09/21 Lake Powell September 2013 Gathering

I'll be leaving Portland on Wednesday and, assuming my trailer cooperates, plan to arrive at Wahweap sometime Thursday evening. I have a guest slip reservation for Thursday night.

Can anyone comment on cell reception (AT&T) over the duration of this gathering? For example, do the overnight achorages / beachings occur in complete dead zones?

I'd like to keep in contact with the wife and child back home and would rather not be unreachable for more than 12-24hrs at most. I've been considering one of the DeLorme inReach satellite communicators, so maybe this is the time to do that.
 
Cell coverage is spotty at best. Verizon works if you can see Navaho mountain. AT&T works at the south end and Bullfrog and at times in the Escalante. The Delorme might be a good way to let them know your ok.
 
Another possible factor (although I'm not totally clear on this, as it wasn't my phone, so I may be wrong): I think AT&T (and perhaps others), may use a different coverage map for their pre-paid service than they do for the contract service, with the pre-paid having less coverage.

Might be something to look into if you have pre-paid AT&T.

I had reasonable service (about what Jody said), when I was there with a Verizon contract phone. With my Virgin pre-paid (uses Sprint network) the closest service at all was in St. George or Flagstaff! My bud with AT&T (pre-paid, not contract) had no service around Wahweap or Page. There was one place a few miles past Big Water (meaning a 10 mile drive or so on the road west of Wahweap) with service. In other words, things were slim.

Sunbeam

PS: Hoping to leave Monday sometime for Powell (from NW Washington) and looking forward to meeting up with the group :thup
 
Marcia, Boomer and I are camped in OKC for the night, about half way there from Ohio.

We are having a pleasant surprise towing Valkyrie with our '06 Dodge 2500 diesel with our new Northstar truck camper. It is a TC 650 pop-up that we really like a lot, but the big surprise is an almost a negligible drop in mileage while towing. The height of the lowered camper top seems to block the wind from hitting the flat windshield of the boar. Only the radar arch and radar dome project over the top of the camper.


Mileage is averaging in the mid-13's doing a little less than 60 and that includes driving in a stiff wind yesterday and lots of hills today.

Regards

Nick
"Valkyrie"
 
Love the 2500 dodge diesel. I'm thinking about selling my 5th wheel and getting an all aluminum camper for the truck, then I can sleep on the hard when I want to and have my CD with me.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCffOoPuLAo&desktop_uri=/watch?v=wCffOoPuLAo&app=desktop

A very short video of the rain at Lake Powell last week. Our daughter and son-in-law had to move the houseboat in the middle of the night. They were parked under one of these waterfalls in Moki Canyon.

The video is on the main channel. I don't know where. It has rained here for the last week, but the forecast is for dryer weather starting Tuesday. See you all at Oak Canyon in a week.
 
Nick (Valkyrie}, You will be coming thru Amarillo in the morning right by our place. If perchance you have a problem give us call. We'll be in church, but after 12 pm we could go for lunch. We will leave for L Powell Tues am. We'll see you Fri. Our cell phone no. is 806-367-1184. Is Boomer a dog? Maybe he'll like to meet Lindy
 
Nick (Valkyrie}, You will be coming thru Amarillo in the morning right by our place. If perchance you have a problem give us call. We'll be in church, but after 12 pm we could go for lunch. We will leave for L Powell Tues am. We'll see you Fri. Our cell phone no. is 806-367-1184. Is Boomer a dog? Maybe he'll like to meet Lindy
 
So neat that a C-Brat can be traveling cross-country and have people along the way offering assistance (if needed), lunch, and etc. Sweet :thup

********

I don't know if anyone is coming in from the south/Flagstaff on 89, but I noticed today that the "new" detour (called 89T) is now open, albeit with restrictions that currently make it no faster than the longer detour (25mph speed limit and use during daylight hours only). Says the restrictions will be lifted when the work is complete, but I don't see any updates since then (August 28). It's not the main road (89) fixed, but is a better/shorter detour that utilizes an improved Navajo Route 20. Here is more, from Arizona DOT:

http://azdot.gov/media/News/news-releas ... ake-powell

And info on the closing of 89 last year due to a landslide:

http://www.azdot.gov/projects/north-cen ... -landslide
 
Rob...as others have said...cell coverage is poor at best on Powell. If you can see Navajo Mountain you probably have a signal...if a Verizon customer. Other carriers not so much. You will only see Navajo when out in the main channel...and then only briefly in certain spots. Probably none of the overnight spots will have cell service.
As for the satellite coverage...I wouldn't depend on it to work either...at least from the overnight spots. Most spots will have a very limited sky view. May not be able to hit the satellite. The satellite will most likely have only slightly better coverage than the cell..that is...only when you are out in the main channel with a broad sky view. Much of the time you will only have sky directly overhead. Look at the pic of a typical campsite posted on the first page of this thread...not much sky available. So not sure it would be worth it to go with the satellite.
 
Given the communication constraints, maybe a "no news is good news" policy would be an option to consider. Presuming you don't go off on long hikes solo (not saying you shouldn't though), then if anything were to happen to you, there would likely be people around, and anyone with a fast boat can be to one "end" or the other (Bullfrog/Wahweap) within an hour and relay news to your family (that would be the bad news scenario). So silence would mean good news, and only if something happened would they hear, and it would likely be fairly promptly.

I'm not sure if a PLB signal would be any more likely to hit a satellite, but maybe? since they transmit continuously for a period of many hours (and maybe on a lower frequency). That too would be a "bad news" notification.

I know, not even close to the same as a nice chat with your family every evening :( (But on the other hand, sort of nice that there are still "wild" places.)

Sunbeam
 
For telephone coverage, we have a cheap Verizon phone and pay per minute just for places like Powell. We know places where we can see Navajo mountain or get A T & Y, and take the dinghy out to those places to make calls. For example in Oak Creek you can go out near the entrance with a dinghy and get reception with Verizon.
Much of the main canyon you you can get Verizon.

I suspect the Inreach will work at least once a day when you are traveling.

However Beerman, why don't you get one of the folks who has Verizon to call your wife and let her know that all is OK. Or have one of their contacts call your wife. This is some what similar to what we did with Ham radio patches. Sometimes we could not make a contact, but a ham back in the states would call our family and let them know we were OK, even if the were not at home when we got a call into the person in the US.
 
Thanks for all the comments / suggestions regarding communication with home.

After Jody's initial response to my question yesterday, I jumped the gun and bought the inReach SE. So I guess I'll get to test out how well it works in Lake Powell.

In theory, it "should" work. inReach is based on the "Iridium Constellation"...66 satellites. There are 6 polar orbit planes spaced 30 degrees apart. In each polar orbit plane there are 11 satellites. Each satellite orbits completely in 100 minutes. That would mean that one of the 11 satellites would be passing high in the sky every ~7 minutes or so.

I did find a post on Wayne's Words where someone mentioned using an Iridium based satphone with success on Lake Powell. They did say that only short conversations were possible due to losing the satellite link every 5 minutes or so. That seems to corroborate the theory. With the inReach, I only need a brief period of connectivity to send or receive the SMS messages.

We'll see I guess. If it works once or twice a day....great. Worst case, as Bob suggested, I can just find someone with a Verizon phone.
 
It should work fine. You just have to move to an open spot on the lake. You should know because your gps won't work either. There have been only a couple of times that my Spot didn't send a message and those were in the backs of canyons. You'll have to demo it for use around the fire I might need an upgrade.
 
Hi Brats!

Marcia and I stopped in Amarillo for a while and shared a cold drink with Lyle and Janda. Very nice folks that we look forward to spending more time with on Lake Powell.

Camped for the night in Tucumcari, NM.

Nick
"Valkyrie"
 
Great to see the lake getting water!! It was 3595 ft when we were there in March. Lots of new rocks. Enjoy people. Beautiful spot and great c brat friends. George and Carolyn
 
In past years my AT&T iPhone has worked well at the San Juan River junction on the lake with a view of Navajo mtn. I could be mistaking that for the Escalante River junction not far away, but I think not.

I think I'm on track to join the group this year as long as today's dental work passes the test for the next two days. Might meet the Rana Verde Friday departure or might just make the Oak Canyon rendezvous.

I expect I'll come through Flagstaff for cool (cold, usually) camping weather, instead of taking the shorter route through Vegas. Coming from San Diego area.

-Jeff
 
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