We departed from Jacob Lake, up by the Grand Canyon, and drove down US-89A from about 8000′ elevation to about 3500′ in the desert not far to the east. The road is not real wide and drops the 4000’+ in about 15 miles. At the last screwy turn of the road down, a beautiful series of bluffs appears on the north side of the highway and they are colored dark red with little patches of other colors, even blue, mixed into the scenery.
On the south side of the road is mostly featureless desert but every so often the gorge of the Colorado River can be seen. It looks like a jagged wound in the surface of the world. Since it is late May, a variety of colorful flowers can be seen alongside the road. The desert we could see was mostly green, not the dull brown I expected. It was gorgeous instead of just appearing to be a bleak wasteland. On the north side of the road is the Vermillion Cliffs and they selected a great title. They are not only brilliantly colored, they also are impressive since they extend thousands of feet above the highway.
We eventually ran into US-89 at a tee intersection in the middle of nowhere and turned north toward Page, AZ, and Lake Powell. No sooner had we turned north than we started a long 6% climb to about 6500′ and a big plateau. The road here was destroyed by a huge landslide in 2013 but has been fixed since. It now passes through the most enormous cut through the rocks I have ever seen. I am surprised it was not a tunnel. The cut must be several hundred feet deep with almost vertical walls through the red rock formation.
Once on top of the plateau, the road starts a long decline to Page, AZ. One of the interesting items we saw as approaching Page was a fossil fuel-powered power plant which seems out of place since it is immediately adjacent to a huge hydroelectric plant of the Glen Canyon Dam. The dam backs water up for around 200 miles and the water was over 500 feet deep at the dam although I imagine the normally brown or red Colorado has left quite a bit of sediment in the bottom of the lake by now. There certainly isn’t much sediment below the dam because the water is emerald green.
We passed through Page and over the dam to the Wahweap RV Campground where we got a fabulous spot overlooking the lake and the spectacular rock formations surrounding it. The RV section we were assigned has full hookups, crummy wi-fi, very snazzy restrooms and absolutely stunning views of the surroundings. It was pretty warm when we arrived but as the afternoon wore on, the temperature went up to 100 degrees so we set up the trailer, climbed inside and turned on the air conditioning. We will venture outside once the temperature goes down below that expected at the surface of the sun. The weather report indicates it will be a great night for stargazing.
We got some pix both on the way and once we arrived at Lake Powell and you can see them if you click here