I should not have gone on this trip. I found exactly what I was looking for, but I can’t say that I was looking for anything in particular. Questions were answered, but I already knew the answers. Perhaps I was in search of the questions. This is not making sense, so maybe I should start from the beginning.Click on images to see bigger versionsIn the beginning there was a kayak and a lake and many canyons to explore. No, in the beginning there was a multitude of canyons. About 40 years ago a dam was built which fully submerged many of the canyons, and half flooded the rest. About 100 years before that a clan of 250 Mormons were called by a man (who was called by a god) to travel across the then-empty canyons to expand an empire. The men built a road, and when the road met the largest canyon, they found a crack and blasted it wide enough for the passage of their wagons, cattle and women. After six weeks of sweat and explosions, they ferried across the river and continued their quest to the southeast. Presently, a guy (me) drove a truck with a kayak to the same crack not to expand a religious empire, but to hump the gear down the crack and float a boat in some of the half submerged canyons. The boat that carried the Mormons across floated down the river from an easier access point upriver. Why the Mormons didn’t cross there is unknown. Perhaps just triumphing over many miles of trackless desert was no longer considered legendary enough in 1859. The river not being available anymore for easy drifting, the other access point is many days paddling away for the latter day floater. The guy (me) thought that he was surely one of the first to think of such a wacky plan (assuming that the Mormon course of travel was not wacky). The rangers at the Esk-Lant multi-agency ranger station bolstered his (my) hubris; they had heard of no one carrying a boat down the crack called Hole-in-Rock. The guy (me) and the rangers were wrong. Not a half hour after he (me) arrived at Hole-in-Rock, another car pulled up with a couple of folks intent on doing the same thing. So much for uniqueness.
A map of the crack called Hole-in-Rock can be found here. Note the many lines of topography cut in a very short distance when traversing the crack:
More on the Mormon story of the travels of the Hole-in-Rock crew can be found here:
Or a longer version from the Mormon church is here.
A wider map of the general area where I paddled can be found here.
Don’t get the image of a poor soul sliding a long plastic boat down a boulder strewn crack. A folding kayak consists of a frame, like a balsa wood airplane (remember
those?), and a skin made of the same stuff that rafts are made of. The kayak I have collapses into three large backpack-sized bags. Along with camping gear I figured that the three loads I collected and packed weighed 40-50 pound each. I strapped each load to an empty aluminum backpack frame. So get the image of some poor soul humping a knee hobbling 50 pounds down a boulder strewn crack. And again. And once more just before dark. And then finally a fourth time in the morning with only food and a camera. I discussed paddling for a day or two with the other folks, but they planned to be on the lake longer that I, and also seemed intent on taking it very easy. I think the fact that I lapped them taking gear down the crack may have scared them off.
Carrying kayak up Hole-in-the-Rock
The boat assembled, the gear stowed in drybags, I was finally on the water and padding by late morning. This was the first time I had paddled the kayak as a single. The kayak was made for two, but can be configured for paddling by one. I turned uplake and toward the former drainage of the Escalante. I had numerous linguistic problems. What do you call a river that has been turned into a lake? OK, that’s called a reservoir. But what about a side canyon also formerly called a river? Hmm, they call it an Arm, I guess. Then what about a flooded side creek off of the side canyon once called a river? You can’t just keep calling it a creek. And what about a whole thing called a drainage that has been flooded? And if you turn up that side canyon once called a river, you can’t be turning uplake anymore. Do you turn uparm? Our language needs to play catch-up with our mega-plumbing projects. I was already having problems with the reservoir, but then I could have predicted that I would.Out in the main channel, I had fears about the big wind and bigger waves that blow up in the afternoons in the summer. The weather patterns when I was there in mid-October were unsettled, and the wind seemed to chase the mild thunderstorms as they drifted over the landscape. The wind blew first from the bow, but then reeled around and blew from the stern. A half-favorable wind was good as I could have hoped.
I turned left at the Escalante, and then left again at the first long side creek called Davis
Gulch. In an effort toward linguistic change, I named the flooded portion gluch. Davis Gluch. I was not alone. I had hoped that floating the lake in mid-October would mean a much diminished population of powerboaters, but I was once again wrong. Either that, or the crowds in mid-summer mean an unbelievable swarm of fiberglass and pistons in those hot months.
Arch in Davis Gluch
I no longer worried about weather or sharp stick punctures in the hull. The most dangerous thing became drunk rich assholes in 3-ton Bayliners tearing through slot canyons much too fast, beer in hand, bleach-blond trophy wife at side. Not only illegal, it was also dangerous and without a modicum of consideration for who or what is around the next meander. So what’s new, you ask? This is America, land of get what thrills you can and screw those who get in your way. Or capsize them as the case may be. In a small craft, the choice is to paddle next to the wall and risk capsize from the reinforced power of both reflected and incident waves (incident is right), or paddle farther toward the middle and risk being hit. Far up Davis Gluch, where the canyon was less than 30 feet wide and the walls sheer, said Bayliner driven by Beer-in-Hand came around a blind bend and kept the power pouring on even after seeing me. I gave the universal palms-down sign for slowing down, which he finally did, fortunately before he got alongside me. I merly rocked violently. His engine died in the process, apparently flooding. Or worse. As his attempts to restart it failed, his anger rose as I silently paddled away. “Hey you jerk, come back heyah! You made my engine die and I can’t get it stahhted.” He said in a New York accent. I’m not sure what he expected me to do, exactly. Come back for extended haranguing? Give him advice on restarting his monster? Accept responsibility for his irresponsible, illegal, dangerous and inconsiderate actions? Apparently. To be fair, for every trophy wife bagger, there were five boats who were both considerate and friendly. But given that about 15 boats per hour tore through at midday, there was constant wariness required. I feared that once Beer-in-Hand restarted his boat, he would seek out vengeance for his stupidity. Fortunately, after I exited the Gluch, I saw the Bayliner being towed off toward the main channel.
I paddled out of Davis Gluch and uparm toward Fifty Mile Reek, seeking calmer waters. Perhaps I was paying penance. I was on the lake about 10 years ago on a houseboat. We had a couple of speedboats too, and while we didn’t boat up any slot canyons, we did our share of waterskiing, drinking and generally having a gas-burning roar of a good time. I hardly knew the canyons then, and couldn’t imagine what had been drowned. Now the water is alien. I know what is buried. I have hiked mile upon mile of slickrock creeks and gulches. Sat and watched the golden light pass over canyon walls as ravens croak and coo above. Bright spines of prickly pear cactus glowing in morning light. The trickle and splash of a creek. Soft shadows. Willows swaying. All gone, save ghost skeletons of cottonwoods, 30 years drowned but still standing in the anaerobic waters below. The light is still there, but only half there. The still, green, bleaching water slaps against rock that a flowing creek and a hot sun and a scouring wind has formed over ages. The reservoir is beautiful, people say. Aye, I cannot disagree, but only half-beautiful. I wouldn’t trade all the wonderful reflections that 30 years of slackwater have produced for one noble cottonwood, beaver chewed, the light glowing in pastel green leaves rattled by a warm evening breeze.
Paddling these canyons is like flying through them at raven level. A wet raven that is. I rename the boat for this trip the Wet Raven. I long for water which brings life, sustenance, longing. The stagnant lake water is death. Varying lake levels consecutively drown and bleach a 30 vertical foot slice of the canyons. The water buoys only pleasure seekers and non-native fish. I search the bathtub ring for signs that the patina, the desert varnish, is reforming. The highest marks on the walls are from the big water year of 1983. The July when they nearly lost the dam. They put up plywood shields in front of the spillways because the flood waters were eating the guts out of the spillway tunnels. The plywood raised the lake level temporarily, added more storage, and flooded deeper into the precious side canyons than had ever been planned. Once again, the arrogance and miscalculations of man mean a price extracted from the subtle and sublime. The lake was only at the highest level for a few months, and did not completely leach out the dark rich patina from the stone, but it killed the canyons another half mile deeper in some cases.
It’s hard to say if the patina is restreaking the almost-lost-the-dam marks. Maybe. Probably not. The process of patination is not well understood, but it is slow, patient, creeping, that much is known. Like the eroding of mountains. Like the drift of continents. Like the cut of a river through a rising plateau. Here where I sit beneath the high water mark, I can see that we have stopped this, the last of the three. That is part of what we have lost. What we have thrown away? Humility. Why does this matter? Ed Abbey can help here: “Because we like the taste of freedom”. Some think power gives you freedom, but it is more rooted in wilderness, remoteness and mystery. Things that breed humility. A person can drive a boat to every corner of the multitude of canyons on this lake. Some would call that freedom. However, with the lake, every corner looks about the same: stagnant green water, bleached bathtub ring at every turn, a death zone at the silty head of each. And following the freedom seeker are many more driving similar boats and carrying the noise and trash of civilization with them. They find nothing new. They never stray far from their boats for fear of theft or loss of comfort. They quickly grow bored and seek the constant entertainment that fills their lives when not on the lake. The speed of the craft means that they soon see each similar corner. They restlessly circle and probe in screaming unfulfilled desire. This is freedom?PetroglyphsFreedom is about choice, and true choice requires a diversity of things to choose from. Pavement and slackwater bring homogeneity. Bring access. Access is not choice. Access is not freedom.
Freedom is a map of places unseen, each fantastic and mysterious in its own way. One canyon scoured clean from flash floods, another thick with sweet flowers and reeds, another rocky with splashing waterfalls. Freedom is the ability to find places that others cannot or will not go. Freedom is seeking your place in the wilderness. Freedom is knowing that there are wild places you will never be able to experience. Some think Progress is patriotic, but for every street we pave, for every bucket of cement poured to dam a free-flowing course of water, every plot of public land we sell at pennies on the dollar to a digger, driller or seller, we loose a little freedom. No one is taking it from us, we give it away piece by piece.
Are these canyons as important as people? Eighteen people died building Glen Canyon Dam. We shrugged and called it the price of progress. Let’s just say that we found the lives of those men at least as worthless as these hundreds of priceless canyons.
Gallery of places similar to those lost forever...
Cottonwood Bighorn Glyph Davis Gulch above the reservoir
and RavenAnother motorboat passes at unsafe and illegal speeds. The waves rock me, reflect off the sheer walls, meet and reinforce in a chaos of chops and pyramids. The man in the boat knows none of this. He is passed on around the next turn, his liquid wake of no concern. After a time, the canyon settles. A shaken peace returns, and I resume paddling. I come to the edge of water in one of the serpentine side canyons. I share it with a mammoth houseboat, three stories tall, and I wonder how they navigated such a behemoth this far back through the narrow meanders. A man on the rear deck is refueling a couple of jet skis winched above the water. I paddle by and he looks up. I wave. He returns to his work without acknowledgement, like I’m driving by a suburban garage. He does not seem to be seeking his place in the wilderness.
Above the tamarisk-infested death zones of the bathtub ring, these canyons return to life. Beyond the smell of unburied piles of boater shit, beyond the sight of soiled toilet paper streaming like banners from invasive Russian Thistle branches. Above the fetid human mess, willows replace tamarisk. The gurgle of water replaces the slap of houseboat wake. Beaver dams and chockstones and pour-off’s high above. The shade of century-old cottonwoods. Tangles of Gambel’s oak on the canyonsides. Close sculpted slots in the Navajo Sandstone. Rust colored poison ivy, musky cattail, and redbud trees with seed set in pods. There’s no sense in trying to keep boots dry; not only the easiest path, but quite frequently the only path is straight through the pools and ripples of the creeks.
Many of these lower canyons of the Escalante have an unclimbable waterfall at the far head. The only way to easily reach them is via the lake. There is enough left of them to give me hours of wandering each day. In many are delicate petroglyphs. In some are ruins left from the Anasazi occupation of these canyons 1000 years ago. These are the remains. Many more structures and glyphs further downcanyon were drowned in the rising lake waters, now gone forever. It is impossible to explore these lake canyons without mourning the loss below. It is like sorting through the possessions and clothing of a loved one, now passed on.
The weather was unsettled the entire trip, and the days are short in October. Frequently I would return to the kayak just at dusk, and paddle in the full moonlight through the finally quiet canyons in search of a good camping beach. Rain showers would come in short squalls: spatters and blusters that quickly passed with clearing skies. The best spots were the dry sandy shelves under overhanging walls. There I could eat and bask in the passing moonlight without the hurry and hunker from the occasional shower. The marginal weather also kept waterskiers at bay in the mornings. I found that if I was on the water early, I could enjoy a few hours of paddling without as much hassle from the challenges of the internally combusted
Moonlight with Orion above
At the far end of the Escalante arm the water returns to its preferred muddy gray as the Escalante River meets the slack green of the reservoir. The water slows and drops its sediment load, but I was elated to find a current still flowing after many days of floating on the flat water, and after many days of drinking filtered stagnant lakewater. The aftertaste of lake water is nasty. Once long ago, I returned from a hike to my car after a long day without sufficient water. In my car I found a water bottle, half full, which had probably been resident in the car for the entire summer. The lake water tastes worse than the water in that old bottle. It has a flavor I can only describe as greeny. Even though the filter required much more frequent cleaning, I pumped from the flowing muddy Escalante just to escape that flavor. (One might get water from the side canyons, but the first quarter mile or more of the side canyons are frequently fouled by human waste, and most days, I didn’t have the time to return with large containers for fresher water upcreek).
The trip back around to Hole-in-the-Rock required a long burning day of paddling. Burning in my muscles that is, not from the sun. I decided to stretch the trip farther still, and continued downlake to Lewellen Gluch. Once inside, I recognized the canyon from the long-ago houseboat trip. We camped and played volleyball there. I could pick out the beach even. And I still can’t remember my mother’s birthday. Memory is fickle.
Lewellen is filled with glyphs and slots if a person is willing to get out of their boat and walk a bit. Beaver too. And farther up cold sucking holes of water between sheer Navajo Sandstone walls. The kind where you are knee deep in mud, hip deep in water, and taking deep fast breaths from the chill about your plexus. You don’t so much wade as wallow, backpack over your head like some amphibious porter, hoping it gets no deeper. If there is paradise in this world it is in Southern Utah at the far end of one of these pools where your slimy labors are rewarded with a shaft of warm sun and a peek around the next bend toward secrets washed clean by the recent rain.
The final afternoon I returned to the crack up the canyonside, disassembled the kayak, and set to work hauling the burden back up to the truck. With darkness pushing me, I combined the last two trips into one, a great load on my back and another carried in my arms. I would lift the armload above a boulder and then struggle up with the load on the packframe, and pick up the armload again for the next obstacle. As I dropped the loads beside the truck and dropped myself too upon the slickrock, I muttered "crazy Mormons." Ahh, but who is the crazier, the ones who only lower their gear or the ones who both take it down and back out? As I said, I knew the answers, perhaps I was in search of the questions.
