The Call of the Canyons
In November, 1985, we were returning from a trip to a science fiction convention in Tucson, Arizona. We had a couple of extra days, so when we reached Page, Arizona, we decided to spend the night and take a side trip the next day. That trip would be to Rainbow Bridge National Monument, and the only way to get there was by boat. At that time Lake Powell, that vast reservoir of water stuck behind the Glen Canyon Dam, afforded an easy, direct route to our destination. The body of water had topped out at its’ highest elevation two years before with dire consciences, when the spillways of the dam had come close to failure. In the fall of 1985, after a couple of years of good rain and snowfall, the reservoir was still within 6 feet of its’ maximum capacity.
The trip was enchanting, the deep reds and oranges of the towering cliffs overlooking the blue water which reflected the mix of colors was amazing. As we slowly boated down narrow side canyons, the towering walls would open up into sun-dazzling vistas of higher cliffs. The easy hike to the massive overhang of Rainbow Bridge was merely frosting on the cake. After we got home, we were determined to do more exploration of the deep canyon country, which was, at the time, still fairly pristine and not overrun with motorized tourists, hikers, bikers and ATV’s. I began to read up on the areas we wished to visit and much to my chagrin, I found out that the water we had traveled on at Lake Powell had submerged most of the real astonishing natural wonders of the Glen Canyon area under hundreds of feet of water.
I began to read writers of western nature literature like Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, Everett Ruess, Marc Reisner and many others. We also bought a 4-wheel drive SUV to get further into the back country and found ourselves on many roads of dubious quality. I am very much surprised that we didn’t get stuck sometimes, far from civilization, (and there were no cell phones then). We stayed in good motels in nearby towns, I couldn’t really expect Lynne and Rob to go completely native. We had many adventures and saw some of the rarely seen sights of the back of the beyond areas. I hope we can go back to some of the areas we missed in our younger days, avoiding at all costs, travel during the tourist season. The real secret is, that those areas are still amazing and much more comfortable in the late fall and early spring before becoming overrun by hordes of people in the very hot summer months.
(The narrow waterways always seemed to open up on dazzling vistas during our boat trip. It was almost too easy to take amazing photos that day.)
