Hanging Garden

This is truly a hidden spot that is not well known. We asked at Dennys after we had breakfast and neither the Manager nor three of the servers knew anything about Hanging Garden. The guide said it was near the dam so we drove looking for signs. Seeing none we went into the Visitor Center to get directions which got us to the parking area. For the first part of the trail there are a couple of signs that indicate you are still on the trail. After that you are on your own. We stumbled and fumbled our way and eventually found the Hanging Garden, called that because there is green foliage growing on the side and top of a rock lodge overhang in the desert mesa. There is a spring nearby which supplies the water for this oasis to survive. Glen Canyon had a lot of these areas but some of them succumbed to the rising waters of Lake Powell.


The trail is about 1 1/2 miles over loose sand, packed sand, sandstone and small rocks. The trail is fairly level until you reach the oasis and it gets a little steeper as you ascend to the rock ledge overhangs. This is a fairly new trail created by the Park Service so that is why it is not that well known. As you can see in the photos there was some bad weather heading our way and we wondered if we would finish before we got rained on.


Here we are on the trail









 Here is the Hanging Garden







Now we are on our way back





In the area there is also a paved/unpaved road to the back of Glen Canyon Dam. We got a couple of pictures here but the wind started picking up and we were certain that we were going to get wet. There was the smell of rain in the wind but it turns out the rain just skirted by us.

 


 

The colors were amazing today as it alternated from sunny to cloudy back to sunny making the scenery even more amazing.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo