Day 25: Monday 19-Jul-1999

Base Camp: Kanab RV Corral, Utah

Excursion: Lake Powell (Arizona)

Distance : 360mi (576 km)

Today's plans were to visit Lake Powell, which is about one hour west of Kanab. We ate breakfast in the trailer and then headed for the town of Page, which is in Arizona and near the southern tip of Lake Powell. There is also a big dam there: the Glen Canyon Dam. The weather was mixed, but not bad. We drove this same road during our trip from Munds Park to Kanab.

Our first stop was to drive into the marina area near page. We sort of wanted to get a feel for how that part looked. This is part of what is called Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. There is a big lodge at the base of the road by the marina. We drove down in that general direction. We could now see where all those tow vehicle's we've seen on the roads flocked. There are few real lakes in this part of the country, so something like Lake Powell is quite an attraction even though it is man made. What we've found a bit curious during our stay in the Kanab area is how many people pull their boats back and forth to the lake rather than leaving them back there. The prices for storage must be quite high by the lake even though there is no lack of space in that area.

Per walked into the lodge to ask about the infamous lake boat tours. There were a number of different destinations, such as to the nearby Antelope Canyon as well as longer (half day) tours that went out to the rainbow bridge monument. They were not cheap. In fact, the half day trip (which goes about 50 miles up the Canyon) would cost $69 for adults and $49 for kids above 2. This would be about $290 for our family and that did not even include any food nor any opportunities to take a swim from the boats. The nearby tours were about $25 per person which was also pretty expensive. They proposed to rent me a power boat, seating 8, for $188/day as one option. I was not sure if this was just a teaser and the weather forecast for the afternoon was thundershowers so I did not feel like it would be worth that much (plus more in unknown extra charges such as insurance and gas). Per heard about the Corkscrew canyon, which is in Antelope Canyon, but on a Navajo reservation. We've seen pictures so we thought we should give it a shot. The lady at the lodge suggested that we could probably use our own 4x4 to visit the place, but that we should expect to pay some form of entrance fee at the gate.

We could not find any information about this place in our guidebook, which we thought was a bit odd. We saw a small sign by the road and turned in there. There was a small hut next to a parking lot. Per walked up to the hut and asked for some information regarding visiting this place. Turns out they wanted $5 for anyone 10 or older as a general day pass. They then wanted to charge for transportation to the place, which lies about 2 miles up the road. We were not permitted to take our own 4x4... The charge was $12.50 for Adults and $10.00 for kids of unspecified age. Hmm .. that would mean $60.00 for us to visit the place. This should be contrasted against $20 to visit all of Grand Canyon for as many times as you liked during 7 days. We did not have to think hard about this place and decided to skip this visit. It felt like a rip-off. We saw several other cars turning around on the lot too, after having talked to the man in the hut. We even talked to another couple who had similar concerns about paying that much for a simple visit.

We drove back towards Page, but stopped at the visitors center by the other side of the Glen Canyon Dam. Per walked in there and asked about boat tours on the lake, hoping that there was some competition. Nope. There was just one place offering trips and we had spoken to them already, it turns out. So, there you have it. It is a rip-off to visit the lake too. The lady at the visitors center also mentioned that there are some boat rental places up in Page, but that we would have to tow the boat ourselves from Page down to the lake, launch it, and get it back to Page once we were done. Fat chance we would do that! Per also inquired about the smaller roads around Lake Powell on the wester side of the lake. Turns out that all those roads are now closed due to washouts from heavy rains. So much for trying other alternatives. We also learned that there is a beach near the southern end of the lake, inside the national park. We drove over there.

We drove down to the lake. The view was very nice. The dry camping they are offering on the lake is just super nice. We decided we should stop here with our trailer the day we return to this area. For now, we drove down to the lake and parked the truck on the beach. There were not that many people on the beach. Or rather, it felt as if we had enough space in between trucks and cars. We changed over to swim gear and jumped into the lake. Very nice. Just a tad cool, but it did not matter because the sun was quite strong. The kids and Per started digging in the sand on the beach. After a while they had created a few big mud-holes that the kids were cheerfully playing in.

	Parked on the beach of Lake Powell. Very nice. Clear and sweet water. So much for the bad weather!

	Ben, I am sorry you could not make it... but this is very comfy

	After this we walked right back into the truck .. NOT

We stayed at the beach for several hours. It appears as the information we had about the weather was wrong. It was sunny instead of thundershowers. Too bad :-). There are ATV tracks around the beach, so we could see and hear ATVs and cross motorcycles race by in the dunes above the beach where we were parked. On the lake, plenty of people were out in their power boats and jet skis. We could not see any sailing boats. From time to time, there was a faint smell of gas from the boats in the air. Did not bother us. The lake was very enjoyable. People were driving very fast on the lake. They seemed to have a great time. There is little wildlife they can disturb out here. Power to them!

	Looking to the right of where we were parked.

After a while we all felt a it sunburned. We packed up and returned back to Kanab. What a nice day. Lillemor did some shopping for the next couple of days, now that we were close to a grocery store. We ate fish and rice for dinner. Yum. After dinner we started to clean up a little bit around the trailer as we are moving tomorrow. We also hitched up the trailer so that we would not have to wake everyone up trying to do that in the morning. We did not stay up too late.

	Stopped along the road from Lake Powell to Kanab for a quick photo.

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