Any good campsites for house boats in Reflection Canyon?

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Pocybassnovice

Pocybassnovice

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We are heading out this Saturday from Wahweap for our family houseboat trip. We're considering going north of Dangling Rope to camp but it appears that campsites are much more sparse for a 75' houseboat ( a relatively fast one - made it from the back of Rock Creek to Wahweap in 2.5 hours in 2016). We will also have 2 ski/surf boats and a 17' fishing boat. Looking on google maps last night it looked like there might be a couple of good-ish sites in Reflection canyon. From reading previous posts it also looks like Oak has some nice spots too. Other than that, the only others options seem to be limited and in the San Juan Arm. Does anyone have experience going from Waheap to this area they can share? What kind of travel time should we plan for? The houseboat has 3 200-gallon fuel tanks one of which is a toy tank but it sounds like we would need to fill at DR and also plan on packing in a lot of gas in cans as well. Any thoughts?
 
Based upon 'normal' houseboat efficiency (I know, very subjective and varies tremendously), I'd estimate you need 60-80 gallons of gasoline to travel to Oak one way and 4-6 hours each way. Assume your genset burns 1.5 gallons per hour and estimate how many hours you'll be running it over the week and you'll have a pretty good idea of houseboat/genset only fuel needs. That may impact how far you can go up lake.

I agree that beach sites are few and far between the farther North you go from Padre Bay, but there are some gems tucked into nearly all canyons if you are lucky enough to get them before someone else does! Oak is a great fallback location where you can likely find something that will work if you don't find one of the gems in other canyons.

When we head far up lake, we find 'acceptable' beaches along the way so we have a place to go back to as we search for the 'right' one, just in case it gets late in the day and we need to hunker down.

Have a great trip!
 
At this water level there are several good beaches in Oak but there will be a number of houseboats in there too. It's handy to Rainbow Bridge, Anazazi Canyon, a couple other slot canyons and Dangling if you need ice or ice cream :) Fishing can be good in the mouth of the San Juan and I've run all the way to Neskahi from there to fish also.....usually good slurps in that big bay plus Cha is a good place to see boils. I've taken a houseboat into Reflection and there are a few places in the very back. I'd scout out a place before taking the big boat in. There will be more shade but not as much "play" water for surfing and such. Chuck
 
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