2019 Fall Gateway

Story and photos by Steven Law
The river is coke bottle green. The mid-morning
sunlight falls gently on whiskey-colored
cliff walls. The Cicadas are making their rasping
noises from the tamarisk trees which line
shores, a sound like a card dealer repeatedly fanning his
thumb over the edges of a deck of cards.
Up on the rim the temperature on this August morning
is already in the mid-90s, but down in the bottom of
Glen Canyon, which only recently emerged from the canyon’s
wall shadow, the temperature is ten degrees cooler.
We arrange our small amounts of gear in our kayaks
– water bottles, lunches, and cameras in drybags – then
push off the bank and into the current. The river below
the Glen Canyon dam is exceptionally clear and healthy.
Looking over the side of our kayaks into the water we
see trout swimming beneath us and a healthy ecosystem
of river weeds and other aquatic plants waving in the water.
To get to this spot on the river we hired a company
called Kayak the Colorado to haul our kayaks, gear and
ourselves from Lee’s Ferry up the river. We choose to
disembark about 10 miles upriver at a beach and campsite
called Ferry Swale. There are seven of us, a group
of friends from Page, Arizona. We’re also joined by an
old friend of mine, and his mom, from Oakland, California.
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