Lake Powell - Day 4

Day 4-  7 miles. Fast paddling and lots of time outside

We woke to a windy day but fortunately it was pushing us up the lake. Unfortunately it was blowing out of the Escalante River junction in 20mph hour gusts making it impossible to paddle up the river. We decided to push onward.


Up lake at Cottonwood Canyon, we pulled off to look for Registration Rock- a wall where the 1880 Mormon wagon trail carved their names as they made their way across the river. We never found it, but we did run into an older man in waders his wife in a skimpy bikini. He asked where our boat was and when we explained what we were doing, he looked at me, looked at Carla, and said "You girls are spending a lot of time outside."
After a lengthy explanation of how to walk on slick rock, he pointed us in the direction of the route, and wished us well.

The 250 Mormon settlers left for what should have been a 3 month journey to the San Juan River in order to start a mission there. Instead of crossing at Lee's Ferry they decided to take a short cut. Unfortunately the walls of Glen Canyon were steeper and more consistent than they realized.

They decided to take their wagons and livestock down Hole in the Rock, an improbable narrow 3/4 mile cleft in the canyon wall.

It took over 6 weeks alone to blast rock, move boulders, and lay brush down in order to make the trail passable. They drove spikes into the sides of the rock wall to use as anchors for their ropes, locked the wagon wheels, and lowered each of the 80 wagons down one by one to the valley floor. Parts of the trail were at a 45 degree slope but throughout this ordeal not one person was seriously injured. Once down to the river they still had to ford their wagons across and continue on uncharted territory through Cottonwood Canyon and up to the mesa top.

Their route was 70 miles total and took 6 months, twice as long as if they had traveled via  Lee's Ferry farther to the South.

We had to scramble hand over hand in some parts of the Hole in the Rock Trail and all of a sudden we heard voices. From Escalante it is 50 mile drive on a washboard dirt road to get to the trailhead, but that didn't seem to deter anyone. We passed 3 different groups coming down the trail. Campers, kids, and dogs, all smelling much better than we did a that point.

At the top of the canyon, slickrock stretched out in all directions and the water of Lake Powell looked out of place with the desert view.

 Before the dam was finished in 1966, hikers would lower their kayaks down this trail in order to gain access to the side canyons in the area.

 We sat and watched the breeze blow ripples across the surface of the lake as we toasted our trip with lukewarm beer. With the setting sun we scurried back down the trail and hopped on our boards. We found a beach just as it was getting too dark to see the land clearly. Tired and hungry we ate and hunkered down into our sleeping bags for the night.