Lake Powell Remembrances

Larry J. Gordon

 July 2005

Living in the arid Southwest, we not only anticipate each and every outing on beautiful, 196-mile long Lake Powell,
but we continue to day dream about certain memorable boating experiences of past years. 

Each trip provides plentiful material for a story.

I vividly remember the Lake when it was so still the towering sandstone walls blended effortlessly into the water,
making it difficult to separate the real from the images;

I recall the Lake by bright moonlight with the numerous buttes casting long shadows into the surrounding bays;

I recollect the still of the night being broken by the splashing of ravenous bass in pursuit of their prey;

I dream about the many miles I have skied or towed a skier over the placid waters of some remote side canyon;

I am again relaxed thinking of boat camping by a pristine lagoon so isolated that mechanical problems were to be feared;

I am again enthralled by the thought of observing two teen-agers swimming the 196-mile length of the main channel
with their meager supplies lashed to a tube pushed by each;

I am rudely awakened from reverie thinking of a lunker breaking the leader
by swimming under my boat and around the propeller;

I am again hungered by the thought of enjoying charcoaled steaks on a flat rock with our boat tethered nearby;

I am excited again by the thought of late afternoon winds scattering our canopy and camping equipment;

I am retrospective about the afternoons spent tied in the shade of a cliff
waiting for the blistering sun to dip beneath the horizon;

I am stimulated by the thought of diving from my sleeping bag into the still, waiting waters on warm summer mornings;

I am again enraptured by the memories of awesome Rainbow Bridge;

I agonize thinking of the ones that got away and the trips that never afforded a fish;

Retrospection makes the miles of smooth cruising seem like yesterday;

I hunger for another steak like the ones I charcoaled beneath a small camp table in a rainstorm,
and subsequently consumed under the boat canopy by flashlight;

I am still frustrated about the time the engine fan belt broke leaving us dead in the water for hours
until a new belt could be delivered 50 miles from the Wahweap Marina;

I am again angered by those few thoughtless boaters who disregarded boating safety rules
thus endangering themselves well as others;

I retain the image of hundreds of small fish darting for food scraps around our boat
while resting in some cool water amphitheater;

I am again scared witless remembering a storm so severe that our propeller frequently whirled in the air; and,

In early spring, late spring, summer and fall my idle thoughts are these,
and my yearnings are for more boating excursions atop the clear, blue, deep waters of Lake Powell.

'  click photo to enlarge  '