West Canyon II

West Canyon, Lake Powell, Page, Az.,U.S.A

More Slot canyons/Sculptures in Stone [link]

Scanned from 4"x6" 35mm print, sharpened, noise reduction, dust and scratch removal, auto levels, slight curves adjustment

In the mid 90's my wife, Vicki and I spent two weeks in the spring and two weeks in the fall roaming the Colorado Plateau visiting Anasazi ruins, some very accessible and some not so accessible. We also spent a lot of time exploring and looking for slot canyons for further exploration when our skills were improved.
We found ourselves at Lake Powell, near Page Az. checking out some canyons and my wife decided in would be a good idea to rent a houseboat and check some stuff from the lake. I tried to explain, first...you can't rent a houseboat on such short notice and second.....its too slow and you can't get very far back into the canyons.

She.....ok....lets rent a speedboat and camp out of it.....

Once she gets an idea, its a done deal, so off across the lake we go with all our stuff.
We spent the rest of the first day in and out of side canyons and it was time to find a place to base camp. That night there was a loud orgy on the houseboat around the corner, that wasn't so bad, but the next morning the prop on the boat wouldn't go down. We humped over the hill to the next cove and found a boat with a radio and called for help.
Ok.....so now were back in business and look for a more remote base camp and start checking out West Canyon.
Its starting to get very narrow and we come to a 't' intersection, I pick left because it wider, that only lasted for a couple hundred feet and the next thing you know we're stuck against the canyon walls. I have to know what's up ahead, so I slip off the front of the boat and start swimming.
About 5 minute's later, I touch bottom and try to walk, but only sink in, when it got to my knees, I decided to turn around, once back to the boat, I can't climb in from the front and have to swim underwater to the back, avoiding the prop and climb in. After some effort we manage to back the boat up and head up the other fork. Of course the canyon opens up....some Not to much further and we can beach the boat and start hiking. It late and we decide to come back tomorrow and check it out.
We find this nice bench of rock with a depression filled with sand and big enough to set up the tent, with some room left over. It going to be a full moon to night, I have some ice cold Pete's Wicked Lager, some of my bud's best home grown herbage and I'm trapped on a vast, barren rock scape with a wild women who likes to howl at the moon, it doesn't get much better than this
Fast forward to the next morning......

She......please do, is there an end to the story

We take off, hit the 't' and turn right, bend left, right into the morning light. At this point it hard to tell how deep the water is, so I have the prop, just below the surface and we're only doing about 2 mph. The water was like glass and the reflection of narrow & deep canyon walls was very disorientating. It was hard to tell up from down and we had to sit on the front and paddle the boat.
We beach the boat and start hiking, the canyon is chocked with vegetation an the going is slow. It wasn't long before the canyon starts getting narrow and then we're in this section in the photo, a little further and there are chest deep pools of water, the canyons opens, turns right and closes back down, the water is deep and dank and I can hear a waterfall up ahead, its time to turn around, end of story

She....thank god.....