THE RETURN OF GLEN CANYON

 

The NRA recreation area at Hite, Utah, is one of the spookiest sites we have seen in years of RV camping. Arriving early one evening in March, we were reminded of one of those sci-fi movies where all the people have vanished, leaving homes and stores open and lighted. The small, empty grocery store appeared to be fully stocked and ready for customers; the second floor of the fire department was lighted (and a rescue dummy was hanging from a hook); and the gas station was useable for credit-card holders. The toilets were not only clean and in operation, but were lighted and heated. Barbed wire fences surrounded much of what had recently been a thriving campground.

 

The visitor’s center worker at another campground had warned us about Hite, saying that only one ranger was left in charge of the place-we promptly named him or her the Lone Ranger--and that probably the campground was closed until further notice. As our Rand McNally atlas showed a tree and tent there, we took a chance and found the deserted site.

 

The next morning the ranger actually appeared. He explained that because the water level at this (northern) end of Lake Powell had fallen too far for boating and other water uses, scarcely anyone wanted to stop there, so the NPS had closed it down, but left it ready to reopen if the mountain snowpack melted and restored the water level. (Judging by a sign we saw indicating that the area has been closed due to lack of appropriations, there is obviously a political issue at work as well.) Indeed, it may reopen in a few weeks.

 

Back in the sixties, there was a huge uproar about damming the Colorado River to create Lake Powell. Edward Abbey and other environmentalists were enraged. The Sierra Club published The Place No One Knew, a book showing Eliot Porter’s photos of beautiful Glen Canyon, warning that it would be drowned forever. Like many environmental decisions, this one was decided by politicians. Glen Canyon was filled (or “reclaimed,”), and Lake Powell was created. The Glen Canyon Recreation Area was created in 1972 on  more than a million acres of land and water. Lake Powell, 186 miles long, has become a favored spot for racing motorboats and other water uses, as well as providing water and electricity for much of the Southwest. Except for some members of  the Sierra Club and other die-hard conservationists, opposition has gradually died down over the years.

 

Now upper Lake Powell is drying so much because of our changing climate that the magnificent ochre and sienna cliffs of Glen Canyon are again visible. We reveled in the scenery and enjoyed having the deserted site to ourselves.

Snow caps the mountain peaks above the canyon, and its melting may soon at least partly restore Lake Powell. This would be a mixed blessing, allowing for water recreation and for more important water uses, but much of Glen Canyon would disappear again.


Text and photos copyright 2016 by Carol Stone and Thane Puissegur

 

PARADISE ON EARTH

Regrettably, we were able to spend only a couple of days at Arches National Park on our return from New Mexico in 2010. Driving into the park at sunset, we gazed at balanced rocks, towering hoodoos, and natural arches glowing in the russet and orange light.

The next morning we took the wrong hiking trail by a lucky mistake, so we avoided the hordes of tourists near Landscape Arch and Delicate Arch, and walked to Broken Arch  by ourselves. Being alone in windswept canyon country is important for fully appreciating its stark beauty. Edward Abbey was happy when he spent two seasons here by himself as a park ranger, but dreaded the inevitable time when broad, paved roads would be constructed, allowing many tourists—like us—to invade the park in their RVs and SUVs. In fact, he felt no new roads should be built in the national parks, and visitors should walk most of the time.

Though Arches and other national parks in the Southwest are spectacularly beautiful, they strike me too much as being Earth’s skeleton, providing structure without nourishment. The parks I love most are rich in water, the blood of Gaia. Yosemite, Crater Lake, and Yellowstone glisten with waterfalls, cataracts, and lakes or rivers that bring water and nutrients to surrounding plants and animals.

Even Abbey needed to leave the desert at times and spend time in forests and near water. Before Glen Canyon was dammed to create Lake Powell, he and a friend rafted down the Colorado River, exploring it as few since John Wesley Powell had done. Abbey’s elegiac description of now-gone Glen Canyon makes it sound like paradise—in fact, he said in Desert Solitaire that wilderness is “all the paradise we need.”

We still have that earthly paradise, in spite of the crowded campgrounds and gift shops that spoil parts of the national parks. It is still possible to pull on a pair of hiking boots, walk for half an hour or so, and find ourselves in wilderness. As Jefferson and others said in another context, though, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. We need not only to support the national parks, but also to defend their wildness.