A Journey to Cathedral in the Desert
Over the last years of sustained water shortage, we at GCI have been waiting for an important threshold. When Lake Powell drops to elevation 3,605’, we know that Cathedral in the Desert begins to reemerge from under the high-water mark. At 3,580’, the waterfall itself is flowing. And, we hope, at 3,575’, the “new floor” is out to the point where we can stand in and appreciate the grandeur of the chamber. We saw these important elevations present themselves after a historically dry 2018, and before the runoff of 2019 began, we saw our chance.
I had not been to the reservoir in many years, and had not spent any time out on the water. I have been in the canyons of the Escalante Arm, and down the San Juan River. So, as close to the classic Glen Canyon as one can get these days. I had heard stories of the reservoir. People spoke of the eerie juxtaposition of still water, stone, and sky. The lifelessness of the barren landscape. The houseboat culture. The sport fisherman. And of course, I had heard of the smell in the backwaters. Rotting plants in still water. I tried to push all of those aside, and to keep an open mind about a place that I had yet to experience.
At Bullfrog Marina we wandered around in the wasteland that was once riverbank, then reservoir, now it was a half bulldozed mud pit. Channels and roads were left partially complete, loaders and machines were parked haphazardly waiting for their operators to retrieve them, or for the water to come up and drown them. We walked around the machines through the sediment banks to the edge of the reservoir. Quagga mussels coated the calcium-caked sandstone. We chatted about the river, sipped beers, and watch the sun slip down behind the horizon.
The next morning our team, consisting of me, Eric (GCI’s ED), Mike (GCI Board member), and three longtime GCI members/coconspirators climbed onto a rented pontoon boat and zoomed downstream.
Once we were out of the marina and on to the main stem of what was once the Colorado River, I watched the red rock walls rise and fall against the sky. I looked for the usual signs of life in the desert. Birds, plants, insects. Besides the high shadow of vultures, I saw none. The stained red walls gave a story of the fluctuating water. Near the edge of the reservoir, bone white calcite stained rock reminded us of how recently the water was higher. Up the wall, the white turned to brown, and ultimately back to red. The high water mark — a hundred feet up the wall — was visible but only barely. Black streaks of Wingate showed through from water that had slowly bled down the walls, washing away the reservoir’s stain.
We snaked around bends in the reservoir and I imagined how it must have looked and felt as a river. Wide and powerful, carving through these ancient rocks. Beaches, birds, green life. Now there was none of that. A snake shaped lake. For the first time in my work with Glen Canyon, I felt the sorrow that I had heard from the river runners that knew the canyon before it was drowned.
After a couple hours listening to the drone of the engine, we turned toward the eastern wall, and a small white buoy told us we had reached the Escalante River mouth. While I think of the Escalante as a shallow but mighty desert creek, here we were into more lake. In the Escalante Arm, the walls started to close in, and islands of stone that were once amazing formations poked up out of the water. Once again, the high water mark showed us that if we had come a few years prior, we might not have seen these at all.
One of the first canyons that breaks off from the Escalante is Clear Creek. We found this with little trouble, and almost immediately we were in a different world. The open stillness of the reservoir was gone, the canyon walls bent in around us, casting long shadows with the feeling that we had entered a cave. The towering chamber seemed to dead end in front of us, but it was just a tight turn. We killed the motor and drifted quietly around the bend. What lay ahead hushed all of us on board.
The sun shone bright and powerful through a small notch in the middle of a giant chamber. From where the sun hit, a 30 foot waterfall trickled down into a perfectly clear pool. The light refracted off the water, and bounced around the massive space. The walls, and circular ceiling were all different neon shades of orange, red, yellow, and gold. The floor was the first beach we had seen since we left Bullfrog. The sandy mound had plenty of space for us to all spread out and take in the beauty of Cathedral in the Desert. Frank, one of our members on the trip, said it was the best conditions he had ever seen the feature in, and he goes anytime the waterfall is out of the reservoir.
Like the height of the water, my happiness rose and fell. It was amazing to witness Cathedral in the Desert like this. To hear the water cascading down. To have the sun perfectly placed to shine through into the room. To know this feature had inspired so many before me. But there was a lot of snow in the Rockies. We knew that that this summer, Cathedral would be drowned again. Waiting for another dry spell, or for us to protect it forever.
That night we camped in the Escalante Arm on the reservoir. The stories I had heard of the res were mostly all confirmed. The water had a ripe smell to it, and the slimy green color was not inviting to swim or wade in. Quagga mussels lined every inch of the little rocky beach we camped on. Between the broken glass, old fire pits, and the mussels it was hard to find a place to pitch my tent. But, we made the best of the evening and ate a big meal. A night out in the wild is better than a night in the city, even when camping in a place with such a sordid history.
In the morning, we had another canyon we wanted to explore. Davis Gulch was just a few miles upstream and we thought it would be another great place to observe restoration. The first mile of the canyon is still very much affected from the fluctuation of the reservoir. The floor is muddy sediment. The water flowing down from the upper canyon only has time to make shallow braided paths before the runoff buries it again. But even there, plants are starting to shoot up. After that first mile, it was astonishing to see what had come back. Not only had grasses, reeds, willows, and baby cottonwoods that had started to grow, but massive geological features like Le Gorce Arch and a sublime waterfall that have been out of the water for many years. I was awestruck in both the beauty of the place, as well as astonished by the idea that at one time man thought it made sense to drown it.
After we cleaned up a couple bags of trash from the canyon, we boarded our boat and began the long ride back to Bullfrog. This time, while I lay listening to the motor and watching the sky, I thought of the canyons. People often ask me about them, what are the canyons like now? What is happening to these features that Katie Lee, Ken Sleight, and David Brower were so enamored by? And we know now, that when given the chance, these places not only come back from under the river, they are still beautiful and worth protecting for future generations.
