I've been lax with the trip reports the last week or so, mainly because I haven't been doing anything exciting.
I left the Grand Canyon without doing any hiking because it was way to cold and windy to be enjoyable. I would have at least done the Rim Trail but there is no reason for me to be uncomfortable doing it.
I went back to Lake Powell at Page, AZ. The waters are way down from the drought. New points and islands have appeared since April. Even so, it is still a very beautiful sport. The winds were kicking up pretty good and I used that as an excuse not to do any paddling. Actually I didn't want to paddle because of my shoulder joints. I think I only have a little more paddling left in those shoulders and I want to save them for the west coast.
I hung around Lake Powell for a few days waiting for my mail to be forwarded and then headed back up into Utah again. Drove up through Mexican Hat and into Monument Valley. Then I took the 17 mile drive through Valley of the Gods... quite pretty.
The next day I hiked the short trails to the 3 natural bridges in Natural Bridges National Monument. The longest is 1.3 miles but they all plunge down into canyons for close up views of the bridges.
Continued along UT-95 to northern Lake Powell at Hite. A beautiful drive but the water is gone from the north end of the lake. Just a small channel where the Colorado River enters the lake. The Dirty Devil River is just a mere trickle at this point. Really sad. Of course there's a lot of water a little farther down the lake. Someone told me it took between 5-10 years to fill the lake up after the dam was built so it will take a while to empty it too.