Hoover Dam Kayak Adventure

After paddling about eight of the twelve miles of this overnight Hoover Dam kayak tour, we camp on a sandy hill overlooking a wide beach. Gary sets his tent on a nearby hill after starting the campfire on which we cook our dinner. The outfitter supplied food, camp chairs, and all the gear needed for the expedition. All we brought was our clothing. We enjoy the relaxing pop of the embers as we finish dinner and then head to bed.

I feel like a Bedouin

The 60-mph winds weren’t supposed to hit until 8:00 a.m., but we are awakened in the pitch dark by the incessant flapping of the tent’s rainfly. I try to ignore it and go back to sleep. I dream a crazy nightmare that I can’t talk because my mouth is full of sand. Soon I’m roused again as the windward side of the tent pushes against my face, and I find that I am, indeed, grinding sand between my teeth. I turn on my headlamp to find our sleeping bags and clothing – inside our tent – covered in a surprisingly deep layer of sand. I feel like a Bedouin.

“Honey, get up, we need to tie down our campsite,” I say, afraid that the massive winds would carry away our camping chairs and anything else we’d left outside.

“Why are you using the white light on your headlamp?” harangues my sleepy husband. He prefers the red light setting that does not destroy night vision and so turns on his red light. We unzip the tent and go out to fold up the chairs that had already toppled in the wind. A plastic bag goes whizzing by, and I dive in the soft sand to snag it.

Could it be a ‘Rescue Mirage?’

By this time, Gary arrives from the nearby hilltop where he’d set his tent. “When I woke up from the wind, and I looked over here, I saw one white light and one red light. I was so dazed that I thought they were vehicle lights in the distance. I thought I saw a road, and the lights were a ranger coming to rescue us,” he describes his rescue mirage. We all erupt into laughter, knowing full well that we’re in a remote canyon miles from any roadway.

The guys go to look for a wind shadow in which to reestablish our campsite. I re-stake the rain fly and crawl back into my sleeping bag. Soon I hear through the sound of the wind, “Put all your clothes in the dry bag. We’re going to unstake the tent and carry it to a new spot.”

“Do you want me to fill it with the sleeping bags and mats, too?” I ask.

“No, leave those. We’ll carry them inside the tent,” yells Dan over the ferocious wind.

Half asleep, I begin cramming hats, gloves and rain jackets into the dry bag that Dan had tossed inside the tent. Outside the guys were drawing the stakes. Soon they carry the shelter, with me following behind trying to carry the rainfly that is spread with a tent pole. The embedded pole makes the huge nylon rainfly into a sail, and it catches the wind like a jib. I trip over the flapping being and drop the dry bag. I’m sure that if you could see in the dark, we all looked like a bunch of Keystone Cops flailing in the sand.

Eventually, we set our tents on the leeward side of the sandy hill in a windscreen and somehow sleep through the rest of the blustery night.