Thanks for the clarification
Aerial photos of Bullfrog Marina and Stanton Aug1
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As Wayne said, NPS is "working hard". If they pull this off (rehab this old Legacy/Auxiliary) ramp, and if they can get the sand-filled ramp north of the main Wahweap ramp into operation, they will have done something good. I'd say the minimum required...sort of a finger in the dike solution. At least that will get us through the busy season. Now let's see what happens with whale under I-Dock at the Wahweap marina surfacing later in September. We can wait on improvements at the north Executive ramp at Bullfrog since the old spur road is a great launch for now. Then we will have to cross our fingers to see what Mother Nature delivers this winter. That will tell us what will happen from 3525-3530 which is where USBR says we'll be in April/May when the spring runoff starts. I like Wayne's hope for a repeat of 2014. Saying prayers!
I launched a 18.5 solo at bullfrog last week
No issues.
We just returned from Bullfrog and launching off the spur was no problem for our 24'. I wouldn't recommend the area between the cones on the boiler plate. You have to back too far out to make that work as can be seen in the aerial photo. The "sweet spot" is where you can see the truck launching/retrieving on the left with it's front tires still out of the water. Between the buoy to the left that boat and the boiler plat area is ideal. If you get too far to the left of the buoy it gets too flat and shallow. I saw a bunch of people backing in there and they couldn't get deep enough to float their boat.
The Oracle
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(Lake Powell: New ramp, new swim beach, and more)
This article implies a ramp at Bullfrog cannot go below 3,525' no matter how much money is thrown at it. That level will probably be reached around March, 2022. I do wonder what other alternatives are viable in, or around, Bullfrog Bay? If anyone has a link or information with regard to the bathymetry (i.e., sub-surface topography) for the Bullfrog Bay (including Hall's Marina on the south side of the 'river') it would be super-cool to, speculatively, wring one's hands over while drooling over the possibilities and dressed in a Dracula costume all at the same time, of course.
This article implies a ramp at Bullfrog cannot go below 3,525' no matter how much money is thrown at it. That level will probably be reached around March, 2022. I do wonder what other alternatives are viable in, or around, Bullfrog Bay? If anyone has a link or information with regard to the bathymetry (i.e., sub-surface topography) for the Bullfrog Bay (including Hall's Marina on the south side of the 'river') it would be super-cool to, speculatively, wring one's hands over while drooling over the possibilities and dressed in a Dracula costume all at the same time, of course.
Here's a chart of the bathymetry around Bullfrog. The pink is approximately 3,490' with the third grey band in the 3,525' range. They have a good promontory with a steep slope into the water for the rental slips, but the whole bay starts getting too shallow somewhere around 3,500' elevation. The difficulty with the launch ramp is the shallow slope, although the spur is working well with launching off the side. I'll put up another image of the larger area in a few minutes.
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Here is the bathymetry rendering of the Bullfrog / Halls Crossing area. (I spend far too much time wringing my hands and drooling over these renderings in my Dracula costume.) Similar color scheme to what I have above, just changed the exposed lake bottom colors. Grey shades are the transition to minimum power pool, pink to red is the transition to dead pool, shades of blue are dead pool depths.
Running down the possibilities for really low water, Bullfrog Bay is too shallow, and Stanton Creek has too much of a cliff at the edge of the original channel. You might be able to develop a launch site in Stanton Canyon, but the ramp would be narrow.
On the south side, the existing Halls ramp ends in a cliff, and I don't trust the bathymetry data there because I can't spot the existing ramp. The ferry ramp might be possible (north of the sewage lagoons, east of the old runway), but the best possibility that I see is in the area where the land access to the marina is now. That area has reasonable slopes all of the way to the original river channel. The Halls Crossing marina was in that area originally, and that area was also used for boat launching on the Colorado River before the lake.
I've seen some pictures of Oroville Lake with several sets of ramps working their way down to lower water levels. Finding one constant slope all of the way down to the river channel is pretty hard, but it seems reasonable to have separate high pool and low pool ramps. You do want to keep the land facilities all in one location, though.
Running down the possibilities for really low water, Bullfrog Bay is too shallow, and Stanton Creek has too much of a cliff at the edge of the original channel. You might be able to develop a launch site in Stanton Canyon, but the ramp would be narrow.
On the south side, the existing Halls ramp ends in a cliff, and I don't trust the bathymetry data there because I can't spot the existing ramp. The ferry ramp might be possible (north of the sewage lagoons, east of the old runway), but the best possibility that I see is in the area where the land access to the marina is now. That area has reasonable slopes all of the way to the original river channel. The Halls Crossing marina was in that area originally, and that area was also used for boat launching on the Colorado River before the lake.
I've seen some pictures of Oroville Lake with several sets of ramps working their way down to lower water levels. Finding one constant slope all of the way down to the river channel is pretty hard, but it seems reasonable to have separate high pool and low pool ramps. You do want to keep the land facilities all in one location, though.
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Lake Powell bathymetry data is at https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-s...ce_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects, then I use the Manifold Viewer Manifold Software - GIS, ETL, Data Science and Database Tools. Maybe if enough of us lobby Google we could get them to put that data set in Google Earth renderings instead of the lake surface.
I use the free version, but I have to set up all of the contour shading each time I start the program (or reboot my computer). Others have asked me about how I do the renderings, but I have not heard of anybody else taking the plunge yet.
They have a pretty cool flyover on the USGS page.
oh man this makes me very nervous. We are heading to Bullfrog Labor Day with our 24' v-hull and launch with our 40' DP motorhome. Can u please clarify if that "sweet spot" where the truck was launching is asphalt and if it is, how far does the asphalt go on that side? There is no way we can launch with a heavy motorhome in the dirt and like u said, the boilerplates look wayyyy too shallow to be able to get it off the trailer without drowning the coach.
When we were there two weeks ago, the "sweet spot" was asphalt into the water. I'm not sure how far out it goes. It is somewhat broken up in spots, but is still smooth and gives good traction getting into and out of the water. I felt like for us it was no more of a challenge putting in and taking out there than on the regular ramp. However I imaging everything is a little more challenging with a 40' motorhome. This isn't advice, but the conditions two weeks ago seemed like it would be possible to launce with a motorhome safely. Good luck!
OK cool ty very much.
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