Description
When I was a kid my family went on summer vacations all over the western United States and one of my favorite destinations was Lake Powell. Visiting the Glen Canyon Dam, the thing that makes Lake Powell possible, I would imagine water spilling over the top, turning into probably the most extreme water slide ever invented.
This part of Lake Powell is visited for one of two main reasons. Either you are here to go boating on a houseboat or your own watercraft or, like me, you are passing through. Arriving from the west we'd already passed Zion National Park and were on the way to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon or possibly headed for Monument Valley. Regardless of why you find yourself at Lake Powell, stopping and looking around is worth the detour. It is such an out of the way place to find yourself that you might as well.
Lake Powell is a wonder to behold and the iconic white ring around the entire lake makes me think of it as a giant bathtub. Nowhere else in the world looks like this place, and the area is teeming with ancient relics. Hundreds of years before the Glen Canyon became Lake Powell ancient pueblo people lived there. Rock art and some pueblos remain, above and below the dam. They were amazing to see rafting down the Colorado.
Easily accessible by boat, the Rainbow Bridge is definitely not something most people have seen. Local Native American tribes consider it sacred, especially the act of walking under the bridge. Lake Powell, Rainbow Bridge, the dam and the scenery all have this quality of being larger than life; the experience of being there something that has stuck with me ever since, something special and lasting.
