In the spring of 1968 a scout trip from Salt Lake City visited what was left of Glen Canyon to see Rainbow Bridge. I was in that scout troop. It used to be that the scouts would travel down Glen Canyon by the droves. But Lake Powell was filling and covering Glen Canyon. So we boarded a motor craft at the new boat ramp above Wahweap Creek. Our driver pointed out that we would have to travel down to the dam before we could start the long trip up to Rainbow Bridge.

But one day, he pointed high up on the cliff. "We will be able to boat right over that ledge and drive straight to Rainbow Bridge." My thought at that moment was, and remained for the whole trip, that everything I was about to see would soon be under water. As we drove to Rainbow Bridge I looked at the cliffs along the way trying to memorize them so I would remember what I saw.

Finally we came to Forbidding Canyon to begin the hike to Rainbow Bridge. Along the canyon path we played in the pools and small waterfalls that Aztec Creek created. Birds and small animals were everywhere. They warned us that it was the second canyon on the left, called "Bridge Canyon," that led to the fabled Rainbow Bridge and not to miss it. I made sure to count the canyons because I did not want to get lost in the desert. The canyon was narrow and very, very deep. It was gorgeous and so overwhelming. I remember asking the scout master why it was that they were going to flood this beautiful place. He said that he did not know but that "we should enjoy this because next year it would be all under water."

It was a long hike and coming to Rainbow Bridge was exciting. Each time we rounded a bend, we would stretch to see it. Finally, we spotted the top of the bridge, then the arms, and then finally rounding the last corner we could see Rainbow Bridge in all its glory. Wow.

We were thirsty, tired and dusty, but most of all excited to be there. It was a hike I will never forget or, for that matter, see again until we drain the reservoir. It is all under water. When we got back to the boats we ventured across the little reservoir into an alcove. It probably had a name, but the boatman didn't mention it. Plants and ferns were hanging from the walls and birds were flying, darting everywhere. It was cool and refreshing. We were reminded that we would never see this place again. How depressing I thought.

Fleeting though they were, these are my memories of Glen Canyon. I next went to this place years later on a ski boat and I looked down off the right side of the boat on top of Forbidding Canyon. I stared down into the water trying, struggling to see what I had remembered was there. My heart ached but my soul stirred with anger.

This was the theme of the 1960s era. The Sixties was the age of the youth. Seventy million children from the post-war baby boom became teenagers and young adults. The Fifties had been conservative and these young people were no longer content to be images of the generation ahead of them; they wanted change. So by the end of the Sixties new revolutionary ways of thinking and real change in the cultural fabric of American life occurred.

Out West the environmental world grew up in the 1960s. While they had been called "nature lovers" in the 1950s, at the start of the Sixties they were "conservationists" and they had found power and unity. That growing power helped defeat the dams in Dinosaur National Monument that President Eisenhower himself commanded to be built. But there wasn't enough power to stop the construction of Glen Canyon Dam.

It was on January 21, 1963, that a little known event would change the environmental world forever. It was a normal construction day at the dam site in Glen Canyon. The weather was cold and ice was everywhere. For several days crews had been chipping the ice away from the right bypass tunnel that had been channeling the Colorado River around the now 200 foot high dam. Quietly, and with no fan fare to alert potential protestors, project manager Lem Wylie ordered the closing of the tunnel. In doing so the Colorado River which had flowed freely for millions of years would, for the first time, be stopped by a man made object.

His intent was clear. By closing the bypass tunnel he was warding off the "cry baby" conservationists who were demanding that Glen Canyon somehow be spared and that Rainbow Bridge, which by law could not have water backed into it, be protected. But Lem Wylie would be dammed if he had spent the last six years of his life building a huge dam that would stand in the sun like some sort of giant monolith, just because some bird watchers got their way. He could be certain that a reservoir would be formed and that Lake Powell would exist. After workers pushed the metal gates in place, he wasted absolutely no time in loading the tunnel with tons of concrete. But hell, with Floyd Dominy at the helm of Reclamation and the "on again, off again" conservationist Stuart Udall behind his desk at Interior, Lem had nothing to worry about. Still, a few million pounds of prevention would not hurt.

So now, with the west tunnel sealed forever, there had to be a reservoir of at least some minimal size behind the dam. After all, the east tunnel, which stood 33 feet higher than the west tunnel, alone could not handle the runoff flow of the river not to mention its occasional monstrous flow. The river, which had run forever, slowed, swirled and eddied and then grew still. God help us all, the reservoir called Lake Powell was born. By July it was 200 feet deep at the dam. It extended 80 miles up stream, beyond Forbidding Canyon, beyond Hidden Passage and Music Temple, past Hole-in-the-Rock and the mouths of the San Juan and Escalante Rivers.

This battle for priceless Glen Canyon seemed lost. But wait, there might be one last chance.

The Colorado River Storage Project Act had included language assuring conservationists that "the Secretary of the Interior shall take adequate protective measurers to preclude impairment of the Rainbow Bridge National Monument." It was language that was written to placate opposition to the Bureau's most holy structure, really a vague promise on the part of Congress that Reclamation would not be allowed to intrude into the tiny National Monument. But it did not mention how it was to be protected, who would pay for it, or when it would be done.

Stuart Udall had been appointed as Secretary of the nation's lands in 1961 by President Kennedy, to the glee of conservationists, who had hoped against hope that he would suspend construction on the evil structure being built on the Arizona-Utah border. Nationally Udall knew that Americans were growing cognizant of the importance of conservation. They were beginning to know that they had to nurture as well as use lands. So on March 13^th in Washington D.C, David Brower sat at the office of Stuart Udall to make one last plea to stop this nonsense and save Rainbow Bride, Glen Canyon and the river. On the same day, out West, barely six weeks after the west diversion tunnel was closed, Lem Wylie called a small press conference together on the platform above the east diversion tunnel. Lake Powell, which had risen to a depth of 33 feet, was exiting through this higher tunnel as the Colorado River swelled from the spring runoff. Lem Wylie himself was given the task, the privilege really, of hammering closed the gate. While Brower sat in Washington, waiting to make his plea to Secretary Udall, Lem Wylie did the deed. The gate was closed to allow a mere 1,000 cubic feet per second to escape into the Grand Canyon below.

Brower waited, and then he waited. He knew that he might have a chance with Secretary Udall. Sure they had argued in the past, but still there was mutual respect and Brower hoped to capitalize on it. But Udall was not there. He was with the ominous Floyd Dominy on the steps of Reclamation.

Incredibly this hydrodynamic duo were there to announce that with their "victory" complete in Glen Canyon, the Bureau of Reclamation was going to construct two new dams on the Colorado River. But this time the construction was not to be in any remote, unknown place; the two huge dams would be built right smack dab in the middle of the Grand Canyon itself. And these two men were damn proud of that fact. And with no one to stop them, with no laws in their way, it appeared that not even God himself could save the Grand Canyon.

The battle for Glen Canyon was finally over.

Brower left dejected. But this new star from Berkeley was not going to let the Grand Canyon go under water. If there was anything close to what could be called an environmental war this would be it. All forces that could be brought to bear on defending the Grand Canyon were in fact, brought to bear. Every available weapon, every plausible argument was used. The Bureau flippantly began to build one of the dams in Marble Canyon. Keyways were dug and cranes were erected. The fire heated up. David Brower placed ads in the New York Times, "Shall We Flood the Sistine Chapel to Get Closer to its Ceiling." The IRS became involved and like a bull dog attacked Brower and the Sierra Club. But this backfired in a big way. Membership applications swelled the Sierra Club's general office and donations came pouring in. Martin Litton, a writer for the LA Times took boatloads of people down the Grand Canyon to see what was to be lost. All this brought the public's overwhelming support and after nearly six years of fighting, the "environmentalists" won out. The dams were defeated. Udall waited to make the announcement until Dominy was out of the country. Oh the shame of it all.

Glen Canyon was gone but the Grand Canyon had been protected from dams. And the environmental movement had been molded into a viable solid force. Bills were introduced into Congress that would ultimately create "wilderness areas." People in government were beginning to suggest, albeit cautiously, that a system of river corridors be set aside as special areas. National wildlife organizations formed and pushed laws to form wildlife refuge areas. The first of the clean air acts was passed. And two amazing pieces of legislation were being discussed---one to create an organization which would limit pollution and be a watch dog for the environment called the Environmental Protection Agency and the other to protect the species which were becoming endangered called the Endangered Species Act. Membership in the Sierra Club grew from 7,000 members to nearly 100,000 members during this dynamic time. By the end of the Sixties, environmentalists had powerful friends in Washington, laws to support their work and a public that was becoming more and more environmentally conscious.

The Colorado River today moves methodically around Glen Canyon Dam, controlled by the arbitrary fiats and whims of our politically conscious government. But beneath the now still and silent waters, other changes are taking place that not even Lem Wylie's clever eye could see. Anyone who had seen the river when it was running its famous dark red color or ever glanced at the chocolate run off of the Green and Colorado, and anyone who had seen the San Juan's famous sand waves knew that awesome amounts of sediment were being carried by the river. And they knew that the sediment would be deposited everywhere the rivers and side streams slow and then stop as they meet a reservoir's motionless water.

The water that comes out from around Glen Canyon Dam is clear because the slack water of the reservoir is unable to muster the strength to lift it up to the penstock intakes. The amount piling up is staggering. 50,000 acre feet of silt each and every year, nearly 100,000,000 tons of it, enough to fill a large 10-wheeled dump truck every 30 seconds non-stop, day and night seven days each week, 365 days each year. Unbelievably at this writing Hite Marina stands closed because of the sediment and will close permanently within a few short years. Bull Frog Marina is next. Sediment ends every single political argument to keep the dam operating.

People often call Glen Canyon "The Place No One Knew." This to some extent may be true. However, if you look at the register that was pulled form the mouth of Bridge Canyon in 1963 that people signed along the way to see Rainbow Bridge, there were nearly 20,000 names. Then if you look at the number of people that had floated the Grand Canyon it was less than 9,000. Trends mean everything in a political battle such as the one to decommission Glen Canyon Dam. And like the Sixties, this century has started with a new awareness to the sins of the fathers and a strong desire to change them. If trends continue, Glen Canyon will be"The Place People Will Know" if only given a chance.

Rich Ingebretsen is President of the Glen Canyon Institute.