Soap Creek and the experimental flood (Feb 2008)

The dam people at Lake Powell wanted to experiment flooding the Grand Canyon with 4 or 5 times the normal water in order to see if sand would be redeposited in back eddies and up high on sand banks. So for several days they opened up the dam floodgates and let a lot of water out. I decided to hike 4.5 miles down the relatively easy canyon to Soap Creek Rapids, which is the first major rapid in the river. There was definitely much more water than normal, and the rapids were bigger and faster, as can be seen by this picture:















Soap Creek Rapids Video