Day 10: Boat cruise on Lake Powell

Miles driven to-date: 3,102
States visited to-date: 14

After doing a little reading about Lake Powell, it became clear that one of the things any visitor here must do is visit Rainbow Bridge. The rock bridge, formed millions of years ago by a fortuitous pattern of erosion, is one of the natural wonders of the world and is an important religious site to many of the Native Americans who live nearby on the largest Navajo reservation in the U.S. (the reservation is about as big as the state of West Virginia). The bridge is only accessible by boat so we arranged to join an all-day boat cruise leaving from the lodge.

Because the bridge is about 50 boat miles from the marina, it took 3 hours to get there. The ride there gave us a chance to see the amazing rock formations all around Lake Powell, as well as the entrances to many of the 96 canals that extend off of the main part of the lake. We learned that the lake’s combined coastline make it bigger than the entire west coast of the continental United States. The lake is also 500 feet deep in some places, and is a beautiful greenish-blue color. 95% of the lake is in the state of Utah though the lodge is located in Arizona, which is how we were able to add another state to our list without adding any more miles to the car!

The two different colors of this rock show the highest water level. The locals call this the lake’s “bathtub ring.”

To give you a sense of the size of these rocks, see how tiny the houseboat at the bottom looks!

After docking the boat near Rainbow Bridge, we hiked about a mile to actually reach it. You can see below that it was quite impressive! It is so big that a 747 could fly underneath it; you could fit the Capitol building under it; and if you removed the Statue of Liberty from her pedestal, she could fit under it as well.

We enjoyed lunch on the boat during the three-hour ride back to the marina. It was in the high-90s so we had to drink lots of water and apply sunscreen all of the time, but managed to avoid dehydration and sunburn. The local news predicted a high of 113 for Phoenix, so we felt lucky for the relatively cool temperatures.

After returning to the lodge, we relaxed on the red sand beach and swam in the beautiful water. We heard that in July the water temperature can reach 85, but for now it was nice and cool. We were actually somewhat disappointed with the accommodations at the lodge and vowed to come back to rent a houseboat, which is really the best way to experience Lake Powell anyway. After a relaxing dinner at the hotel restaurant overlooking the beautiful rock formations, we called it a day – the sun had worn us out!