The cruel, cruel summer of a water ban

Six years of drought in the American West -- or, perhaps, just over-allocation -- have caused the manmade Lake Powell to drain by more than 65%. As a result, the Cathedral in the Desert can be visited for the first time in decades.

After viewing it in 1963, David Brower compared the flooding of the Cathedral to "urinating in the crypt at St. Peter's."

I took this photo last summer. Navajo Canyon is another of Lake Powell's slot canyons, as is Antelope Canyon. It's hard to perceive the immensity of this piece of rock just from the photo, but I can tell you that the white "bathtub ring" stretched about 120 feet above the water level last July. (The water is about 25 feet lower now.)

The remark in the Times article about the boat ramps reminds me of our experience on the lakeshore. At one access point, the Park Service has created at least three separate parking lots to accommodate people wanting to park close to the lake, because the location of the shore keeps changing. Due to the gently sloping contour of the land there, the waterline has receded significantly with each passing year, so that the ranger station is now close to half a mile from the beach.

And what do you find when you get down to the beach? Monster trucks, with people hucking beer cans into the water. Inky, black water, slick from powerboat oil. I guess that's what a "National Recreation Area" is all about these days. It certainly doesn't feel like the experience you usually have after paying a fee to a National Park Ranger. Sad.