May 25, 2019
Despite our late night, we gained an hour going into AZ, since they don’t observe daylight savings time. So we got an early start and decided to visit Horseshoe Bend, first.
Let me give you some context. Page, AZ, was established in 1957 to support the workers constructing the hydroelectric Glenwood Canyon Dam. Almost as large as Hoover, Glenwood Canyon Dam created a huge recreational waterway and reservoir. Horseshoe Bend is on the downstream side of GCD, where the Colorado River still flows green and peacefully.
We hiked downhill to the rim and overlook – along with hundreds of other tourists swarming the greater Glenwood Canyon over this Memorial Day weekend. The Horseshoe is impressive – but its single bend pales next to Goosenecks’ three. Boaters and rafters navigating its waters looked tiny and slightly unreal as if models in a diorama.
Our day was abundantly sunny and a perfect 72 degrees. We needed more walking so we hiked the Hanging Garden Trail as well. Quiet and not as heavily trafficked, the trail is fairly level but uneven. The trail meanders past greenery growing out of rocks, but is most impressive for the views to the north and west, where you can see the “cracks” in the earth’s crust representing Glenwood Canyon. The sky was straight, endless blue, no break in color, no dynamic clouds, sunshine unrelenting– rim to rim. One felt impossibly exposed.
We caught a late lunch at a little place called the Birdhouse, which featured fried chicken and sweet tea (of all things!). Now I consider myself a southerner because 1) my mother was born and raised in Richmond; and 2) my brother and I were raised in a southern household (in So Cal – you can imagine the complexities). But sweet tea? In the southwest? Are you kidding me?
After lunch, we decided to visit the dam’s visitor center. It is an amazing feat of engineering. Over 700’ deep, housing huge turbines that through machinations and magic (understood only by scientists and engineers) yield electricity. It took fully eight years (including construction) to bring the dam and its capacities completely on-line. More than a decade ago they opened the eight 50’ diameter tubes that run through the dam and flushed out the lower Grand Canyon in an environmental experiment that went so well, I think they did it a second time.
The rest of the day was filled with running errands (groceries)and doing laundry. I appreciated spending two nights in one place. Our room in Page (Baymont Inn) was the best so far, but also EXHORBITANT due to the holiday weekend.
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