Lake Powell Canyoneering with the Merry Men of Murray
The BEST trip, every year. Out on Lake Powell, in Glen Canyon. The merry men of Murray invite Jenny, Ram and I out each year, and we have a really good time. Great canyons, great company, and usually great conditions. This year we really nailed the weather, as it was 10 degrees cooler than normal, which was good. The Lake water is warm (in the fall). The Merry Men provide a sumptuous spread of delicious food. Kinda kinda really great. A lake trip: hop in the boats, drive to a stunning camp, set tents. Day One, I drove boat as I had 3 hours sleep the night before. I dropped the kids off to play, and I picked em up a couple hours later. No problemo... I was a little nervous driving Drue's sweet ride through the narrow winding canyon for the pickup, but the wind stayed down so no bumping was involved.
Day Two: somewhat threatening skies sent us to an old favorite with a long approach, one we found our way through a couple years ago - this would be the 4th descent, the 2nd descent for at least half the peeps on this trip. The hike up is wonderful, though somewhat lengthy. Excellent scenery. If the weather soured, we had an exit route, but the weather held so... To the canyon - lots of potholes, interesting anchor problems... Fiddlesticks, SandTraps, shallow-water jumps, etc. - lots of action, but not many pictures did I take. We had some silliness, then Russ master-grilled us burgers!
Interesting strange rock things...
Day Three: rain. Starting at 6 am, persisting for four hours. The danish fairy came by to toss tasty pastries into my tent. Some reading and some lounging... then the skies cleared. We were in a great position for a half-day canyon, which thanks to the rain would be in total SPLASHER mode. Way fun. We had a quick lunch, hopped in the boat and dashed off to a nearby canyon. Lots of water, many downclimbs and swims. Finally, some tight downclimbs and slimy upclimbs and slither-acrosses near the end, then the LONG swim to the boat... the boat? OK, to a ledge where we could wait for the boat...
Swim for the boat!!!
Then back to camp, wonderful food...
More fun canyons the rest of the week... but I didn't bring the camera... so no pics from them, despite their mighty awesomeness.
(We consider Glen Canyon to be an adventure reserve, thus I won't ruin it for you by telling you where we were and what we did.)
Enjoy.
