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Show OCTOBER 1996 GLEN CANYON’S BURIED TREASURE A GUIDED By Mark TOUR Gerard eee the soupy Colorado River ten million years to sculpt Glen Canyon from a heart of radiant red and tan sandstone. It took federal Bureau of Reclamation engineers just twenty years to fill it to the rim with slackwater. A bureaucrat named the reservoir, “Lake Powell.” To John Wesley Powell, in 1869, Glen Canyon was an unexpected refuge from the roaring, whitewater chaos of Cataract Canyon and the wild upper Colorado River. His rapidspounded wooden dories slowed to a crawl beneath towering walls with hanging gardens of fern and moss Willow and tamarisk fringed the riverbanks and deep alcoves echoed with birdsong and the trickle of chilly springs. For 150 miles, this unnamed canyon was a cool serpentine oasis in the searing August slickrock. Powell found a “curious ensemble of wonderful features,” in the canyon. “Carved walls, royal arches, alcove gulches. . .” He chose the Scottish word, “glen,” meaning secluded, green valley, and named it Glen Canyon. Fifty five years later, federal Bureau of Reclamation surveyors saw it differently. Glen Canyon, they reported, was “of no particular value so far as is known.” The Bureau of Reclamation had an attitude about the desert’ and its plumbing. Their “reclamation” mission was to irrigate naturally arid land for agricultural’ use. - “The unregulated Colorado River is a son of a bitch,” maintained bureau Commissioner Floyd Dominy, “either in flood or in trickle.” Together with Western congressmen and lobbyists, the bureau proposed a “cash register dam” for Glen Canyon. Everyone will benefit, they argued. It will generate electricity to pay for irrigation projects, control both silt and floods, store water, and it will create a watersports haven for visitors. Today, the engineering feat that is Lake Powell, poses problems and contradictions: It’s upstream end is rapidly filling with silt. The reservoir does store several years’ worth of water, but it’s also a huge evaporation pond, losing tons of water and further mineralizing what's left. It spouts clear, 460 water downstream that has endangered native fish and scoured away ‘Grand Canyon’s beaches. The dam generates electricity in a region of huge coalfields. More popular than Yellowstone But they were right about visitors. Today, Lake Powell is more popular than either the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone National Park. About three million visitors come to Lake Powell each year — nearly the population of Los Angeles. Of course, that’s become another problem. Many visitors consider Lake Powell the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Its beauty is surreal: an aquamarine sea lapping against bare domes of Navajo Sandstone. Backing water from the dam once caused a flood in Escalante’s Coyote Gulch and Rainbow Bridge National Monument. The geologic sandstone formation that allows for these natural wonders is unique in the world. For millions of years, rain, wind, and snow rapidly eroded the rock above the Colorado River, dissolving it at the geologically swift rate of a foot every two thou- sand years. Little soil was Brower predicted in 1963, Tired of the same.gid grind? Come try our new Sweet Vanilla Hazelnut, European Dark Roast or House Roasts. Fill up a fun Joe-To-Go mug and you'll appreciate what the bagel guys can do with their beans. JJ Js e5 fe to PAGE 8 yo [ for “Lake Powell . . . will probably be the most beautiful reservoit in the world, Continued on page 9 Buy an Einsfein Bros’ Travel Mug andl we fil wih drip cote for free. g left plants to take hold and it became a vast petrified desert, known as slickrock. Even conservationist David |
