Lake Powell 2024

We had barely been home a week before we took off again; this time we headed south to Lake Powell. Jeff, Jonas, and I were accompanied by Dallin, his roommate, Bryant, his girlfriend, Audrey, and her cousins, Nina and Greta. In years passed, we've done our Lake Powell trip at the end of the season, but this year (like last year), our annual trip fit better into our June schedule, even though it added to the busy-ness of our already packed month. Still, it's always a weekend we enjoy...and always a weekend of adventure! We left early Thursday (June 20th) morning so we could maximize our time out of the lake for that day. We got there around noon and immediately headed out. All our days were spent cliff jumping, surfing, and tubing (or a variation of those activities), but not all of our days were spent on our boat. After several hours of surfing and tubing that first day, we started to head back to the marina when there was a loud thud that came from the engine. Our boat would no longer shift into gear. We were stranded...just as we had entered the channel heading back towards Antelope Point. I surprised myself as I calmly sat on our boat with full confidence that everything would work out (that's not to say that there were moments of stress following that as we rolled with the options we found for the next couple of days and how to execute those options). We were able to flag down another boat who graciously pulled us into Antelope marina. Thank goodness for Good Samaritans! These guys were so cool. They wouldn't even accept money for the extra gas money I'm sure it took for them to pull us. Jeff dropped us and the boat off at the marina then headed out with our Good Samaritans back to Wahweap marina where our vehicles were parked. The rest of us grabbed a table at the restaurant at the marina (thank goodness for that restaurant!) for dinner (and yes, we ordered food for Jeff so he could join us once he got back).

The next day (Friday, June 21st), Dallin and Jeff miraculously found and secured machines for us for the next two days (that is nearly impossible to do at Lake Powell during the peak season on such short notice). For Friday, they rented two skidoos. We grabbed the tubes from the boat before Dallin and Jeff towed it over to the ramp with one skidoo then muscled it onto the boat trailer. We tied the tubes to each of the skidoos and we were off! It was a choppy, wet ride out of the channel and into Navajo Canyon where we found a place to settle into for the day. It was a mildly rainy, stormy day. In fact, we got to witness how quickly a torrent of water could form on the rocks and fall into the lake. It was quite impressive and a little scary to think of what could happen if we weren't careful. (After we got off the lake that day, we heard reports of golfball sized hail in other parts of the lake! We were so lucky that we found the little cove that we did and that we weren't subjected to that type of precipitation.) Between little bouts of rain, we enjoyed a picnic lunch on the rocks while all the kids jumped, swam, and took turns on the skidoos. Jeff and I were content to anchor the tubes on the shore and push out into the water where we just laid back and enjoyed the incredible canyon views.

Saturday (June 22nd) was our final day on the lake, and we were able to rent a surf boat for that day. We really were lucky to get the rentals we did...even if it was a bit stressful trying to rearrange everything and get everything we needed for each day onto the rented machines. We headed to Padre Bay for the day. This is one of our favorite places to play. They have this little cove where the kids like to cliff jump and this cliff near where the kids like to surf. That's what we did all day...just surf and jump. We stayed out until dark...getting the last few surf runs in at sunset. My favorite part of the day was the drive out and back from the bay. With all our bad luck at Powell in recent years you would wonder why we bother to go back, but it is such an amazing, unique, breathtaking place...it's a wonder why we don't go more often. Even with the craziness of the weekend, there was something perfect about watching the sunset on that final day that made it all worth it.