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Trip Report - Lake Powell September 25-28 2003

One dry-bag and 6-liter water jug in forward hold

Into the Water

Once I found the boat rental place, there were papers to be signed and then it was down to the marina to meet my kayak. Here was the first place that my plans did not jibe with my reality. I had brought bungee cords, and a large dry bag that I hoped to strap on top the kayak. But this kayak (a Perception Prism, I think) had no place where you could strap anything to the outside. There was a reasonable size hold forward, and an identical one aft, but it was definitely less room than I was hoping for.

I would have to fit everything I was taking (except the water) into the two smaller dry bags. This meant leaving both my sleeping pad and sleeping bag behind (along with some of my clothes), and bringing only a small fleece blanket to keep me warm at night. With lows forecast to be 60 degrees for both of the next two nights, I figured this would probably be okay. If I had it to do over again, I'd bring the sleeping bag even if it meant leaving the food behind, but more on that later.

I repacked the dry bags, got them into the kayak, moved my car into the 14-day parking lot, hiked back down to the marina, and I was in the water by quarter after one.

Flame On

I had heard from several sources that the water level in the lake was way down. I didn't worry much about it, after all, a kayak works well as long as the water is six inches deep. I naively assumed that the lake would have the same countours, but it would just be smaller.

Here's the thing: in country as rugged as this, a small change in lake level can dramatically change the shoreline. The level of Lake Powell has been down for years, and there is no particular reason to think it is ever going to come back up, but they keep printing maps with this fantasy shoreline. Both of the brand-new lake maps I bought showed the no-longer-existant shoreline. Even the online maps happily show you where the water is "supposed" to be, instead of where it actually is.

What I was told first by the souvenir salesman in Winslow, and now confirmed by the boat rental guy, is that the passage between Castle Rock and Antelope Island, which connects Wahweap Bay to Warm Creek Bay, was completely dried out. Antelope Island isn't an island any more, it is now a peninsula.

Here is a photograph of Castle Rock I took from my kayak; it has been computer-enhanced to highlight the problem: the bright green line shows the surface level of the lake. The dark green line shows where the lake's surface is "supposed" to be. The magenta line highlights land that is "supposed" to be under water.

Flame Off

So this left me with three choices:
  1. I could just have fun toodling around Wahweap Bay for the whole trip (after all, I said I'd still be happy even if I never got past Castle Rock).
  2. I could portage the 50-pound kayak plus 30 pounds of equipment across the quarter-mile wide land bridge that had appeared in my way, just to stubbornly keep to my original plan.
  3. I could attempt to kayak around the southern end of Antelope Island Peninsula, a 15-mile journey between steep canyon walls, through an area that was described by one source as "like being in a giant washing machine," and by another as "suicide for kayakers".
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