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Calgary - Big Surr - Lake Powell - Calgary
by lukasnovak
2009-06-10
United States & Canada AB,MT,ID,UT,NV,CA,AZ
Driving
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My Adventure Story
When Bad Luck Decides To Be Your Companion
Once in a while, things tend to turn their
interesting face on me. Last week, my wife and I went on a road trip to California with a five-day stop at Lake Powell, Utah
to meet my brother and do some fishing, boating, and camping on the lake.
Speaking of lady luck, this was the sequence of events: First, I forgot my
video camera at home, then our car got broken into in Salt Lake City, a few
days later I got a speeding ticket in California, then I lost my visa card in
Nevada, and finally, the boat rental company at Lake Powell couldn’t find my reservation
and so there was no boat available for us!
When we finally got on the lake, the Universe
kept on hammering us with mishaps. After a series of lost sunglasses and one drowned
fishing rod, we were dealt with a serious blow. At one of the most remote and
deserted entrails of Lake
Powell, at the very end
of a narrow slot canyon where there was no cell phone reception, our boat died
and wouldn’t start!
"Nice, now we are in the real pickle!"
Three people and a dog stranded on a boat in the middle of a total nowhere! The
sheer rock walls of the canyon were so narrow that there was not even enough
sky for a satellite reception to send a distress signal from my SPOT Messenger,
neither was there a place to leave the boat. Just rock walls and water around
us with the evening closing in. Our options were running out...
To give ourselves a credit, there was no
panic or fear. We had plenty of food and water for a couple of days and so we
weren’t in any life threatening danger. We figured that we still had two
options to get out. First to spend a night on our small boat and peddle out the
next day to the wider area from which we could send a distress signal. Second,
get rescued by other visitors to the canyon.
It’s been now about 3 hours in the canyon
and there were absolutely no visitors in sight. Ironically, as the evening was
approaching, our hopes to be rescued were getting slightly higher. We wished for a houseboat that would park for the night near the canyon
and its inhabitants setting off to explore the narrows before the dinner was
ready…
As there was nothing to do but wait, my
brother and I started to peddle to get our minds occupied with something else
and to get a head start for the next day. Our boat was a 21-foot Cudoy and so
our progress was very slow. Then we figured that we should swim and tow the
boat on ropes. It turned out to be a faster way but fairly exhausting as well.
At one point we thought we heard an engine and so we stopped swimming and
listened. Indeed, somebody was coming our way… “Let’s hope they are not going
to turn around before they reach us!” For a few minutes the engine sound
reverberated louder and louder through the canyon and finally two Sea-doos
appeared around the corner! Life was good again, we were rescued!
In the end, we camped at the mouth of our narrow
canyon, the same place we were towed to by our two rescuers. Even though the
boat rental company was really good and they changed our boat during the
same day very late in the evening, we decided to stay at the same spot and
continue with our leisure fishing and dining...
Interestingly, next day, when
we were leaving the place just before lunch time, we had to admit how extremely
lucky we actually were. Those two girls that came conveniently to our rescue
were the only people in the canyon within the whole time we were there, a time
span of about 20 hours.
