RV Road Trippin' Family: Lake Powell Day 3- 7/8/12

As much as I enjoy the recreational activities on our trips, I love learning about and immersing myself in the history, geography, and way of life in each of our parks we visit. That was what today was about…tour day. We started off with an early morning boat tour of Lake Powell called the Canyons Adventure Tour. It was a 2 ½ hour boat tour leaving from Wahweap marina that took us around Lake Powell. It started off visiting the dam, then went through Antelope Canyon and Navajo Canyon. It was fun to see all of the different water crafts on the water and dream of being on a houseboat one day. We learned a lot about the Lake as well. Did you know Lake Powell is the second largest manmade lake in the US? There is more shoreline on Lake Powell than there is on the entire western coast of the US. Lake Powell used to be a Canyon (named Glen Canyon when explored by John Wesley Powell in 1869) with the Colorado River running through it but was dammed up in 1963. It took 17 years to fill Lake Powell to its full capacity. Lake Powell is like a savings account, it is available to most of the western states as a reserve if there is ever a drought and those states could be sustained for 1 ½ years just from Lake Powell's water. This lake provides water for Phoenix and parts of California. It also provides power from hydroelectric power… which leads to our next tour. We took a tour of the Glen Canyon dam which was really cool! We have been in the visitor's center several times on our way to Zion National Park but this was our first time to take the tour. We had an hour to wait for our tour to begin so the kids did the Jr. Ranger program and got sworn in. Then off we went! We took an elevator down to the top of the dam where we walked around. The tour guide was very informative about how the building of the dam took place. Then we took an elevator down into the dam to the bottom. It was so cool to be down there and we got to see the turbines in the power plant as well. Overall, it was very interesting to learn how we get our water and electricity to maintain the quality of life we have today. The damming of the Colorado River was and still is quite controversial as Glen Canyon is sacred ground to many Native Americans. It is interesting to see how our modern way of life impacts other cultures, animals, and can dramatically change a landscape which is home to many different animals and vegetation. Without Lake Powell, we would not be able to have our quality of life that we have today. And…it is a lot of fun too!