2000-06-26 Antelope Island to Reflection Canyon 2000-06-27 Reflection Canyon 2000-06-28 Reflection Canyon to Dungeon Canyon 2000-06-29 Dungeon Canyon to Labyrinth Canyon 2000-06-30 Labyrinth Canyon to Wahweap 2000-07-01 Dam Tour

Day 3 - Tuesday, June 27, 2000

Scott, Ginger, and I were up way too early on Tuesday, having been unable to sleep because of the loud music, the change in time zones, and other factors.  Scott had the idea to take the speedboat out for a dawn excursion on the lake, so we grabbed our cameras, and off we went.

We motored out of Reflection Canyon, down and across the channel into Forbidding Canyon (mile 49, south shore.)  Forbidding Canyon is home to the Rainbow Bridge National Monument, a 300-foot-tall sandstone arch that spans the upper end of the canyon.  Few knew of the existence of Rainbow Bridge until the Douglass and Cummings expeditions of 1909, the very expeditions that prompted President Taft to declare the site a national monument in 1910.  But the monument remained somewhat difficult to access until the construction of Lake Powell 50 years later.  Prior to World War II, it was necessary to make a weeks-long journey over the mountains and to the upper end of Forbidding Canyon in order to see the bridge.  After WWII, when rubber rafts became more commonplace, it became feasible to float the Colorado River's rapids down to Forbidding Canyon and then hike the 7 miles in to Rainbow Bridge.  By the early 1950's, jet boats were speeding up river from Lee's Ferry, covering the 55 river miles up to Forbidding Canyon in just one day.  The next day, campers would hike fourteen miles (round trip) into the canyon to see the bridge, and they would return to Lee's Ferry by boat on the third day.

These days, anyone with a hundred bucks can board a big, luxurious tour boat at Wahweap Marina, make the trek up to Rainbow Bridge, and be back at the marina in time for dinner.  These boats generally carry hundreds of people at a time and displace a huge volume of water as they motor up the lake at 20-30 MPH.  The wake they generate is so strong that it can reflect off of the canyon walls and back across the lake for several minutes after they pass.

Ginger, Scott, and I were the only three souls in Forbidding Canyon when we arrived, and we took the opportunity to revel in the desert solitude before we broke it again with the din of our inboard V8.  We sped out of Forbidding Canyon and into adjacent Anasazi Canyon (mile 52, south shore), taking more pictures and doing more exploring before returning to the houseboat for second breakfast.

After a power nap, I set off on a hike up the canyon that afternoon.  Although there are no official trails in Glen Canyon NRA, enough houseboaters come into Reflection Canyon on a yearly basis that there are some fairly obvious paths into the backcountry.  But the hiking is still relatively slow, involving some bushwhacking, digging through sand, following arroyos, etc.  This was before I really got into backcountry exploration (recall that I was still living in the flatlands at this time), so I only hiked up canyon for maybe an hour or so before turning around.  These days, I would've been out there for as long as the daylight allowed.  I passed Ginger, Scott, & Sean on my way back to the boat.

I was in charge of dinner that night (letting a bachelor cook for 6 people -- probably not the wisest idea.)  I stuffed two casseroles in the olive green oven and called it an evening.

The "Ship of Fools" next door had switched to Led Zeppelin, which reverberated off the canyon walls along with their drunken valley banter for most of the night.  The Rainbow Reflection wasn't outfitted with air conditioning, so there was little choice but to sleep with the windows open and (in my case) a pillow over both ears.  Roger, meanwhile, slept like a baby on the roof of the boat, completely oblivious to the noise.