Glen Canyon - West Canyon March 19, 2005
Went down to visit Glen Canyon with the Arizona gang in March. One of the highlights of the trip was visiting Cathedral in the Desert at low water, with the waterfall hitting the sand for the first time in forty years. It is a remarkable little spot. We motored around the puddle, did some canyons, dodged the weather, broke a prop, had a good time. Here's the story.

Lovely looking weather, eh?

While I had done 2 boat trips prior, this was the first time we were not shuttled around by a competent boatman. So we rented. They tell me, nothing drives like a rental. Well, nothing drives a rental like a bunch of engineers. After a couple days we figured out a few important things, like, what kind of beaches to try to land on, how to start the thing, how to get it properly trimmed...

Tom Wetherell of Tucson enjoying one of the many uses of the Imlay Canyon Gear Dry Keg.
We puttered up-lake, trying to get the boat trimmed (level) and navigating based on a map of the lake at full pool. Our first objective was West Canyon, high on Kelsey's list and close to our starting point at Wahweap.

Here is some of the Arizona gang, spread out, just so I can tell you their names, from left to right:

Aaron Locander
Megan (TW's GF)
Tom "Filthy" Gendron
Stephanie Yoong-Martin

Plus (not shown):
Captain Todd Martin
XO Tom "Bubba" Wetherell
Tom Jones (photographer)

So we landed the boat, tied it off to a rock, and began hiking.

West Canyon is noted for a large number of short waterfalls. Here's the first one! Megan, Bubba, Captain Todd.
And here's how you get around it - mudslide at the bottom, then a steep cone of loose sand, then kicking steps up a vertical sand wall. Interesting...
Bubba went up first and tossed down a rope. Here Stephanie is pulling herself up the wall. Awfully big packs for "Lightweight Backpackers".
It took us an hour or so to get up to the old Lake Level. Boooooooooring. Mud walking.

Then, we got to the first slot. Todd waded in and reported "at least waist deep" and "mucho quicksand", so we decided to take the way around. We climbed up following cairns. Some went one way, some went another way. The cairns petered out. Some wandering took place. Mistakes were made. We finally, seperately, found our way back into the canyon. Wasted an hour. (Really, just bagging up the packs and getting wet would have been much quicker; but we were already a little cold and did not feel like it).

They went THAT way.

N E X T
West Canyon Day One: A -|- West Canyon Day One: B -|- West Canyon Day One: C
West Canyon Day Two: A -|- West Canyon D2: B -|- West Canyon D2: C -|- West Canyon D2: D
Cathedral in the Desert -|- Cathedral Apse -|- Badger Canyon

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