The big reason we came down to Arizona was to spend time on the water. Besides Lake Powell, the stretch of the Colorado River between Page and Lee’s Ferry sounded like it would be perfect for paddle board camping.
The Glen Canyon Dam resides in Page, so the river below it is calm, clear, and cold. This paddle requires a backhaul – having a motor boat take you and all of your gear up the river to just below the dam. From here, you float and paddle 15 miles down river back to where your car is parked at Lees Ferry.
I originally thought it would be great to do the paddles around Mike’s birthday, but that was Memorial Day weekend – everyone wanted to be on the water. I found one outfitter who had an opening, but the booker said it was going to be very busy, so I decided to put it off til the Thursday after his work days.
When I didn’t get a confirmation email, I got a little worried and two follow-up calls yielded no response from the outfitter. We went for it anyway, crossing our fingers as we drove down to Lees Ferry. Unfortunately, when we got there and I found the guy (Steve) who was supposed to take us, he had no record of us… and he was booked for a full load without us. Luckily, he talked to the other guys and was able to find us a ride. Whew! And there were only two other people on the boat, so we weren’t crowded.
Mike took us up the river, stopping to point out wildlife (wild horses and finally big-horned sheep!), interesting rock formations and to share historical information about the area. The stops were nice because Mike talked very quietly and was quite hard to hear over the boat engine and it was nice to have breaks from the millions of midges that flew over the river and died as we ran into them.
Skinny horse! 
The trip up the river took a bit longer than expected because Mike was a talker, but after a look at the dam, Mike dropped us at a beach just down the river. We got situated, me while trying to keep my feet as briefly as possible in the 45 degree water) and then started floating.
We mostly floated the first day as the current was enough to keep us moving. Early on, we found some springs along the way to refill our water bottles and stopped at Honey Draw at Mike’s recommendation. He told us there was a spring back in a short canyon, but to watch out for the quicksand-like terrain. I didn’t realize that the whole way in was going to be super sticky and slippery mud and I slid right in. The draw itself was lovely and cool, but getting in and out was slow going.
The rest of the day was spent floating on the river. We stopped to look at some petroglyphs at one of the campsites, floated around Horseshoe Bend and eventually came to the 8 Mile Camp, our home for the night.
We set up our beach umbrella to try to escape the sun and enjoyed the view. Eventually, both Mike and I very briefly swam in the river, but a dip was about all we could handle.
The whole day, there hadn’t been very many motor boats going by – a few backhaulers and a few private boats. The one thing that totally confused us was the appearance of several similar large inflatable boats. We had been paying fairly close attention to the boats that went by – we wanted to stay out of their way and I was interested in how many runs some of the backhaulers did. Then we saw five of these inflatable boats go by with different sizes of groups, but we only saw them coming down river, never up! It wasn’t until I started writing all of this up that I researched a little and found that there is one company who uses the two-mile long dam access tunnel to get shuttle people down to waiting pontoon rafts at the bottom. Mystery solved!
We set up camp close to the river because it was quite a bit cooler there and Mike went for a sunset wander around the bluffs on the inside curve of Horseshoe Bend. The sunset was lovely and the midges seemed to calm down a little at night. Everything – bodies, boards, chairs- were covered in dead midges, but at least they don’t bite!
Just a few of the midges we encountered
The next morning, we both hiked around the area that Mike had explored the night before. It was lovely, but apparently not quite as colorful as it had been at sunset.
Sunset 
Sunrise 
We packed up and headed out, paddling more on the second day as the current was quita bit slower. We tried to take advantage of whatever shade the high bluffs offered and enjoyed the lazy pace and the views.
Near Lees Ferry, we found a tiny beach to enjoy and got to see a family of big-horned sheep making their way across and up the side of a cliff. It was a lovely end to a fabulous trip.
We headed back to our trailer for one more night. With it closed up while we were gone (even with a fan going and some windows open, the thermostat was reading 105 when we got back. We were hoping that we were heading into eve slightly cooler in our next location, but it was not to be.