[1] Located 13.5 miles northeast of Glen Canyon Dam in Lake Powell, Padre Bay is the largest expanse of open water on the man made lake.

Cookie Jar Butte lies between them on the north shore of the bay.

At the southern mouth of the bay, north of Dominguez Butte on the south shore is Padres Butte, formerly an island, now with lower water in the lake the tip of Padre Point.

A group of ten men, the Dominguez–Escalante Expedition, led by the priests Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and his superior Francisco Atanasio Domínguez, were en route home from a failed attempt to find an overland trail to Monterey, California.

They had first attempted to cross the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry in Arizona.