Part I of Glen Canyon
The glories of Glen Canyon Seattle San Diego United States Lake Mead , sits at the downstream end of the Grand Canyon , behind Hoover Dam.) The dam took what had been a muddy, seasonal river that flooded in the spring snowmelt and trickled in the fall and transformed it into a dazzling blue lake shimmering in a red desert. Where once only a handful of rowboats and rafts ventured down a broad and winding river, today three and a half million visitors a year bring jet skis and motorboats and canoes and houseboats to a mirror-still lake.
Construction of the dam, a 710 foot tall plug of white concrete, began in 1960. It is what is known as a “cash register dam” because one of its several roles is to bring in revenue by selling electricity to Phoenix Glen Canyon
In the end, Glen Canyon Dam was built as a kind of massive afterthought. The great dam-building battles of the 1950s were fought farther north, in Dinosaur National Monument
After a tumultuous battle, the plans for Dinosaur’s dams were shelved in 1956. The two sides agreed to compromise that was seen at the time as a triumph for environmentalists – in return for not building dams in Dinosaur, the Bureau of Reclamation could continue unopposed with is plans for a dam at a remote and almost unexplored spot in the desert called Glen Canyon.
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away"
Elves Chasm is beautiful and the cliff divers made it on the edge exciting
Another day in Paradise
“There are two ways to die in the desert: thirst and drowning.”
In the morning came the banging pots and pans of distant thunder. I rolled from my bag into the thin blue dawn, shuffled across the sand and stood there naked, peeing on a broom snakeweed. All parts of the planet lay below. This was the top, four thousand feet off the floor of the Grand Canyon , between Fern Canyon Kanab Canyon Nevada noon , when the atmosphere had a chance to embroil itself in rising late-summer thermals. The ocean must have been shedding a healthy layer of moisture in this direction. Now that I was looking, rubbing my eyes and walking to the rimrock, I saw that the storm was about the size of one of the New England states. It dragged lightning over the ground the same way someone distractedly pets a cat. From here it looked like toothpicks touching ground, holding up the storm.
I had been waiting, patient, walking these canyons for weeks while sorting through flood debris, counting flood stones of different sizes, using delicate tools to measure the angles of carved bedrock. Mostly, though, I lurked in shadows, waiting for the unexpected arrival of a flood, looking up now and then to see a small cloud heading north. The late-summer storms I had been counting on had spun in every direction, ravaging Olo Canyon Tuckup Canyon
There would not be much time before this storm arrived. I realized this and sorted through my gear. The storm wheeled east toward the Grand Canyon while I was at least a couple thousand feet too high to get into position to see a flood. No time for the big pack; it would take to long to lumber that think down the canyon. I wrapped what I needed in to a small waist pack: a bottle to hold some floodwater, a quart of drinking water, some food, tape measurer, notes, binoculars, raincoat, knife, and a map. I thought of bringing the webbing to help with climbing, but figure I would avoid that kind of unpleasantness entirely. I left the rim, heading toward low ground for a flood. I felt like one of those people studying tornadoes, driving into the storm while everybody else is hell-bent to get out. But there was no one to come running the other way, calling me crazy.
The storm arrived in half an hour, combing the rims, belting out thunder that sounded like a loose aluminum roof pounding in the wind. Still another fifteen minutes before I reached the upper channel of the canyon below. This was a long, narrow catch basin of a canyon, about fifteen miles from end to end. Down inside, it dug itself into a vast chasm, sawing through the planet to the Colorado River .
Rain began as I jogged across one of the interior rims, passing the lone standing boulders that had tumbled thousands of feet to get this far. I started to run. Cloudbursts pounded into the canyon as lightning began striking open ground. Sprinted down to the channel, just above where it entered the canyon. Rain had filled my boots already.
Here the rock was basalt, a lava flow from about a million years ago. Treated with the same regard as any sandstone or limestone out here, the black basalt had been cut into a wormhole of a channel, smooth and polished. I skittered down its chutes, entering the pit of a canyon tall and narrow like a snake path through high grass. This is when I had to think, when I slowed to check every twenty feet for an escape route, some crack or ledge above the high-water mark. The old high-water mark rose as the canyon tightened- ten feet, sixteen, nineteen, twenty-five feet. From the narrow floor of the canyon I was looking for a good place to bundle up and wait out the storm, a platform as far in as possible, where I could safely sit and watch if a flood should happen through.
Built of constant steep plunges where waterfalls formed during floods, the canyon complicated navigation. One of the descents down the middle was too difficult. A small piece of Kaibab limestone had wedged into a crack over a plunge, making a chockstone, something that sat sturdy enough to use as a handhold. Twenty feet below was a plunge pool full of water, its surface jumping like popcorn from the rain. I paced a few times, looking down-canyon, up-canyon. Should have brought the webbing. I grabbed the chockstone, shook it around to see if it was stable. Good enough. So I got down there, swing my body over the stone, and held on for dear life. I wanted to see if there was a way down. I figured if there was one more hold below the chockstone, I could climb inside just that much farther.
There was not another hold. This was not going to get me anywhere. From my suspended vantage I could see plunge pools lining the canyon from here on down. I pulled myself up to climb out. But I could not get my boots on anything. The angle of the rock was wrong. All I had was this wedged stone to hang from, enough to hold m there but not enough to get me up. I grunted, cursed, squirming around, and could not get back up. I turned quiet for a second, listening. If the flood came now, it would hit me at just about eye level. I made a trapped-animal sound and tried another position. My right arm weakened. The muscles in my chest drew tight. Then I started to kick. The waist pack wedged me in. I forced myself until something popped in my shoulder. Pain shot up my neck. It was a small strap of muscle pulled too far. I could my face involuntarily losing composure.
With my free left hand, I reached down and unclipped my pack. I pulled, so I could toss it up, out of my way. As I pulled, the strap wormed from my fingers. The pack fell. I saw it sail for an instant, the straps swinging out. It landed in the pool below like a sack of laundry.
My notes.
That is all I thought, my notes.
For two seconds I tried to find an alternative. There was nothing to hold here. I knew this already. I let go. The only thing to do was to get my notes back.
Falling took longer than I though. My legs started kicking unintentionally in the air. Then I hit the pool, chest-deep. I pawed at the gravel sputtering juniper scales and the small, wet twigs from my mouth. I pulled myself out, the pack in my right hand. The canyon echoed with my splashes.
For a moment I stood with my draining pack, listening so hard it hurt. The sound of thunder. Water running from my clothes. My heartbeat.
The world changes colors when you think you might die very soon. Everything stood brilliant. The purple shade of the storm had a thirsty lushness. The rock was smooth as pearl. Even as I stood panicked, listening to water pour through my pants, out of my boots, it was unmistakable that everything I believed was down here. Each part of my faith: the scalloped walls; how each sound was sharply distinguished; the smell of the water on stone; the fine patterns left in sand from the last flood. Every last piece of magic and belief. I had spent my life clutched to these canyons. I had always sought this. I could feel lumps of juniper berries down my shirt.
Even if it looked feasible, I could not go downstream from here. This is definitely how people die. From desperation. Bad decisions. If a flood ever came, I would be trapped in there like someone stuck down a well peering hopelessly up at a little circle of sunlight. So I turned to the place where I had fallen. I scrambled at the left side, got halfway up and scraped back down into the pool. Skin stripped from my palm like an offering. I sucked on the cut, mumbling obscenities. My flesh for an escape.
Then the right side. A couple cracks lacing basalt, part of the jointing that occurs in cooling lava, were exaggerated by erosion. With the pack slung over a shoulder and out of the way, I managed to reach the halfway point, just below where I had jumped. I lay back against the last handhold and rose finger by finger. I used all of my energy, a day’s worth just for my fingertips. Then, just for my palms when I ran out of cracks. I used my chin, my right cheekbone, my hip. Anything I could get. It was bad rock. Too slick. My body began to shake , muscles jackhammering.
Rain plucked at my eyes. Skin started to slip, sending my heart jumping. I held to the rock with the side of my face, with my palms flat as palms can lie, the last knuckles in my fingers crimping at the rock. Water started over the edge of the canyon floor above me. It started into a waterfall. Clear water. A small, ornamental flood. Okay, I thought, clear water, just clear water. The clear water increased, spreading toward me as it ran into the plunge pool with a sluicing sound. Oh Jesus, not now. I could not move. If I did I would fall. I let the weight of my body settle on my flesh and rock. I breathed. The voice of the water grew louder.
I could go down. If I could not get up, I could have to go down. I thought about the circle of sunlight, and the sad, helpless look that would be on my face. I banished the thought and went ahead with my left hand. My body would be sore tonight. Every part of it. I relished the though. Tonight. Out of here. Then the right leg. My left hand drifted over, touched the bottom of the limestone chockstone at a full reach. Fingers crept up its side. I got a hold, my face still flush to the wall. I wrapped fingers around the stone. My entire weight shifted. Water ran down my arm, using my body now as a waterfall. I inched up, boots against one side, hands now against the chockstone. When I got high enough, without thinking, I pushed off like a frog, thighs tight, launching my body away and landing with my torso in the gravel and water of the next higher level. My fingers dug in, keeping the dangling half of my body from yanking me off. Gravel let loose and flowed over my shoulders. As fast as I could, I scrambled away from the edge.
I bolted off to one of the walls, climbed up to the rim. Scared enough to have this crisp, anxious stare on my face, I sat in the rain watching the streamflow, which never got any bigger, never muddied. It stayed ornamental. Most of the storm had hit lower in the canyon, where I would not have expected it. Big floods down there. The rain had stopped. I peeled off my clothes and wrung them out so that the murky water spattered the rock, then scooped water in my hands to clean the small debris from my skin and rub clean the abrasions on my palm. Scanning through binoculars (a bit foggy now), I could see water running off the Esplanade sandstone miles below.
I sat there naked for a while, thinking I would get up, dress, and walk away soon. But I did not get up. I sat. I watched. The canyon had given me back. There are certain gambles out here. A commodity of value comes into risk. I figure this is why people spend hours in casinos, tossing money down for a sense of immediacy that is often removed from civilization, a sense of wildness perhaps, where loss or gain will be simple, quick, and definitive. That would be my sense of loss at my own death- simple, quick, and definitive. I shook my head, made promises to myself. But I was here to find floods, regardless. I walked around the basalt rim, finding my way into the lower canyon.
(September 1 – the water in the canyon dropped considerably during the night and we have a huge beach this morning. Elves Chasm with beautiful pools today. Blacktail Canyon
Egg muffins Sreves 16 (2 muffins each)
14 eggs
1 lb shredded jack cheese
16 oz cottage cheese
1t baking powder
1/2 c flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 c melted butter
add ins-either:
8 oz chopped green chiles
or
1 lb italian sausage
1/2 lb sauteed mushrooms
or
green peppers, onions, spinach whatever you like
Beat eggs, add cheeses and add ins. Refrigerate over night. In am mix in rest. Spoon into very greased muffin tins or use foil liners. Bake 30-40 min at 350. Can freeze and reheat in oven or on griddle wrapped in foil. I think you could bake in pan and cut in squares.
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