Day 42, September 26, Touring Powell Lake Area

It gets dark by 7:00pm and is light by 6:00am, so this morning I went for a hike up the hill behind the campground. From the top was a great view of the campground. 

After breakfast, we all went for a drive. Found the trailhead for the Horseshoe Bend Trail, which is a 1.5 mile round trip.

It started as a sandy, uphill walk, then at the top of the hill it became bumpier. It alternates between whitish gravel, more sand, ad some solid, sloping rocks, the Navajo Sandstone.

.Upon reaching the end of the trail, the view of Horseshoe Bend from the rim of the canyon is eztraordinary. You need a wide-angle lens to capture the entire scene! The Colorado River created a 270 degree horseshoe-shaped bend in the canyon 1000 feet down. The river flows from the right, around the bend, then exits to the left. We spent some time soaking up the awesome views.

Next, we stopped at a "scenic view", which involved another short hike down to a fantastic viewpoint of dam.

Then it was off to Wahweap, which consists of several large marinas, mainly mooring huge houseboats.

We stopped at the ritzy Powell Lake Resort, which is a huge resort where we had lunch. Lynda & I paddled in the lake to cool off, then we walked around the the docks, where hundreds of million+ dollar houseboats and power boats were moored. The lake is a very popular boating lake and has the largest boat launch I have ever seen - at least 10 lanes wide!

Our last stop was at "Lone Rock", where there was a lovely beach and several RV's camped along the shore. Lone Rock is a huge square rock that sits in the middle of the lake.