T
That is, until I rounded the last bend on my stand-up
paddleboard and spotted our MasterCraft X10 gently
resting with its bow tucked at the slot canyon’s entrance.
I climbed back aboard and, faced with the prospect of ex-
iting the canyon in reverse, helped the rest of our crew
turn the boat 180 degrees by hand. Not too diffi cult when
the rub rails are within inches of both walls.
The sun slipped deeper in the west, throwing the little
slot into twilight. It was time to go. We roared past Face
Canyon’s quiet coves and towering cliff s into the broad
expanse of Lake Powell’s Padre Bay, bound for the moth-
ership, a houseboat that was, temporarily, our home.
This was a type of boating I had never experienced
before, running the houseboat to a destination with the
MasterCraft in tow, then taking the X10 on sorties into
some of the most breathtaking landscapes imaginable.
A MAN-MADE OASIS
When United States Army Major John Wesley Powell
and his team embarked on an exploration of the Green
and Colorado rivers in 1869, they were taking their boats
into the last empty space on the maps of the continental
U.S. The Powell Geographic Expedition would lose men,
boats and supplies during the harrowing three-month,
930-mile journey from Wyoming to Nevada. Yet it also
was a triumph as the one-armed Civil War veteran and
his men ran the length of the Grand Canyon and ex-
plored its little, gentler sister, a hidden oasis straddling
what is now the Utah-Arizona border.
Today, much of Glen Canyon National Recreation
Area remains as Powell saw it nearly 150 years ago, and
boats are still the best way to traverse this remote can-
yon country. But you won’t have to tackle a wild river to
do it. The controversial 1963 construction of the 710-foot
Glen Canyon Dam tamed the mighty Colorado. Though
it drowned the canyon, the dam also created Lake
Powell, a truly magnifi cent body of water. At full pool, the
lake is 186 miles long with 1,960 miles of shoreline; last
year, that translated to roughly 170 miles of navigable
Colorado River channel and 1,800 miles of shoreline.
That makes Lake Powell the primary gateway to a star-
tling desert wilderness. Within the arms of its nearly 100
major side canyons are ancient cliff dwellings and petro-
glyphs, Mesozoic fossils, dinosaur footprints, lush hang-
ing gardens, hidden slots, Seussian rock formations, and
sacred Native American sites like Rainbow Bridge.
BEHOLD, THE MOTHERSHIP
Boaters unfamiliar with Glen Canyon and Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument might be sur-
prised to learn that access to the lake is limited. You
can launch your boat at Wahweap Marina or State-
line Launch Ramp at the lake’s southern end in Page,
Arizona, and at Utah’s Bullfrog Marina or Halls Crossing
Marina, both at its northern end. That’s it.
To truly explore Lake Powell, then, you’re going to
need to load your trailerable boat with camping gear,
food, water, extra fuel, a portable toilet and other provi-
sions. Or you can take your own personal cruise ship.
We rented a 59-foot Wanderer houseboat from Lake
Powell Resorts & Marinas at Wahweap. With two decks,
four staterooms, two heads, a large salon and full galley,
we had more than enough room to bring our longtime
friends, Mike and Kelly Massey, my husband, Richard,
and our 8-year-old daughter, Johanna. Plus, we carried
two stand-up paddleboards and two kayaks.
In addition, we elected to bring the MasterCraft X10
as our auxiliary watercraft. Not only could we use it for
tubing and boarding, but also one of us could run ahead
to choose a good anchoring spot. Then we’d only need to
beach the mothership once, an appealing prospect in
narrow quarters and with sometimes tricky conditions.
“You defi nitely want a second boat,” says Capt. Rick
Bennett, a marina pilot who assists boaters with leaving
and returning to Wahweap. “A houseboat is slow. Take
Though the
dam fl ooded
the Glen
Canyon Rec-
reation Area
to create the
lake, much of
the surround-
ing areas are
as untouched
as they were
when Major
John Wesley
Powell led
an expedition
there in 1869.
74 | BOATINGMAG.COM | MARCH 2018
