Bullfrog North (Executive) Ramp

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The slips are not much further from the parking this year, as the terrain drops off very steeply now. I would put the walking distance at about 500 feet, with about 75 feet of vertical drop.
 
Yes this is amazing and beautiful. On time and (probably) under budget. I cancelled a Memorial Day trip out of two fears…no water and no ramp. At least one part of the equation is solved. Cold snowy weather coming for this week. We could still add something to the snowpack and keep it above 80% of normal.
 
Dougie said:
Yes this is amazing and beautiful. On time and (probably) under budget. I cancelled a Memorial Day trip out of two fears…no water and no ramp. At least one part of the equation is solved. Cold snowy weather coming for this week. We could still add something to the snowpack and keep it above 80% of normal.
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The ramp looks great but I'm seriously wondering if it will be usable. Between Apr 12th, 2021 and the lowest point for the lake on May 25th, 2021 the lake dropped 5 feet. Between that low point and the highest point on June 15th it only came up 1& 3/4 feet. When I look at the upper Colorado basin snow data we're almost matched to last year. Looking at the pictures above it seems we'd need the lake to come up at least 3 feet from where it is today. Add that onto the 5 feet it will drop between now and the end of May and it seems almost hopeless that this ramp extension as is will be usable this year.

I hope somebody on here will tell me I'm looking at the data wrong and missing something.
 
Last year soil moisture was much drier than this year, so less water actually made it down to Powell. Our spring months of April and May can still bring some nice precip…as I write this Monday evening a potent storm is giving us a nice snowfall here in Salt Lake area and promises to replenish Colorado River headwaters over next 48 hours. Finally, releases from the dam down to Mead are far lower this spring than in 2021, so less water is going down the drain. It is true that predictions for runoff are far below normal, but I bet we squeezer out 10-15 feet of water level increase from where we have flatlined now, which means this ramp should be viable through maybe the end of July. Barring any early season huge monsoons, the water levels will be dropping fast by then.
 
Dougie said:
Last year soil moisture was much drier than this year, so less water actually made it down to Powell. Our spring months of April and May can still bring some nice precip…as I write this Monday evening a potent storm is giving us a nice snowfall here in Salt Lake area and promises to replenish Colorado River headwaters over next 48 hours. Finally, releases from the dam down to Mead are far lower this spring than in 2021, so less water is going down the drain. It is true that predictions for runoff are far below normal, but I bet we squeezer out 10-15 feet of water level increase from where we have flatlined now, which means this ramp should be viable through maybe the end of July. Barring any early season huge monsoons, the water levels will be dropping fast by then.
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Our average the last 14 days has been 8071 per day. As you can see in the data below I was able to pull the 10 days from 4/12/21 to 4/21/21 and the avg outflow was 10680. Our current outflow is a 25% reduction over last year. If we apply that difference to the 5 foot drop between 4/12/21 and the bottom which was May 25th 2021 that would be a drop of 3.55 feet instead of 5 feet. So if we need 3 feet of rise today to make the ramp usable and we add the additional 3.55 feet we're going to lose between now and the end of May we're talking about a bare minimum of 5.5 - 6 feet of lake level rise. Is there anywhere you found where the scheduled outflow is detailed? It would really help to understand that.

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I'm trying to be realistic here rather than hopeful for my own planning as well as the many people who are trying to plan major vacations. While the snow data, even with this current storm is only looking to be slightly better than last year I do believe we will have some more runoff due to the moisture we got in Oct but Nov was extremely dry so some of that may be negated. Last year the lake only came up well under 2 feet peeking June 15. If we assume similar rise due to similar snow level and factor in the 25% reduced outflow we're still only talking about a 2.5 foot rise which would end up being a foot lower than it is today at peak. I'd love to see a 10 - 15 foot rise but I'm sad to say I don't think there's any chance at all for something like that at this point in the season.

Are there any hydrologists out there that can help us with some good data on predicted Colorado basin runoff this year? Anyone that could help us with the scheduled outflows for this year?
 
Wet1 said:
Are there any hydrologists out there that can help us with some good data on predicted Colorado basin runoff this year? Anyone that could help us with the scheduled outflows for this year?
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The USBoR has outflow projections at https://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/studies/images/PowellRelease.png

It seems like the actual data has tracked the minimum probable levels for the last year or so. My wild guess for water level rise this year is 10 - 15 feet. My track record isn't that good, here are some dates and predictions for low points:

9/3/2021: 3,505' on 4/15/2022
2/8/2022: 3,512' on 5/15/2022
2/14/2022: 3,520' on 5/15/2022

The releases were reduced quite a bit since January, which brought up the minimums quite a bit. It seems like this spring is colder and wetter than last spring, so runoff might be more distributed. Soil moisture levels are higher from the monsoons last summer.

By the way, I was at the UT-95 bridge at Hite last Friday, and saw what appears to be the river gauge. It looked like a microwave horn pointed directly at the water surface from the bridge. If that's what they are measuring, they still need to make lots of calculations and adjustments for flow speed and channel cross section, with varying flow speeds in different parts of the channel. The channel is also changing with erosion. Maybe some hydrologists can pipe in here, but I would guess that they have at least 10% error in their measurements. It's not like water flowing over a calibrated weir.

In any case, I wouldn't risk large sums of money on being able to launch or retrieve a houseboat at Bullfrog this summer, but June seems likely for smaller boats.
 
drewsxmi said:
In any case, I wouldn't risk large sums of money on being able to launch or retrieve a houseboat at Bullfrog this summer, but June seems likely for smaller boats.
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I agree, if it's going to be usable at all for small boats it will probably be for a short time in June. It would have really been nice if they would have extended it to a usable level now or extended it with some PSP or a few loads of river rock, etc... I wouldn't be planning on it being much use from July on.
 
In another post, @JFRCalifornia recently estimated 3530' end of May. I'm going to bank on his expertise and keep Memorial Day plans in place. Just my wife and I, so not a logistical nightmare if the ramp is unusable and we have to change plans. Looks like GHB will be muddy as hell, but at least we'll be fishing. Also saw a pic on here of some steel plates at the top of the new BF ramp, so holding out hope that once the concrete has cured they will remove the small coffer dam and install a couple plates.
 
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Coho975 said:
In another post, @JFRCalifornia recently estimated 3530' end of May. I'm going to bank on his expertise and keep Memorial Day plans in place. Just my wife and I, so not a logistical nightmare if the ramp is unusable and we have to change plans. Looks like GHB will be muddy as hell, but at least we'll be fishing. Also saw a pic on here of some steel plates at the top of the new BF ramp, so holding out hope that once the concrete has cured they will remove the small coffer dam and install a couple plates.
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I hope you and him are right, that would be awesome but I have no confidence we will see a 10 foot rise from when it bottoms out somwhere around 3520.
 
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