Worth the Wait by Madeleine

This year my family and I were invited to go to Lake Powell with my great aunts and uncle for a week. Lake Powell, which is a huge, man-made lake located in the middle of the desert in Utah, is barren, beautiful, and breathtaking. 3,000,000 people visit Lake Powell every year, but unfortunately, other tiny, unwelcome visitors have taken up residence there. We (and my great aunts and uncle) started planning many months ahead of time for this trip. In September of this year we found out that it was worth waiting for!

Lake Powell was created by building a dam that took 10 years to construct on the Colorado River in the Glen canyon, causing the canyon to fill up. The Glen Canyon dam was finished in 1963, and in 1980 Lake Powell filled up to be 560 feet deep! Named for John Wesley Powell, a veteran from the Civil War,  Lake Powell is the second biggest man-made lake in America.  This gigantic lake is 186 miles long and has 2000 miles of shore line. 

In addition to the 3,000,000 human visitors each year, Lake Powell has recently started facing a problem with quagga mussels. When Lake Powell started out it had no mussels, but in 2012 after routine water monitoring test, mussel DNA was in the water samples taken from the lake. In March of 2013, four adult mussels were discovered. More adult mussels were continuing to be found on boats and marina structures. Some mussels were found submerged on the walls of the canyon. By the time we visited in September 2018, mussels lined the walls everywhere. This can cause big problems and frustration when mussels attach themselves to the motors of boats in the lake.

Mussel problems aside, we had an amazing time. When we arrived at the lake, we grabbed all our belongings, packed them on the speed boat and sped off to the marina where our houseboat was. The first night we stayed in the boat that was parked in the slip, then left the next morning to go to the spot where we anchored (not a chain anchor, but tied in several places to rocks on the shore!) and stayed the entire week. Everyone was in the water at least once a day. We could water-ski, kayak, S.U.P(stand-up-paddle-board, swim, or go tubing. It was like having a humongous swimming pool that was 90 feet deep in our backyard for a week. I collected many rocks while we hiked around the canyon, too!

This year my family and I swam, slept, and ate an Lake Powell with my great aunts and uncle for a week. This beautiful lake, man-made though it is, is a gift from God. It may have taken many years to fill up this huge lake, but it was, in my opinion, worth the wait.

https://www.arizona-leisure.com/lake-powell-facts.html
http://lakepowellrealty.net/11-cool-lake-powell-facts/
https://www.lakepowell.com/discover/park-history/
https://www.nps.gov/glca/learn/nature/mussel-update.htm