Telejon and I just got back from what may be the most perfect kayak expedition that we've been on. Perfect in that the weather (clear with highs in the upper 70s, lows in the 50s), the paddling conditions (including one shockingly calm day), the boat traffic, the campsites, and the scenery all couldn't have been any better.
We had originally planned to depart Salt Lake City on Sunday morning, but it soon became clear that a persistent weather system was going to blanket southern Utah with rain for Sunday and Monday, and we pushed our departure back by 48 hours. That turned out to be a good decision, as the soils were drying out and skies clearing when we arrived at Farley Canyon mid-afternoon on Tuesday.
Farley Canyon is in the uppermost portion of Lake Powell, just downstream of Hite and just below where, at the current water level of 3,606 feet, the Colorado River empties into the lake. Bringing a power boat this far upstream is ill-advised at the current lake level, but even a fully loaded kayak draws only a few inches of water. The nearest usable boat ramp is located 43 lake miles away at Bullfrog, so throughout the entire trip we'd encounter only a true handful of people each day. The end of the graded road into Farley Canyon is designated a primitive campground by the National Park Service, but we were the only ones there as we pitched camp next to the truck. Getting to the water a half mile further requires a high clearance vehicle with 4WD. Dinner that night was fresh grilled rib eye with a bacon bleu salad, accompanied by the last cold beers we'd enjoy for days.
On Wednesday morning we packed up camp and headed for where the lake water starts in Farley Canyon to launch our trip.
We paddled into the mouth of White Canyon in search of Fort Moqui, an Anasazi ruin that was destroyed when the Glen Canyon Dam flooded the countryside at the site of what was, before the lake, a frontier hamlet also known as White Canyon. It was the eastern landing of a ferry that crossed the river from the original townsite of Hite, where the river's irrigation allowed large fruit orchards. It's rather a shame, but all was flooded into oblivion in the creation of the lake. In recent years water has receded to leave a pile of rocks where Fort Moqui once stood. We couldn't find it, and were only able to surmise that it's currently underwater.
We continued south through hundreds of western grebes dotting the water and diving as they fished. None allowed us to get close enough to capture a decent photo.
We paddled on along the eastern shore to cross at The Horn, where we climbed out of our boats and scrambled up through through driftwood, thorns, rocks and impossibly soft, loose soil to a saddle that afforded views of the lake in both directions. It provided a good view of the paddle ahead, and we spotted what could be our campsite that night on Monte Cristo Island. It was also steak fajita night!
Had the water level been about 10 feet lower there would have been a land bridge from the island to the eastern shoreline. For now, however, we were isolated, and the only evidence of critters we spotted was a gecko or two scrambling across the island's rocks. I slept very well that night to the sounds of water lapping againt the shoreline of the island, but was awakened at 5:30 a.m. by the lonely howl of a coyote only 100 yards away on the near shore. We'd have to be careful with our food overnight whenever camping on the mainland.
After a quick breakfast of hot oatmeal and coffee we broke camp and continued south. The northerly wind from the night before was persisting, and washed 1 to 2-foot waves over the starboard stern of our boats as we approached Castle Butte and entered the shelter of Good Hope Bay. It was here that we encountered John, a hardcore solo sea kayaker from the San Francisco Bay area who had arrived via Blue Notch Road the night before. We paddled into his camp to get information on the condition of the road (and once we heard, we were glad that we hadn't tried to launch from there). He was out for a full month of touring the upper reaches of Lake Powell. He declared Powell to be his second favorite paddling site, only after Baja where he has traveled by kayak for up to six months at a time. After exchanging pleasantries Jon and I continued on.
We landed on Kung Pao Island, a tiny jumble of rocks upon which we'd have our lunch that day.
After lunch we continued south in search of a spot for the night, eventually settling on what we'd call the "Beach Camp" beneath the Trail Cliffs after 9.94 miles of paddling for a hearty "seafood night" dinner of linguine with white clam sauce, only after we each took the opportunity for a quick bath in the lake to remove a two-day accumulation of desert dust and dried sweat.
Once again I was awakened just before dawn to the howl and bark of coyotes, this time further from camp but much more sustained than the night before.
After packing up Friday morning we shoved off onto our longest lake crossing of the trip, a full two miles that despite a mild headwind we negotiated in around 30 minutes.
Shortly thereafter, however, the wind died and the lake turned to absolute glass. Shockingly, it would remain that way all day and we were able to make good time as a result.
After lunching on a tiny island at the tip of The Horn we crossed the lake twice more to enter Fourmile Canyon, where had planned to stay the night. But it was only 1:00 p.m., and we were easily distracted by playful rock formations at the mouth of the canyon.
The only viable campsite in the canyon was already occupied by a powerboater. It was still only 1:30, and with the smooth water we figured that we could make it to the mouth of Farley Canyon, where we already knew there was a good campsite, by 3:00. It would be a big, big day, but we nevertheless went for it, finally arriving at what Jon would dub Camp Alum.
Alum powder is a kitchen spice used for pickling. In the desert southwest, however, it serves a dual purpose. Stir a spoonful into a bucket of silty water, and you come back a half hour later to crystal clear water with all of the waterborne sediment congealed around the alum at the bottom of the bucket. The water is now ready to purify for drinking without the sediment. Camp Alum was far enough upstream in the lake that it was surrounded by a plume of silty water emanating from the Colorado River, and we'd have to use the alum trick to get sufficient clear water for cooking and drinking, although we didn't need water to prepare the fourth night's dinner: chicken quesadillas with diced jalapeños, diced green chiles and habanero sauce. Dinner would wait, though, for despite our (my?) exhaustion we added another 2.6 miles to check on the truck at the Farley Canyon launch, for a total log of 17.12 miles for the day -- a big day indeed!
The topography at Camp Alum was such that we had no choice but to pitch our tents right next to one another on the only tiny suitable patch of ground. Jon, however, opted to abandon his tent and climb 100 yards to a high outcropping of rock to bivouac. I drifted off to sleep while stargazing through the mesh ceiling of my tent to the sounds of fish feeding on minnows in the lake and the beating wings of birds flying overhead. Yeah, it was that quiet.
Each time I rolled over in the middle of the night my forearms, triceps and shoulders whined about the pain that I had put them through during our exhausting paddle on Friday. On Saturday morning we only partially broke camp before leaving our stuff behind at Camp Alum and heading even further upstream in search of the spot where the Colorado River currently empties into the lake. It was to be a relatively short day.
The water became progressively more and more shallow, and siltier and siltier. Eventually it was only a few inches deep as we searched for the channel, trying to not become stuck in the thick silt that lined the lake bottom like quicksand. If we had to climb out of the boat to come ungrounded we would have merely sunk up to our necks in mud, never to be seen again. Jon commented that he couldn't decide if it was really thick water or really wet dirt that we were trying to paddle through. We somehow avoided running aground and found the appropriate channel, successfully reaching the inlet just below the useless boat ramp at Hite.
We paddled our boats into the river current to drift downstream for a bit before following the trail of tiny bubbles on the water that marked the deeper river channel in the lake. We crossed the lake for our final time to retrieve our gear at Camp Alum and paddle back up Farley Canyon to the truck, logging 7.33 miles on our final day.
Some sufficiently cold beer still sitting in the cooler in the truck never tasted so good.
View attachment Lake Powell.kmz
We had originally planned to depart Salt Lake City on Sunday morning, but it soon became clear that a persistent weather system was going to blanket southern Utah with rain for Sunday and Monday, and we pushed our departure back by 48 hours. That turned out to be a good decision, as the soils were drying out and skies clearing when we arrived at Farley Canyon mid-afternoon on Tuesday.
Farley Canyon is in the uppermost portion of Lake Powell, just downstream of Hite and just below where, at the current water level of 3,606 feet, the Colorado River empties into the lake. Bringing a power boat this far upstream is ill-advised at the current lake level, but even a fully loaded kayak draws only a few inches of water. The nearest usable boat ramp is located 43 lake miles away at Bullfrog, so throughout the entire trip we'd encounter only a true handful of people each day. The end of the graded road into Farley Canyon is designated a primitive campground by the National Park Service, but we were the only ones there as we pitched camp next to the truck. Getting to the water a half mile further requires a high clearance vehicle with 4WD. Dinner that night was fresh grilled rib eye with a bacon bleu salad, accompanied by the last cold beers we'd enjoy for days.
On Wednesday morning we packed up camp and headed for where the lake water starts in Farley Canyon to launch our trip.
We paddled into the mouth of White Canyon in search of Fort Moqui, an Anasazi ruin that was destroyed when the Glen Canyon Dam flooded the countryside at the site of what was, before the lake, a frontier hamlet also known as White Canyon. It was the eastern landing of a ferry that crossed the river from the original townsite of Hite, where the river's irrigation allowed large fruit orchards. It's rather a shame, but all was flooded into oblivion in the creation of the lake. In recent years water has receded to leave a pile of rocks where Fort Moqui once stood. We couldn't find it, and were only able to surmise that it's currently underwater.
We continued south through hundreds of western grebes dotting the water and diving as they fished. None allowed us to get close enough to capture a decent photo.
We paddled on along the eastern shore to cross at The Horn, where we climbed out of our boats and scrambled up through through driftwood, thorns, rocks and impossibly soft, loose soil to a saddle that afforded views of the lake in both directions. It provided a good view of the paddle ahead, and we spotted what could be our campsite that night on Monte Cristo Island. It was also steak fajita night!
Had the water level been about 10 feet lower there would have been a land bridge from the island to the eastern shoreline. For now, however, we were isolated, and the only evidence of critters we spotted was a gecko or two scrambling across the island's rocks. I slept very well that night to the sounds of water lapping againt the shoreline of the island, but was awakened at 5:30 a.m. by the lonely howl of a coyote only 100 yards away on the near shore. We'd have to be careful with our food overnight whenever camping on the mainland.
After a quick breakfast of hot oatmeal and coffee we broke camp and continued south. The northerly wind from the night before was persisting, and washed 1 to 2-foot waves over the starboard stern of our boats as we approached Castle Butte and entered the shelter of Good Hope Bay. It was here that we encountered John, a hardcore solo sea kayaker from the San Francisco Bay area who had arrived via Blue Notch Road the night before. We paddled into his camp to get information on the condition of the road (and once we heard, we were glad that we hadn't tried to launch from there). He was out for a full month of touring the upper reaches of Lake Powell. He declared Powell to be his second favorite paddling site, only after Baja where he has traveled by kayak for up to six months at a time. After exchanging pleasantries Jon and I continued on.
We landed on Kung Pao Island, a tiny jumble of rocks upon which we'd have our lunch that day.
After lunch we continued south in search of a spot for the night, eventually settling on what we'd call the "Beach Camp" beneath the Trail Cliffs after 9.94 miles of paddling for a hearty "seafood night" dinner of linguine with white clam sauce, only after we each took the opportunity for a quick bath in the lake to remove a two-day accumulation of desert dust and dried sweat.
Once again I was awakened just before dawn to the howl and bark of coyotes, this time further from camp but much more sustained than the night before.
After packing up Friday morning we shoved off onto our longest lake crossing of the trip, a full two miles that despite a mild headwind we negotiated in around 30 minutes.
Shortly thereafter, however, the wind died and the lake turned to absolute glass. Shockingly, it would remain that way all day and we were able to make good time as a result.
After lunching on a tiny island at the tip of The Horn we crossed the lake twice more to enter Fourmile Canyon, where had planned to stay the night. But it was only 1:00 p.m., and we were easily distracted by playful rock formations at the mouth of the canyon.
The only viable campsite in the canyon was already occupied by a powerboater. It was still only 1:30, and with the smooth water we figured that we could make it to the mouth of Farley Canyon, where we already knew there was a good campsite, by 3:00. It would be a big, big day, but we nevertheless went for it, finally arriving at what Jon would dub Camp Alum.
Alum powder is a kitchen spice used for pickling. In the desert southwest, however, it serves a dual purpose. Stir a spoonful into a bucket of silty water, and you come back a half hour later to crystal clear water with all of the waterborne sediment congealed around the alum at the bottom of the bucket. The water is now ready to purify for drinking without the sediment. Camp Alum was far enough upstream in the lake that it was surrounded by a plume of silty water emanating from the Colorado River, and we'd have to use the alum trick to get sufficient clear water for cooking and drinking, although we didn't need water to prepare the fourth night's dinner: chicken quesadillas with diced jalapeños, diced green chiles and habanero sauce. Dinner would wait, though, for despite our (my?) exhaustion we added another 2.6 miles to check on the truck at the Farley Canyon launch, for a total log of 17.12 miles for the day -- a big day indeed!
The topography at Camp Alum was such that we had no choice but to pitch our tents right next to one another on the only tiny suitable patch of ground. Jon, however, opted to abandon his tent and climb 100 yards to a high outcropping of rock to bivouac. I drifted off to sleep while stargazing through the mesh ceiling of my tent to the sounds of fish feeding on minnows in the lake and the beating wings of birds flying overhead. Yeah, it was that quiet.
Each time I rolled over in the middle of the night my forearms, triceps and shoulders whined about the pain that I had put them through during our exhausting paddle on Friday. On Saturday morning we only partially broke camp before leaving our stuff behind at Camp Alum and heading even further upstream in search of the spot where the Colorado River currently empties into the lake. It was to be a relatively short day.
The water became progressively more and more shallow, and siltier and siltier. Eventually it was only a few inches deep as we searched for the channel, trying to not become stuck in the thick silt that lined the lake bottom like quicksand. If we had to climb out of the boat to come ungrounded we would have merely sunk up to our necks in mud, never to be seen again. Jon commented that he couldn't decide if it was really thick water or really wet dirt that we were trying to paddle through. We somehow avoided running aground and found the appropriate channel, successfully reaching the inlet just below the useless boat ramp at Hite.
We paddled our boats into the river current to drift downstream for a bit before following the trail of tiny bubbles on the water that marked the deeper river channel in the lake. We crossed the lake for our final time to retrieve our gear at Camp Alum and paddle back up Farley Canyon to the truck, logging 7.33 miles on our final day.
Some sufficiently cold beer still sitting in the cooler in the truck never tasted so good.
View attachment Lake Powell.kmz
