Over the evening the wind kicked up and we spent the night tucked deep into our sleeping bags and getting sandblasted every time we came up for air. In the morning we both had sand so deeply ingrained that our ears, hair, and eyebrows were tinted red. After a sandy cup of coffee we decided to head out onto the lake.On Carla's suggestion we took an easy day and paddled 10 miles in 20mph wind gusts. Fortunately the wind and water weren't cold and as we neared the Rincon, our destination for the night's camping, the wind died down and the lake water become glassy smooth again.
We set up the tent in case the wind picked up again, but it was of course calm and clear all night long.
Day 6 - 6 milesWe woke up to a beautiful morning and a quick paddle out to the floating restroom before our hike around the Rincon. A Rincon used to be a horseshoe bend in the river channel but at some point the river changed course leaving a mesa top surrounded by dry land. We decided to hike around the mesa and try to find the old uranium mining camp that was abandoned when they discovered that there was no uranium. Instead the area is used every other year to graze cattle through the winter.
After hiking for hours (minutes) in the searing desert heat (70 degrees) fruitlessly searching for any signs of human industry, we found something even better, fossilized dinosaur tracks on the side of a boulder.
The tracks were listed in our book as "visible in the right kind of light" and with our record of finding notable sites, we had written it off as impossible to find. with our track record. Thrilled with the find and satisfied with how the day was going, we turned back towards our boards and stumbled upon an old barrel, the remnants of the mining camp. All of a sudden our day turned into a wild success and we were ecstatically overjoyed with ourselves.
The day continued to amaze. We pushed out on the main channel without a breath of wind an paddled easily to the dramatic Iceberg Canyon. For the first time we passed people camping in houseboats.
We waved to a group but they did not wave back. Since I was dressed up like Carla's creepy boyfriend that day, I wasn't entirely surprised.
The paddling was effortless that day and we found a camping spot on the main channel that we thought would put us in line with the sunrise. I hiked up the rock slabs to take a picture of our beach. Behind me and still 20' higher was an upside down buoy dangling off the top of the rocks by a cable warning shallow rocks below
After whisky and cribbage, we stretched out on our boards and tucked in for the night.
The tracks were listed in our book as "visible in the right kind of light" and with our record of finding notable sites, we had written it off as impossible to find. with our track record. Thrilled with the find and satisfied with how the day was going, we turned back towards our boards and stumbled upon an old barrel, the remnants of the mining camp. All of a sudden our day turned into a wild success and we were ecstatically overjoyed with ourselves. The day continued to amaze. We pushed out on the main channel without a breath of wind an paddled easily to the dramatic Iceberg Canyon. For the first time we passed people camping in houseboats.
We waved to a group but they did not wave back. Since I was dressed up like Carla's creepy boyfriend that day, I wasn't entirely surprised.
Iceberg Canyon has a natural dam in one of it's southern arms. We hiked to the top of the rock fall and were surprised to find Lake Powell trapped behind the landslide at near the high water mark. We had gotten used to seeing the white bathtub ring of bleached rock reaching over 100 feet above us, so to see it barely above the surface of the water was strange. Hiking back down to our boards we again were amazed at the scale of the canyon. Our 10' boards were just two tiny white dots on the beach.
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