Page, AZ - floating down the ColoradoJun 4, 2009
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There's a boat on the bridge!
facts about the Glen Canyon Bridge
facts about Lake Powell
The drive here was only 2.5 hours but the time changed and we got confused. At least I had thought we would lose an hour when we actually gained an hour!
Jeanne & Laurie made a side trip to the Navajo National Monument and they had started out real early in the morning. I got here an hour before them so I had time to unhook the car and set up camp a bit. Jeanne made sandwiches while I showered and got ready to go.
We went to the Glen Canyon Dam that makes Lake Powell. This dam looks a little different from the Hoover Dam but security is still tight at both dams. I could bring my camera into the visitor center, but not in the case. This dam was built from 1956 - 1966 and the town of Page became a reality with the building of the dam. It wasn't laid out according to the builder's plan, like Boulder City, NV was when the Hoover Dam was built. People died building this dam, too.
Then, we went on a 5 hour float trip down the Colorado through Glen Canyon. That was lots of fun. A bus took us down to the bottom of the dam through a tunnel that is 2 miles long! It was really dark in there, with air holes (adits) every so often - there's 16 of them. We had to wear hard hats while walking along the cliff down to the rafts in case someone threw change down at us! Rocks wouldn't fall, no. And the water coming through the rocks is not leakage, but natural seepage. There wouldn't be any leaks around the dam!
Sometimes we went slow so the guide could tell us about what we were seeing and sometimes we went fast and I got sprayed a bit with 47 degree water! We stopped halfway, I guess, for a pit stop and short walk to some petroglyphs. I was impressed when I learned that the ones near ground level were just viewable within the last 15 years. When there was no dam, silt was building up, but now the sand is slowly blowing away.
We ended at Lees Ferry, a spot where the rocks are broken up and not sheer walls. John D. Lee came here and built the ferry for wagons to cross the river in the late 1800s. Boats sank and we saw the wreckage of one of them. A bridge a little further down the river now carries us across. But anyway, at this spot, the Glen Canyon Recreational Area ends and the Grand Canyon National Park begins. All Grand Canyon river rides begin here.
