Recollections: Slot Canyons of Wahweap

I didn’t give Glen Canyon enough credit

"Swallow Canyon" from the rim, looking downstream. 

Wahweap Bay and Lone Rock can be seen in the distance

I have been outspoken about my attitude toward living and working on the shores of Lake Powell, and the fabled Glen Canyon now buried beneath hundreds of feet of water. It wasn’t a good place for me—I am one who belongs among the trees. I was glad to come home. However, I don't regret my summer spent in the Southwest. In fact, I wish i had taken the time to explore more than I did. I may not have liked the climate, but I do have respect for just how colorful and impressive the landscape really is. For example, without traveling more than five miles from the resort, I made a discovery while walking along the lake shore one afternoon. From the entrance, the canyon appeared fairly small, and I imagined it to do what the others did: just vanish into the brush after a few hundred feet. I figured these canyons would be more of the same…dry, dead and barren.

But it wasn’t.

Half way up the canyon, I came to a large rock, overhanging the creek bed, fallen from the cliff face high above. The water beneath eh rock took me by surprise. The creek, hinted at by the dry wash that had been my trail had come to life in the form of a slowly creeping brook, kept alive by the humidity inside the canyon. The further up I went, the narrower the canyon became. Sand dunes piled twenty feet high, perhaps sediment left behind when Lake Powell retreated from this canyon blocked it in places. In others, a mesh of branches from a tree gathering its energy from sunlight high above. The canyon became narrower and narrower, going from ten feet wide to five, to, in places, three. Deep puddles required what little canyoneering skill I had to keep my shoes dry, and patches of quicksand blocked other spots on the canyon floor. By the end, the temperature and humidity inside was far more like what I see back home, than the desert outside providing a home for ferns, moss and algae. Names were carved into the rockat the end of the slot canyon, but one drew my attention in particular: "Haus, 3-18-1967." The lake had been filling for several years when that was carved, but it wasn’t full yet. I imagine it looked to him a lot like it looked to me. Perhaps he was one of those nostalgic wanderers who missed Glen Canyon, and wanted to have it back, exploring what was left of it. Or maybe he was a boater who just wanted to leave his mark. Most likely, I’ll never know.

A village of Swallow nests cling to the canyon wall

I visited the canyon with the swallow nests many times during the summer. The narrow part of the canyon changed little and thankfully I only ever saw a trickle of water flowing through it, despite sand dusting the walls five feet off the ground, placed there by the infamous and deadly flash floods the region is known for. 
While it remained largely the same, a few visits were unique. One afternoon I saw an owl take off into the brush on my arrival. On some days, carp would gather in the warm shallows at the mouth of the canyon to bask and hunt for bugs, scattering when I approached. The canyon walls were dotted in places with clusters of swallow nests, little mud adobe shells with an almost perfectly round hole in the middle to serve as an entrance, clinging to the cliff side like miniature pueblo buildings. 

Just a Remnant…

Inside the canyon, the air stays cool, and water 

flows year-round. In the cooler climate small

plants, moss, and even clusters of ferns can thrive

          I’m sure that people who saw Glen Canyon before the dam would claim that what I saw was not Glen Canyon at all—far rom it. I wouldn't argue with them. My canyon was likely a side wash that, were the lake not there, would receive no attention at all. But with the lake there, and my canyon starting right on the shoreline, it’s a unique place that became my own for the short time i was there. While Glen Canyon drowned, and gave in to the invasion of the infamous zebra mussels, places like this still exist. It lacks the archeological, cultural and geological value hidden beneath the reservoir perhaps. Those who knew the canyon will probably laugh at me for how sentimental I am towards a place like this, and to be honest, I envy the experience they got from the canyon before it was flooded. But parts of Glen Canyon were spared, and in these places Glen Canyon will live on, undisturbed and unchanged. Even if the reservoir never comes down as those river runners would like, these places will still offer a distinct flavor of what was. My canyon is just a shadow of Glen Canyon, but a shadow, nonetheless. -KP