Brenden W. Rensink

Historian of the North American West, Borderlands, Indigenous Peoples, and Environment

On the Plus Side, is Glen Canyon Coming Back?

RE: all of our previous discussion of drought and Lake Powell, there is a plus side. High Country News just posted a great article on the “World Beneath Lake Powell.”

In all of Ed Abbey‘s lamenting of the over-development of his beloved SW canyonlands, the flooding of many of them by the Glen Canyon Dam stood was the most poignant.

(If you haven’t read Desert Solitaire, you should)

Over the past decade, drought has dropped Lake Powell dramatically, revealing many places previously submerged.  Now, flash floods have cleared sediment out of some of those flooded and buried canyons to reveal *part* of the landscape Abbey had been so sad to see disappear. Those following in Abbey’s footsteps must be pleased, but the dam hasn’t moved.

Go hike some Slot Canyons while you can.
(I’m going to next Tuesday, though on a different part of the river.)

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