Kayaking Lake Powell

Lake Powell is one of the biggest lakes in the United States, so it naturally is home to some of the biggest boats.  It's hard to tell in this picture taken from a long distance, but these boats are a lot bigger than our motorhome.  They are 4-6 bedroom houseboats, and people live on them for weeks at a time, exploring the nooks and crannies of this 186 mile-long lake.  With over 2,000 miles of shore-line along Lake Powell, that is more than the entire west coast of the United States.

Extra big boats would explain this extra long and wide boat ramp.  You can barely see Denisa in her bright red blouse, standing beside the pier at the end of the boat ramp on the right.  This ramp is around a quarter of a mile long, so it's quite a hike to walk to where our car was parked in the lot at the top of the hill.

We're here not to launch a huge houseboat, but our tiny sea eagle kayak.  We are pumped up and ready to float on the mighty Lake Powell.

We weren't alone on the lake.  Even on a week day well after Labor Day, there were plenty of people out enjoying the lake.  Lake Powell was formed when Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1966.  Since then, the Colorado River has flooded the canyon to form the lake.  That makes for a very interesting lake with tall canyon walls and huge underwater drop-offs that used to be deep canyons.  This tour boat was taking a load of tourists down the same path we were kayaking.

The tourist boat had a strong engine to help it plow against the water to its destination.  Denisa's boat had a similar size engine in the back of her boat.

We rowed in the main lake channel until we got to the antelope canyon cut-off.  The same name as the underground canyon we were in when we took all those crazy swirling pictures, we are just a few miles north.

We had beautiful blue skies today, but for some reason, we looked up and saw a rainbow stretching over the canyon walls.  Just a reminder that we are are wandering God's wonders!

Besides motor boats and tour boats, we also saw some stand up paddlers going up antelope canyon.  There's two paddlers in the picture, and you can barely see the one in the bottom middle that is  closer to the canyon wall.  His height helps to give scale to those amazing cliffs we were paddling between.

We had been paddling for over 3 miles, and we were nearing the end of antelope canyon.  The canyon walls were getting closer together, and the water was turning browner.  It would finally turn into something that looked and smelled like a peat bog.  It was obviously time to head back to the beautiful blue water downstream.

Just like with hiking, Denisa some times gets bored with returning the same way and seeing the same things.  So she entertained herself by taking pictures.  This one was taken looking down towards the water, picturing the reflection of the wavy-topped canyon walls and the wispy clouds overhead.  She also got the white side of the boat and her rounded black oar tip in the picture.  Mark is thinking she probably should be using that oar to help get us back to the car.

She also tried to take a picture of the canyon wall and the blue skies, with the reflection of both in the lake water.  The good news about those tall cliffs is that we could paddle in their shade on this hot summer-like afternoon.  Since Denisa isn't paddling, we got lapped by the couple in the yellow rental kayak in the picture.




There was also time to take the selfie picture of the two of us in the kayak today.  Denisa's Mother should note that we both have our life jackets on.  That's probably a good idea because Lake Powell is over 500 feet deep in places, and averages 132 feet deep.  Like many of the lakes we have seen in this area, it is lower than they would like.  The lake is actually 93 feet below full pool right now, but that is twenty feet higher than it was two years ago.

The wildlife picture of the day has to be one of the 100 lizards we saw running along the vertical canyon walls.  They have obviously taken on the red sandstone color, so they really show up well against the white canyon walls.

We are on the home stretch towards the car, and realized that we hadn't taken a close-up of the beautifully clear water.  From a distance, it is a tantalizing azure blue.  Kayaking in the shallow edges, it looks green.  Or a more poetic color analysis came from Mark when he described it as "Mountain Dew pop bottle green."

Denisa is so lucky to get to share this adventure with such a poetic guy!