Lake Powell

Today we had one thing on the agenda, and that was to go paddleboarding on Lake Powell. We ended up renting some paddleboards for cheap at Lake Powell Paddleboards, and they were really great. They set us up with all the gear, mounted everything on our rental car, and even gave us a beginner’s paddleboard lesson since we had never been.

The guy who worked with us was also from Michigan, so we exchanged stories. He gave us some pretty detailed directions on where to go for the best routes. He suggested that we go back into the Antelope Canyon area. There they had a massive boat launch that had to have been two football fields long. We drove down, dropped off the boards, parked, and we walked back down to the bottom.

Katie and I are seasoned kayakers, but have never been paddleboarding. It was a bit awkward at first, but I think we got the hang of it pretty quickly.

Lake Powell itself is wild. It is pretty much just a canyon that is filled with beautiful blue/green water. Since it is a canyon it drops off FAST. We pushed off from the shoreline and within a couple strokes we could not see the bottom. The guy at the paddleboard shop was saying that it can easily get to 400-500 ft deep.

The first part of the trip was through a larger section of the canyon. It was fairly wide so boats were allowed to go fast, and we were battling their wake at times. After that though we got into the canyon section, a no wake zone.

This was what we had come here for. We paddled through the canyon, and on either side of us were rock walls. There might have been a handful of very small “beaches” where you could get off and take a break, but other than that the towering walls extended deep into the water.

It was difficult to get good pictures with being on the water and all, but I had the gopro head mount rigged up to get some amateur video footage.

At some point along the canyon the water eventually stops. Here we got off our boards and got to go hike the rest of it on foot. The hike started with a canyon similar in width to what we had just paddleboarded. However, about a mile in, the canyon narrowed drastically and got to the point where we were ducking under formations carved out by the water that used to flow there.

About a mile and a half in, we hit our turn around spot. We ate some lunch in the middle of the canyon, said “hi” to some of the lizards, and turned back.

The second half of the paddleboard trip was rough. Though it never actually rained, dark clouds started to move in, and the wind picked up. There was some pretty gnarly wake that make it difficult stand on the board for noobs like us. Luckily we were with the wind so we hardly had to paddle to get back to our take-out point.

After paddleboarding we wanted to grab dinner somewhere on the water. Turns out right around the corner was the Antelope Point Marina. This marina is practically its own floating concrete island. I would estimate there were probably about 100 houseboats docked, and 30 different golf carts/gators zooming around transporting people/luggage.

This man-made island was also stocked with a liquor store, ice cream shop, and restaurant. Katie and I ate some dinner at the restaurant outside and watched the sunset. They were playing early 2000’s hits, and they were hitting the spot.