Lake Takes: August 2009

This post has the record for the most pictures. That happens when you have 17 people and most of them have cameras. We ended up with over 1,400 pictures of this week. We went to Lake Powell with Mark and Carolyn and Erin and Chelsea Thomas, Tara Hammond and her kids and Nick, Jason and Steffani Hammond. It was one of the biggest groups we've had at Lake Powell. It was a little different because we all left at the same time and drove together. That was a first for us. We had a caravan of 2 trucks with the boat and waverunners and 1 car. Things were going smooth until we hit about Scipio when we had a tire blow on the waverunner trailer. After fixing that, it was a smooth ride down. We arrived at the lake around 2 and were loaded up and under way by 4 pm.

We were determined to camp up the San Juan arm of Lake Powell. Chelsea and I had talked everyone into going that far and we had taken a lot of abuse for our convictions. It was my first time pulling the houseboat out of the slip on my own and it was a little nerve racking. We got on our way without incident and started toward the Castle Rock Cut. We tied the boat and waverunners behind the houseboat and started up lake. Our goal was to get as far up lake as possible. We made it to the bay just before Dangling Rope where we made camp for the night. The houseboat goes about 6.5 miles per hour towing the boat and waverunners. It took about 4 hours to get to that point.

We made camp under a beautiful star lit sky. The water was calm and the night was beautiful. We made way again at about 6 the next morning. We made it up the San Juan to where we wanted to camp in about 4 hours making it a total time of about 8 hours from Wahweap by houseboat.

After searching for a campsite from Deep Canyon up past Peek a Boo arch, we found a perfect one in Desha Canyon. The site allowed us to have shade a 4 pm!! It was beautiful. After about Tuesday, the crowds from the 4th of July left and we were alone up the San Juan. The water and the weather were gorgeous all week long. We got up every morning and made a ski run before breakfast and then played all day long. The waverunners we rented were fun , but one of them broke down early in the trip and we had only one working from then on. Also, apparently you need one with a turbo charged engine to pull my slight frame out of the water. Who knew??

Every day from morning to evening was spent on the water. The houseboat holds 300 gallons of fuel and we brought another 85 gallons in cans. We used just under half of the engine tanks to get to our camp. We also had to run the generator quite often to charge the inverter batteries because they needed to be replaced. That meant that we were filling the generator/toy tank about every other day. I didn't want it to run dry. One evening we were cooking dinner and the generator shut down. It was out of gas. I couldn't believe it because I had been checking the gas gauge daily and filling that tank as needed. We put 15 gallons into the tank and tried to start the generator, but to no avail. We put fuel in the carburetor and it would run until that ran out. We would get fuel from the toy tank nozzle so we knew that there was gas in the tank. Finally after about 45 minutes of trying to solve the problem, I checked the hoses and valves that run between the gas tanks. It turns out that the generator had been running off of the starboard engine and it was completely dry. After switching the valves to the correct position, the generator started right up.

We started a new tradition based on our cruise ship experience. We had a theme night. The theme night on this trip was Hawaiian night. We all dressed in luau gear and had a party on the top deck. We played games, ate and partied until the late hours. It was a lot of fun.

JT has decided that he wants to be a fisherman. On this trip he fished and fished. He caught a few bluegill and then he caught a big carp. He was so excited. One evening heard him yelling from the bow that he had caught something. We all ran up and he had caught a large catfish. It was huge!! The funniest thing was, JT was afraid to touch his own fish. After Grandpa helped him, he finally tossed it back into the lake.

We went on a hike up Deep Canyon one evening. Deep Canyon is where we stayed last time we went up the San Juan. It is funny how much the lake changes from trip to trip. You can try to camp in the same spot every time, but the lake is so different every time. The hike was so cool. We ran into several "puddles" in the canyon. The light and the canyon reflections made for great pictures. The boys also held their monster truck races up that canyon.

Another fun tradition is movie night on the top of the houseboat. We set it up a few nights every trip. One night towards the end of the trip we were watching the movie Taken. It is kind of thrilling and keeps you on the edge of your seat. Towards the end of the movie Trisha and I noticed a boat entering our canyon. We hadn't seen another boat enter our canyon for about 2 days and now one was entering at about midnight. It circled around the mouth of our canyon and eventually stared toward us. Trisha started to panic and I headed down to start the generator and turn some lights on. The boat came closer and the guy in the boat shined a flashlight on us. I couldn't hear what he was yelling so I had to turn the generator off. At that point I could tell the guy was drunk and seemed to be by himself in the boat. He asked if we knew where he was. We told him that we were in Desha Canyon. He was looking for Reflection Canyon which was across the main channel from the mouth of the San Juan. He was about 13 miles from his camp!! As he was searching on his map for his location, his boat was crashing into the canyon wall. We gave him directions and he was on his way. As we turned around, Carolyn was standing behind us with kitchen knives in her hands. Apparently there were quite a few startled people on the boat. It took awhile for us to calm down and finish the movie.

On Saturday morning we headed back to Wahweap. As we left the San Juan and entered the main channel the wind started blowing in our faces. We did pass the new docks that were built at Stateline and then pushed up to Halls Crossing. That was a pretty cool sight to see. One barge pushing and two houseboats anchoring in the slips at the front to steer. We pulled into Dangling Rope to gas up and we hit a lot of traffic and a big wind storm. I was able to get the houseboat docked without a problem, but in speaking with the workers I was one of the few. The rental boat next to us hit the dock so hard it knocked the girl off her chair in the office half way down the dock. It was a little hairy. After the boat was filled and the trash was emptied, thanks Chelsea and Trisha, we left and started down lake again. We pushed and made into Warm Creek Bay before we had to stop for the night. We left early the next morning and had the boat pumped and fueled and back in the slip in record time. It was another amazing trip to the greatest place on earth.

Our campsite in Desha Canyon