Lake Powell, 2021

Lake Powell is a hauntingly beautiful and quixotic place, mirroring mankind’s efforts to wring more life from an ultimately untamable river, the Colorado, since Glen Canyon Dam’s construction in the 1960s. This photo was taken in October 2021, a year in which lake levels have dropped considerably once more since lake levels peaked in the early 1980s. Discussions regarding decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam along with Hoover Dam have picked up steam over the past several years, but perhaps Terry Tempest Williams says it best in response to what’s at stake here and elsewhere: “The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.”