Friday, November 23, 2007

Bullfrog Crossing on Lake Powell, Utah

Lake Powell is the Colorado River backed up behind the massive Glen Canyon Dam. It's upstream of the Grand Canyon and below Canyonlands National Park in southeast Utah.

The dam and lake have always been controversial among environmentalists. At the time, the area was so remote that no one knew what was being flooded, but now they wish they hadn't let it go through. There are still protests now, and calls to get rid of the dam, but it seems unlikely that will happen.

I arrived at the east side of the crossing and took the ferry as a foot passenger on the 30 minute trip to Bullfrog on the west side. I had a few minutes to look around before taking the return trip back but it was 95 degrees and a long walk from the ferry dock to where I could see a lot of cars parked so I didn't go too far. I was looking for a beach but couldn't see one.
What they seem to have a lot of there is big house boats. The marina area didn't have the smell of fish as a lot of marinas do, it had more the smell of money.

Not many little fishing boats there, only Winnebagos on water. It looks like the typical thing to do there is spend a week or more in a houseboat floating around on the long scenic lake. There weren't enough camp sites or motel rooms to account for the hundreds of cars parked in a really out of the way place.

After being at a low level for a few years due to drought, the lake is at near normal. There is a bathtub ring on the sandstone cliffs, showing where the normal level is.

I noticed there were some signs around the place warning against jumping off those cliffs into the lake. They had some action shots of a guy jumping from 70 feet and hitting the water at 45 miles per hour, then noting that his body was recovered from 230 feet under the surface.