I get my first glimpse of the huge man-made body of water when we turn off Lake Powell Boulevard and onto a smaller street that leads into the residential neighborhoods. The water is a brilliant blue beneath red and white sandstone cliffs. Islands, really massive buttes, rise directly out of the water. The lake’s surface is alive with the wakes of powerboats, Jet Skis, and the leaping acrobatics of water-skiers. From staring at a map in the motel room while Kim showered, I know that what I’m glimpsing is only the tiniest portion of the lake. It winds and twists through hundreds of sheer canyons for two thousand miles of shoreline. The climbing potential here is astounding. The thought of being belayed from the deck of a boat makes the corners of my lips raise a fraction in an involuntary grin. It gives new meaning to the climber’s term for falling—“decking out.”Beside me, Kim seems less pleased with the view. She barely gives it a glance. Instead she flips restlessly through her address book, staring at it for a moment, then at the street map we’d torn out of the motel’s phone book, then at me, then out the window at the signs on each corner, and then starting all over again with the book.
