Grand Canyon to Page

Sunday 28th Apr

 

We packed up the RV and set off east along the Desert View Drive to the east exist of the GC Nat Pk.  We stopped at Grand View and Lipan Points for our final view of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon.  We can see the Upper part of the Colorado River from these points and considered if

we’d like to do that portion of the River rafting trip – another day perhaps……

 

The normal road to Page, on Route 89, is closed due to the road collapsing so we took the detour, and a shortcut advised by Nate, our boat captain, which took us through Native American land.

 

29th Apr  Antelope Canyon, Page, Az

We met up with Nate for breakfast, as he lives in Page, and he gave some tips on places to visit in the local vicinity and Utah. 

We drove to South Antelope Canyon which is a Slot Canyon that flash flooding has carved out of the Navajo Sandstone, with incredible shapes and colours.  It has to be seen to be believed.  We went down with a young Indian  There is a south and north Antelope Canyon owned by two different Indian families and there was an additional charge for being on Indian Land.

guide who explained all visitors must be guided, since a group of tourists died when they were trapped by a flash flood in the mid-90s.

 

We then had lunch on the shore of Lake Powell and watched some motorised boats go by and a couple of lads swim out to retrieve items of theirs blown into the lake by the wind.

 

30^th April  Horseshoe Bend

We visited Horseshoe Bend in the morning.  It is a 280 degree bend created by the Colorado River flowing around the sandstone.  We were really high up looking down on the boats on the river   There were no railings and people were getting pretty close to the edge of the lookout rocks.  High winds had been forecast for today and there were several tremendous gusts which blew sand absolutely everywhere; we even had to empty our trousers pockets of sand.

below.

 

 

We went over to Glen Canyon Dam, which was constructed 1956-66, and controls the Colorado River waters creating Lake Powell.  The lake is 186 miles long and backs into more than 96 major side canyons.  Once completed it took until 1980 to completely “fill”. 

 

However the water level has dropped in recent years and the lake is now only about half full.  We missed the morning Dam Tour and were told that due to the high winds they did not know if the afternoon tours would continue; so rather than wait 2 hours we went home and spent the afternoon in the swimming pool and Jacuzzi at the campsite.