‘A portion of paradise’: how the drought is bringing a lost US canyon back to life

Record dryness has restored an ecosystem under Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir. Is it time to see it as ‘a national park rather than a storage tank’?

One night in May 2003, I found myself in search of a disappearing lake.

A friend and I had ventured to the Hite Marina on Lake Powell to see what America’s second-largest reservoir looked like after three years of record drought. In search of a camping spot, we drove down a boat ramp that just a few years earlier was bustling with boaters. Now it sat eerily on a dry lakebed.