Face Canyon, Glen Canyon NRA, Arizona

When Lake Powell was last full in 1999, these sensuously-sculpted narrows in Face Canyon were 100 feet below the surface of the reservoir and entombed in a deep layer of reservoir-deposited mud which filled them to the brim. As flash floods poured down from the headwaters of this canyon during the time period between the late 60s and 1999 when the reservoir flooded this canyon, they dropped their load of sediment into the stagnant waters of the reservoir here and eventually buried these narrows under a deep layer of mud, sand and other debris. As the waters of Lake Powell receded downstream from here due to the drought which began in the year 2000, this accumulated sediment was washed out of the canyon by flash floods, all the way down to the pre-reservoir streambed, thus restoring the pre-reservoir conditions found here. Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arizona.