Snowmelt to aid Lake Powell boaters

SALT LAKE CITY —  Snowmelt will raise half-empty Lake Powell 50 feet, opening a popular shortcut for boaters for the first time in five years, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said.

The Castle Rock Cut -- still a stretch of exposed rock -- will let house boats get to beaches and Rainbow Bridge National Monument more quickly from Wahweap Marina by shaving a dozen miles off the trip.

The peninsula is expected to be covered by enough water for boating by mid-June.

“That’s a big deal, especially with gas prices now,” said Debbie Crick, who stopped going to the reservoir years ago because of low water levels. She plans to return with her boat regularly to camp now that water levels are rising.

Crick, who owns a cafe in Sedona, Ariz., first ventured out on Lake Powell in a 53-foot house boat in the 1960s. Many house boats now are much bigger and get as little as 3 miles to a gallon of fuel, she said.

It will take about four months for Lake Powell, the 186-mile-long reservoir that straddles Utah and Arizona to rise by 50 feet, a Bureau of Reclamation spokesman said. Eventually, Castle Rock Cut should be covered by as much as 20 feet of water, said spokesman Kevin Schneider of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.