With the awesome sunrise from the previous day I was inspired to get up early once again and see what the sun had in store for Bridge Canyon. My hopes weren’t all that high given how tight the canyon is here, and the relatively thick clouds all above. I was completely wrong though, and this turned out to be the best sunrise of the trip.
The sunrise came in two phases. The first was pretty, but mostly consisted of muted pinks and some blues hinting at purple. There were a few pockets of more vibrant color near the horizon, but of course my view of that was limited. Soon the color faded and I started to look around at the waves and water instead. However, before I could capture much of anything the sky lit up all over again, this time with wild colors all around.
It was really something quite special. I had a great time photographing it all, even though my photos didn’t really do it justice. The second round of color was short lived, and before I knew it we were on to the early morning light without any of that color. Don’t worry – I did get back to those photos of the waves.
The paddling from Bridge Canyon down included the last few rapids of the trip. None were particularly difficult, but they were fun none the less. Before we knew it we had arrived at Separation Canyon where we stopped for lunch. We spent some time relaxing in a very large bowl eroded out of the rock at the mouth of the canyon, took a few photos and then continued downstream. From here on out the water was consistently flat and we constantly had a view of the “bathtub ring” from when Lake Mead was at full pool in the 80’s.
We continued through the flat water to Surprise Canyon where we stopped for the evening. It was a very spacious camp due to the silt bank formed by the lake. I took some time in the evening to explore up Surprise Canyon. Unfortunately, it was not as interesting as I had hoped. When the lake was full the canyon had clearly filled with silt deposited by the creek running through it. These days the water level is much lower due to the drought, so the creek has slowly been carving a path through the silt layer. It’s an extremely slow process though, so the canyon mostly looks like it is filled with river debris.
After my little hike I simply enjoyed the quiet evening at camp and unpacked my kayak for the final time. I would be on the rafts for the rest of the trip. We did get just a bit of nice color for the sunset, but nothing compared to the last couple evenings, so I’ll leave you with an evening photo instead.
Taken 11/9/21
