out, so we tethered our boats and hiked deeper into the labyrinth to see where water had been carving stone for eons, shaping and polishing If asked to name the most satisfying part of their adventure, the kayakers would find it difficult. (CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE PAGE) Night embraces a restful camp in Gunsight Canyon as boat lights adorn the placid lake. A boat slowly crossing the lake becomes a light streak in this long exposure. Tom Dollar and Kate McCarthy were dwarfed by heavy traffic at Wahweap, but satisfied that their tiny craft could explore nooks and crevices that would be barred to the big boats. Even without the conveniences of a modern kitchen, Terry Bendt pitched in to prepare palatepleasing meals for the party.

LAKE POWELL.

myriad variations of scoops, tubs, caves, windows, pillars, tunnels, chutes, keyholes, and chimneys.

Coming around a corner, we came face-to-face with an unfledged great horned owl. With fuzzy down still clinging to its head and breast, hissing and clacking its beak at our intrusion, it looked at once comical and fierce. What was it doing here on the canyon bottom, hundreds of feet below where its nest must be? Was it sick? Had it blown off the nest? Farther in we saw another owl. Later we learned that when their young fall from the nest, great horned owls continue to feed them on the ground until they are strong enough to fly.At the end of our hike, we plunged into a shaded pool of bottomless deep-blue water before heading back to camp, where, in late afternoon, we hauled in the mesh bag and toasted the unnamed notches, bends, and corners of Face Canyon. Warming to the task, we toasted the near end of a superb day and, most of all, the joys of sea kayaking.

Around the campfire that night, we spoke of our next outing on Lake Powell - the time of year to come back, what we'd want to see. And how maybe the thing to do was to load our kayaks onto the top deck of a houseboat and chug around the lake until we found prime kayaking waters, then slide our crafts into the water and slip off to hidden places where the bigger boats couldn't follow.

We had reached the turnaround point of our six-day trip. The next morning, we broke camp, loaded our kayaks, and began the return trip to Wahweap Marina. We would hit some rough weather on the way in, so rough that the pilot of a houseboat in the main channel slowed and called to see if we needed help. Kayaks are tiny and vulnerable looking. And barely making one knot even with continuous pad-dling, our decks constantly awash, we must have appeared in great jeopardy. How could he know we were having the time of our lives?

"How long were you out there?" the curious wanted to know when we landed. "How far did you go?" Not far, perhaps 55 miles, averaging 10 miles a day. No, we hadn't logged much distance. We didn't need to. We had been to places way back in the narrows that only a few boaters on Lake Powell are ever lucky enough to see.

WHEN YOU GO

When to go: The best times to visit Lake Powell are spring and fall. The peak season for boating is between May 15 and October 15.

Getting there: From Flagstaff travel north on State Route 89 to Page. Wahweap Marina is approximately 10 miles northwest of Page off Route 89.

Other area attractions: The best spot for a panoramic view of Lake Powell is the lookout at Glen Canyon Dam, 583 feet above the lake. Historic Lees Ferry is now the staging area for commercial raft trips in the Grand Canyon. It's a good spot to observe rigging and supplying of rafts. The Colorado River between Lees Ferry and Glen Canyon Dam is a prime area for trout fishing. Scenic Marble Canyon wasnamed by explorer John Wesley Powell who mistakenly thought the towering cliffs were marble. Visit the Glen Canyon Ranger Station at Wahweap Bay for maps, information on the natural history of the area, and backcountry trips. Houseboat rentals are available at Wahweap Marina with prices varying according to the size of boat and duration of rental. Telephone toll-free 1 (800) 528-6154 for information on houseboat rentals and tours to Rainbow Natural Bridge.

Where to stay: A number of motels and restaurants are available in Page. ARA Leisure Services runs the 268-room Wahweap Lodge and Marina at Wahweap Bay.