Boat day on Lake Powell! The full day boat rental was only for six hours and we had limits on fuel availability, so we had to scratch our plans to visit Rainbow Bridge. Instead, we left from Waheap Marina in the northwest corner of Lake Powell and headed around Antelope Island and towards Padre Bay. We tucked into Labyrinth Canyon - that stretch took about two hours. Edison expertly navigated deep into the canyon until we could almost touch the canyon walls off the side of the boat. Exploring a canyon like that via boat is surreal and leads to a lot of reflection… How odd that if, left alone, it would be thousands of feet in the air. We are having fun on Lake Powell, does that make me a bad person? How do I feel about this dam and this reservoir? But I digress…. after turning around to head towards a swim spot, the weather shifted and we were met with gusty wind, whitecaps, and rain. Booooo. Our 19’ rental boat was no match for that weather, so we sadly headed back in, which took us about two-hours, including a stop at Antelope Marina which has nice facilities but basically takes up the entire channel rather than being in a bay tucked out of the way. The boat ramps at that location are all closed because the lake level is so low and the ramps can’t reach that far down. (3558’ for us on this trip.) Well, it was scenic and fun to have the freedom of a boat for the day even though the weather wasn’t ideal.
We made the best of our afternoon by visiting a cool spot called “The Chains,” which has some really interesting and wavy rock formations to explore. The kids loved scrambling all around and summiting various points. I was fascinated by the rocks and seeing the prickly pear cacti in bloom. We also stopped into the Glen Canyon Dam Visitor Center. They had a few interactive exhibits and the kids actually played a game together and it seemed like they were having fun. The Colorado River flowing out of the dam is a spectacular green and looks amazing in the gorge a thousand feet below.
We returned to The Chains for sunset as the kids had a goal of climbing the biggest formation. I climbed about halfway up but my knee protested the slope of going up and down all the formations. At any rate, I was able to get high enough for some lovely views over the lake at sunset. We headed back to camp afterwards and are now getting all tucked in for the night.
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