April 13, 2008

Lake Powell & Lower Escalante

We have been here at Glen Canyon for a few days camping at Lone Rock on beautiful Lake Powell.....

the Lake is down some 60+ feet from it's more normal level, which gives hikers & kayakers access to areas that have been underwater for years! The interesting thing is apparently our GPS software was done from maps that reflect the older water levels. Note that we now have the truck & trailer parked in the middle of the lake!

shortly after arriving, a huge thunderstorn rolled through. The late setting sun shot a beam of light from behind our trailer site, and lit the far mountains, creating this "Ansel Adams" shot... about 15 minutes later, the storm passed, allowing the sun to ignite the entire area in it's true late evening colors!

We were camped at "Lone Rock", and Kim decided to make a late evening paddle on the last night we were there... the scenic beauty of this land out here is nothing short of spectacular... I could fill pages of posts with pictures of the surrounding mountains in the early mornings & late evenings....if you have not been to this area to see all this first hand, you simply must!


.......
We did Antelope Canyon on Thursday, and we paddled the Colorado River Saturday from the Glen Canyon Dam to Lee's Ferry, wow a great trip, see those posts below.

In between, we took a drive & did some hiking in the lower part of Escalante.... the first stop was at the "Toadstools" area which when first encountered looked like a scene for another planet!


The toadstools themselves were rather small, but nonetheless, interesting. Kim particularly liked the smaller "cozy" size.


We took a drive up the Cottonwood Creek 4wd road. lots of fun! We ad a tip to hike Hackberry Canyon...a neat narrow canyon, wouldn't call it a slot, but just nice.

It wasn't long before Kim was barefoot, skipping along rather fast, because thw water & ground were quite cold....

Funny how we forget our water shoes sometimes when most needed (but least suspected).

On the drive back to camp, we stopped at the only "double arch" in North America, a splendid end to a joyful day!