July 6th - Lake Powell, Arizona

Our boat tour of Lake Powell started at 7:30, but that was Arizona time and Arizona was using Pacific Standard Time while Utah and Colorado were using Mountain time. We were surprised by this difference in Arizona and Utah times, but we arose in time to scarf down a quick breakfast of cereal the next morning before checking out and driving over to the marina.

We checked in at the tour desk, received our boarding passes, and lined up outside. It was already hot and predicted to get over 100 during the day, and with the strong sun beating down out of a clear blue sky I could well believe it. That was the main reason we chose seats inside on the lower deck next to the open front doors—I figured we would have shade and good ventilation, which would make it more bearable. Ordinarily we would have been out on top, but without shade it could have become almighty hot, and Monika does not take hot too well—rather than sweating she tends to go directly to the more serious stages of flushing and heat exhaustion.

The trip out was, in fact, delightful. We were cool enough, had plenty of ice water and cold lemonade to drink since we were sitting next to the coolers, and did have a nice breeze thru the front doors when the boat was in motion. The scenery was fantastic and became more weird and wonderful the further up the canyon we went. Lake Powell is 80+ feet down from its “full” level and that has exposed the bases of many of the rock formations that are normally covered. The curious thing is that this exposed layer is a uniform bright white chalky color. Our Captain explained this by saying it was the result of the lake’s evaporation and the accumulation of the resulting alkali salts on the sides of the canyons. I can’t say for certain if that was correct, but it sounded plausible and it certainly looks striking--you have first the deep blue of the lake, then this bright white layer underneath a layer of bright red or other colored rock above it, and finally the clear blue sky above. It created a panorama composed of a rainbow of quite vivid and contrasting hues, which combine with the oddly shaped rocks to give a stunning impact—I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It still was disconcerting to see so much beautiful blue water fronting directly on a moonscape of barren rocks—no boundary zone of grass, weeds, trees, or anything else green, just the abrupt transition from pure blue water to red rock.

We were also entertained by the flotilla of powerboats we met along the way—we only saw one tiny sailboat during the entire tour. The powerboats, however, came in a variety of sizes ranging from the big lumbering houseboats to the speedboats and finally down to the tiny jet skis. The houseboat folks were mainly out for sightseeing and camping while the speedboat pilots were zipping around as fast as possible or pulling water skiers. The Jet Ski folks jumped across our wake, using it a bit like a launching ramp, and seemed to be having a real blast. They had to endure the diesel exhaust in our wake but it didn’t seem to faze them—I thought it was a shame that we were polluting such a pristine lake with diesel exhaust that was a bad as a poorly-tuned tractor-trailer would put out on the highway. Our small ship had a top speed of 21 knots, and that speed was necessary to get us to Rainbow Bridge and back by 3 p.m.

Our Captain slowed down for each houseboat so as not to disturb them with our wake, which was quite sizable at top speed, and we didn’t get to the landing at the canyon leading to Rainbow Bridge until 11:15. We landed at a floating dock that had been moved down the canyon as the level of Lake Powell dropped. The Captain gave us exactly 1 hour to hike 1.25 miles up the canyon and back again, so we started off at our best Volksmarching pace of a little over 3 miles an hour. But we soon overheated and had to stop at the shadow afforded by each cliff overhang to drink some ice water and let our pulse return to normal. Still, we were the first ones from our boat to reach Rainbow Bridge, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, we were told. Who keeps track of these things, anyway, the Guiness Book of Natural Wonders?

Rainbow Bridge is a very large natural arch made of solid sandstone. With the water from Lake Powell down so far, the area around the arch probably looked much like it did to the ancient Navajo and early explorers, and it was really impressive. A Ranger said it is almost as high as the Washington Monument and as wide as a 2-lane highway on top, but they didn’t let me climb up on top to check all that out with direct measurements! In fact, the two Rangers there were quite busy treating a young lady for heat prostration. It was a sobering reminder of exactly how hot it was, and we began to feel the heat more as we worked our way back down the canyon to the dock.

We were back in time (just), but some folks lagged and we didn’t leave the dock until 1:30. The canyon leading to Rainbow Bridge is quite narrow and our ship had only a foot or two clearance on either side. I rather enjoyed being so close to the canyon walls because it was the same view we would have while walking. I must say that taking the boat was a whole lot easier than walking 50 miles thru a tortuous canyon would have been!

When we sat down, we both noticed that Monika was beet red and radiating heat—no kidding, she was just like a little toaster oven. I quickly offered her ice water and we just sat there trying to get her cooled down, which took a surprisingly long time. A woman who had nursing experience was quite concerned and hovered over her for the longest time, and that somehow increased my concern rather than decreasing it. Since she had overheated with only a 1-hour exposure to the sun, we reluctantly decided to forgo a raft trip from the dam area down the Colorado. The trip surely sounded like a lot of fun and we hope to do it in the spring or fall some time, but it just didn’t seem safe to attempt it in the summer. Monika had cooled down by the time we reached the dock about 3 hours later, and unfortunately we were just too late to make the 3:30 tour of the dam we had signed up for the previous day. Nuts. That’s another thing we had to put on our “next time” list as we headed south to Flagstaff for the night.

The area between Page and Flagstaff was a barren desert interrupted only by the occasional Navajo “trading post” offering Indian specialties as well as tourist gewgaws. The mountain ranges just to the east of the highway were multi-hued, and I even saw some purple tints that I thought were very unusual. The elevation rose to around 7,000 feet as we approached Flagstaff and that seemed to make all the difference in the world. Gradually we saw grasses, bushes, and finally even trees, and for me that was a relief to the eye—I’m just not used to desert landscapes. We found a room at a Ramada Inn for the night and, apparently worn out by the heat we had experienced during the day, just collapsed into bed.