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A Family Reunion On Lake Powell, Arizona
Back in the early 1960s, my father and his friends took off by private plane to satisfy their curiosity about the progress of Lake Powell. Construction of the Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona had begun in 1955 and by the time of its completion in 1963 had already begun to back up the waters of the Colorado River. Most of the lake - a vast reservoir, in reality - would lie in southeastern Utah, a desert wilderness of labyrinthine canyons, multicolored sandstone cliffs, mysterious grottoes, and natural bridges. From my home in western Colorado, it was less than 250 air miles to the dam itself, and less than half that distance to the farthest reaches of the lake. Living as we did in the desert, any body of water, great or small, became the focus of attention.
What particularly interested my father was the lake's stock of striped and largemouth bass, and the excuse they afforded him to escape with his cronies for a weekend away from family and responsibility. Or at least so it seemed to me at the time. He talked about the fishing, but said next to nothing about the scenery, perhaps because if he had made it sound too attractive he'd have had my mother and us kids clamoring to go along. Yet something about those Lake Powell trips charged him with an enthusiasm he otherwise rarely exhibited.
Last year, on a five-day excursion by houseboat, I finally found out why.
A Home Afloat
Eleven of us set out from Bullfrog Marina, one of several locations on the lake that offer houseboat rentals. "Houseboats" in the Lake Powell idiom mean something akin to a Winnebago mounted on twin pontoons and powered by a pair of outboard motors. They come in lengths ranging from 44 to 75 feet, and the largest can sleep 12 people in reasonable comfort. There is typically a covered porch with a charcoal grill in front, walkways protected by railings around the sides, and an open deck in back. Many have ladders to the roof - the best place to sleep (weather permitting) if only for the incredibly bright, starry canopy of the Milky Way.
Inside they are models of efficiency, making good use of every nook and cranny. There are built-in bunk beds, a toilet and shower, hot and cold running water, a range and oven, a refrigerator, and living and dining space. Storage cupboards and closets abound, above and below everything. Roughing it on one of these crafts used to mean not having anywhere to plug in a blow dryer.
Late in the afternoon with five adults (mother, sisters, brother-in--law) and six children (ages 4-17) on board and a powerboat tethered behind, we motored out of the marina and headed southwest toward the dam. It was a hundred miles away and we hadn't the slightest intention of going that far, but we did want to see Rainbow Bridge National Monument. Otherwise we had no fixed itinerary. Whim became the guiding navigational principle.
Lake Powell invites that. The waters impounded by Glen Canyon Dam extend 186 miles back upriver, as far as Canyonlands National Park. They flood not only the meandering spinal column of the Colorado River and its tributary, the San Juan, but more than a hundred side canyons as well. Altogether there are nearly 2,000 miles of shoreline. What Powell lacks is anything remotely akin to a lake's traditional shape, in the sense of a neatly circumscribed body of water with a clearly defined middle. Instead it appeals on maps like so many neural pathways, blue-stained and branching.
We turned off the main channel along one of these branches in search of a place to beach for the night. We deliberately avoided the recommended sites marked on the map in the hope of finding a place of our own. Despite having all the comforts of home, we still wanted to preserve the illusion of having completely escaped from civilization. Only once in five days did we have to share a cove with another houseboat, and even then we were a good quarter-mile apart and separated from view by a finger of sandy peninsula.
Once we secure the boat by driving it headlong into the beach and then running ropes out to stakes on either side, I grab a beer and a book and hike up through the sagebrush toward sandstone cliffs burnished rusty orange with a "desert varnish" of iron oxide. From my aerie 100 feet above the lake, I look out on a clutch of islands--in reality, the tops of pinnacles whose base is now hundreds of feet underwater--framed between vertical canyon walls. Giggles drift up from the houseboat as the youngest of my nieces and nephews catch palm-sized bluegill sunfish, using bits of hot dogs for bait. Other family members swim in the 75 degree water, waterski, or, like me, explore the higher ground.
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