LAKE POWELL 1

We kayaked at Lake Powell for 5 days.  This is the second kayak trip we have made on this body of water.  The first was 5 years ago at the other end of the lake.  This time we were on the eastern end.  Still a lot of people out and about though as it was just the middle of September.  That was one of the drawbacks in my opinion.  A lot of the campsites were taken and lots of boats on the water.  But we had a great time and timed it just right when we left - the day after we got off the water there was a lot of wind and rain.

The campground at Halls Crossing took a hit a few days before we arrived and some of the campground had a lot of sand deposited in and around the campsites.

Lake Powell has a lot of rock walls and little inlets you can kayak in.

And some pretty neat overhangs with reflections on the rocks.

A group of American Avocets along the shore.  We see these birds in Montana in the spring.

Some pretty neat caves can be paddled in also.

Great paddling in these canyons and inlets.

The color of the water changed in different canyons.

An old cottonwood tree top.

Birds have been roosting here for many years.

Another flock of Avocets just after sundown.  A couple of these birds are already asleep.

A break in the paddling.  Bill is taking a little nap.

Don't know what kind of snake this is, but it was in a cranny of the rocks right near the water's edge.  It was a pretty small snake and would estimate the diameter to be no more than 3/4 of an inch and a couple of feet long.

This is where we camped for 3 nights.  Great place to swim and pretty well protected.

Our tent.

Click to enlarge this sequence of Zeph jumping in the water after a stick.

This dog really loves to swim after sticks.

CEDAR MESA 3

More pictures of the Cedar Mesa area.

Interesting hand prints at one site.

One of our campsites.  Great sunsets here.

This little wren was a little upset that we were hanging around where it lived.

We used a climbing rope to help us get down this one slope. 

Corn cobs still littler the bottom of this grainery.

Finger impressions can still be seen in the dried mud between the rocks.

The road was partially washed out a little south of Hanksville, Ut.

And just to the north of Hanksville, we hit a red dust storm.

This was a flash flood also on the road to Hanksville.

My hiking partners on our last hike in the Grand Gulch area.

HIKING CEDAR MESA 2

Below are more pictures from our stay in Cedar Mesa area and the hiking there.

Where and how they made these living areas amazes me.

A huge root ball that has greyed with age.

Connie before the rain.

Sunshine on the brown water.

Connie after it started to rain.

Bill and Marney after the rain started.

Wet rocks and waterfalls.

This storm was to the north of us and we were to see it's results later that night.

Our camp.

A group shot.

This is the dry river that had swollen over it's banks hours after the storm and less than 50 yards from our camp.

The same shot the next morning.  We almost moved our camp, but the river started to recede before it hit our trigger point.