I am carrying two kayaks up a hill that gets bigger every day.

I guide kayak trips on Lake Powell and just finished a tour into the famous Antelope Canyon. Guests are gone, tips are collected, life jackets are in a pile, and I can’t go home until all these kayaks are loaded up on the trailer, more than 150 feet up from the water.

I can’t see my feet so I trip on a rock. A guest once asked us to get rid of all the rocks on this sandy hill. We said no for two reasons:

One, this is nature. 

Two, we like the rocks. 

Walking in deep sand with the weight of two kayaks in both hands sends every step forward an inch or two backwards. The occasional rock helps us get our footing. It can propel us up the ever growing hill a tad faster. 

How does a hill get bigger and bigger?

The water in Lake Powell is man-made, not a lake at all but a reservoir. The water is dropping daily as the Glen Canyon Dam releases water downstream. The sun and warm temperatures also evaporate surface water. Lake Powell gets all of its water from melting snow from the Colorado and Wyoming mountains, and we are the furthest away from last spring’s runoff. 

Last year the snow didn’t start melting and feeding Lake Powell until late May. If the same holds true for this year, we still have another month of this damn hill getting bigger and bigger.

On energetic days, the hill can be a motivating workout buddy. A get fit, get strong, get it done kind of relationship. 

On exhausting days, the hill can be an enemy with a whole hoard of nicknames. The damn hill and the stupid fucking hill and the Mother of All Asskickers Hill. 

Now I am carrying two kayaks up a concrete boat ramp. The Get Fit Hill isn’t the summit. The van with the trailer sits another 100 feet up the boat ramp since The National Park Service installed concrete barriers in the event that the lake water will rise to touch and cover the boat ramp. It won’t. It would be nice if the van were sitting at the bottom of the boat ramp, but it’s not. I’m breathing harder. I want to take a break but I don’t. 

I learned the hard way to not apply sunscreen before carrying boats. The plastic slippery handle will not stay within grasp. The day I made that mistake, I dropped a lot of boats. I took a lot of breaks. I tried rubbing sand on my hands to get the sunscreen oils off and it only kind of worked. 

This is the worst part of an otherwise magical and wonderful job. Today I had 15 guests on tour, so it will take me an hour at least to carry all 7 double kayaks, 1 single kayak, and my guide yak up the hill. 

I try not to take breaks but after carrying all the boats to the bottom of the boat ramp, then down the sandy hill then kayaking and hiking for 4.5 hours, my grip usually starts to slip after a few trips up the sandy hill and up the boat ramp.

My fingers are slipping. My grip strength isn’t quite up to par. 

The shirtless guy who’s carrying the other side of the kayaks likes to remind me of that. He lectures me on getting a gym membership and the importance of lifting weights.

I’ll never get a gym membership. I’ll never do repetitive motions with weights in my hands. But I will struggle up this Get Fit Hill with kayaks for eight months of the year.

Today (written on April 26, 2025), Lake Powell is sitting at 31.47% of full pool. That’s 141.87 feet below full pool. The Bureau of Reclamation is predicting this year’s spring runoff could be anywhere from 3-30 feet but most likely around 12 feet. 

And not all that water gets to just sit in Powell. Most of that 12 feet will be released downstream or evaporate. This reservoir is over-allocated to meet the needs of Lower Basin states. The water released from the Glen Canyon Dam is not adjusted based on inflow. Humans have been mismanaging this reservoir for more than two decades, which is why I carry kayaks up this Mother of All Asskickers Hill that gets bigger every day. 

---