By Andy Ambelang 3-25-11
Desert twilight never lasts as long as you want it to. Just when it seems the landscape is as beautiful as it could be, and your eyes have adjusted to catch the subtle colors, the light fades to black and you’re left staring into the darkness. My last rafting trip through the Grand Canyon felt a bit like desert twilight. After a short two weeks, as I was fully adjusting to life on the river, I had to pack up and walk away.
Getting to the river always seems to be a challenge, and a 1,000 mile drive in a ’67 VW Microbus made the trip more interesting than usual. The bus managed the drive down from Missoula just fine, plugging along through snowstorms on the Idaho-Utah border and the endless road construction in Salt Lake City. Even packed to the ceiling with gear, we arrived at Lee’s Ferry only a little later than everyone else.
A year before, I had stood at Lee’s Ferry and asked the ranger what flows we would have for our trip. When I sounded surprised and excited by a peak flow of 19,000 cfs (cubic feet per second), he just smiled and mentioned it was nothing compared to the 100,000 cfs flows of a bygone time. Those flows are gone now, courtesy of Glen Canyon Dam.
Completed in 1966, the dam backed up the Colorado River for 186 miles, taking 17 years to entirely fill the new reservoir, Lake Powell. The reservoir was named for explorer John Wesley Powell, the first European American to pass through the Grand Canyon during the 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition. Powell knew the canyon when it was truly wild. Long before we thought that “taming” a river was a good idea, Powell wrote of the incredible scenery and geology of the entire canyon. I imagine him spinning in his grave at the knowledge Glen Canyon sits under 130 feet of water, the reservoir named in “honor” of him.
But because Glen Canyon was drowned, the Colorado still flows freely though the Grand Canyon today. Visiting in the winter offers a slightly less congested experience, as no motor boats are allowed from November to February. Our trip stretched out over 23 days and, although I had to hike out halfway, I still managed to pack in a deep appreciation of the canyon’s natural beauty. We had days of sunshine, rain, even a light snowfall, and spent our time hiking some of the lesser-known side canyons.
In the accompanying photo essay, I’ve tried to give an overview of my brief time spent in the canyon, from starry nights at camp to paddling some of our biggest rapids. On the 15-mile hike out, I caught the sunset over the canyon one last time. As I was enjoying all the canyon colors, the last light faded to black, and I was left with three more miles of hiking through knee deep snow. Desert twilight, still elusive.
