Which Lake Powell boat ramps are usable right now
By Mike, independent developer behind zovo.one. Readings pulled live from the same USGS feed the operator reports to. Data checked Sep 21, 2026.
At 3,517.2 ft on Sep 21, 2026, the National Park Service lists one Lake Powell ramp open to motorized boats, seven usable only for paddlecraft or at your own risk, and six closed.
Lake Powell is at 3,517.2 ft on Sep 21, 2026.
The Park Service lists one ramp open to motorized boats, Wahweap Stateline Auxiliary Launch Ramp. Seven more are usable only for paddlecraft or at your own risk, and six are closed outright. The lake sits 182.8 ft below the
full pool elevation of 3,700 ft and has fallen 1.30 ft across the last thirty days of
gage readings.
Every published ramp minimum, against today's level
The National Park Service publishes a minimum lake elevation for every launch ramp at Glen Canyon, alongside what it will let each vessel class do there today. Both are reproduced below, refreshed from the Park Service table on every build. The elevation is the physics. The status is the Park Service decision, and the two do not always agree, because a ramp can sit above its own threshold and still be closed for dredging, debris or access.
Wahweap Stateline Auxiliary Launch Ramp · 3,515 ft
2.2 ft above its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats available, small motorized available, non motorized closed.
Open to motorized vessels. Plate mats needed at 3524 ft to launch. Prepare all boats in the Stateline Main Ramp parking lot before accessing the auxiliary ramp.
Bullfrog North Launch Ramp · 3,525 ft
7.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats at your own risk, small motorized at your own risk, non motorized open.
Due to the drop off at the end of the ramp traffic can access the west lane only. There is a steel plate at the bottom. Best suited to launch vessels less than 25 ft.
Antelope Point Business Ramp · 3,535 ft
17.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized closed.
This ramp is not directly managed by Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Limited launch available. Customers should contact Antelope Point Valet Services to inquire about their specific vessel(s), 928 645-5900 ext. 5032.
Wahweap Main Launch Ramp · 3,545 ft
27.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized at your own risk.
Ramp closed to launch/retrieval of motorized vessels. Open to paddlecraft only.
Rainbow Bridge National Monument · 3,548 ft
30.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats at your own risk, small motorized at your own risk, non motorized at your own risk.
At 3548 ft docks are disconnected from land and relocated to deeper water. Bathrooms remain open to boaters. Small boats can beach to access trail. Caution is advised to avoid quicksand and unstable soils.
Bullfrog Main Launch Ramp Spur · 3,549 ft
31.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized at your own risk.
Ramp closed to launch/retrieval of motorized vessels. Open to paddlecraft only.
Halls Crossing Launch Ramp · 3,557 ft
39.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized closed.
Closed to all vessels.
Wahweap Stateline Launch Ramp · 3,567 ft
49.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized at your own risk.
Ramp closed to launch/retrieval of motorized vessels. Drive halfway down the ramp to access the Stateline Auxiliary Ramp. Open to paddlecraft only.
UDOT Ferry · 3,575 ft
57.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized closed.
The ferry is not anticipated to operate until further notice. The ferry does not operate if lake levels drop below 3575 ft. More information regarding the Lake Powell Ferry provided by UDOT.
UDOT Launch Ramps · 3,575 ft
57.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized closed.
Ramps closed to private launching.
Bullfrog Main Launch Ramp · 3,578 ft
60.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized at your own risk.
Open to all vessels when lake level is over 3578 ft. Prepare your boats at the Bullfrog Visitor Center parking lot and the Old Marina Store asphalt parking lot.
Castle Rock Cut · 3,583 ft
65.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized closed.
Navigation buoys are placed at 3590 ft.
Antelope Point Public Launch Ramp · 3,588 ft
70.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized at your own risk.
Public Ramp closed to motorized vessels. Available for paddlecraft launching only.
Hite Launch Ramp · 3,650 ft
132.8 ft short of its published elevation. Park Service status, houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized closed.
Hite Launch Ramp out of water. Lake Powell does not reach Hite at this time. The road to Hite from Hwy 95 is closed.
Clearing the published elevation is a necessary condition and not a sufficient one, which the status column makes obvious. Confirm with Glen Canyon National Recreation Area before you tow a boat. Park Service status read Sep 21, 2026 from the Glen Canyon lake level effects table.
Why the elevation cutoff does not tell you if a ramp is open
Every tracker that publishes these ramps, including this page in its first version, compares the lake against each published minimum and reports how many clear it. That count is misleading, and the Park Service data itself shows why.
Right now the Park Service still lists seven ramps as usable in some form while the water sits below the very elevation it publishes for them.
Bullfrog North Launch Ramp
7.8 ft under its published 3,525 ft, and still listed houseboats at your own risk, small motorized at your own risk, non motorized open.
Wahweap Main Launch Ramp
27.8 ft under its published 3,545 ft, and still listed houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized at your own risk.
Rainbow Bridge National Monument
30.8 ft under its published 3,548 ft, and still listed houseboats at your own risk, small motorized at your own risk, non motorized at your own risk.
Bullfrog Main Launch Ramp Spur
31.8 ft under its published 3,549 ft, and still listed houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized at your own risk.
Wahweap Stateline Launch Ramp
49.8 ft under its published 3,567 ft, and still listed houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized at your own risk.
Bullfrog Main Launch Ramp
60.8 ft under its published 3,578 ft, and still listed houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized at your own risk.
Antelope Point Public Launch Ramp
70.8 ft under its published 3,588 ft, and still listed houseboats closed, small motorized closed, non motorized at your own risk.
The reason is that a published minimum describes launching a motorized boat off that concrete. It does not describe a kayak carried to the water, and it does not describe a ramp the Park Service is willing to leave open at your own risk. So the elevation is the physics and the status is the decision, and a headline built on the physics alone will tell a paddler a ramp is unusable when the operator says otherwise.
That is why the roster above prints both, and why the count at the top of this page counts Park Service status rather than elevation margins.
How long the usable ramps last at this rate
Across the 28 days of readings on this page the lake has fallen 1.30 ft, an average of 0.046 ft per day. Carrying that same rate forward gives a rough countdown for every ramp the water still clears.
Wahweap Stateline Auxiliary Launch Ramp
Roughly 48 days before the level reaches its published 3,515 ft, if the recent rate holds.
Treat that as arithmetic rather than a forecast. Lake Powell is operated, not weather driven alone, so the rate changes whenever Reclamation changes releases upstream or at the dam, and a wet spring reverses it outright. The value of the number is the order of magnitude, weeks against months, not the exact day.
Where the Park Service contradicts itself
Glen Canyon publishes ramp elevations in two places, a summary table and a page per ramp, and for some ramps the two do not match. That is not a rounding difference. It decides whether you drive to the water.
Wahweap Main Launch Ramp
The
summary table says 3,545 ft. The
ramp's own page says 3,548 ft, wording it "This launch ramp is available to motorized vessels when the lake level elevation is above 3548 ft". The gap is 3 ft.
Bullfrog Main Launch Ramp Spur
The
summary table says 3,549 ft. The
ramp's own page says 3,540 ft, wording it "available for vessels less than 25' long until the lake is below 3540'". The gap is 9 ft.
This page reports the summary table figure in the roster above, because that is the source the Park Service updates alongside the status column. Where the ramp page disagrees, both numbers are shown rather than one being quietly chosen. Treat the higher of the two as the safe planning figure.
Check any elevation against the ramp thresholds
Type a surface elevation in feet and this compares it against every published threshold above. It runs the same subtraction the table does, so a forecast elevation or a figure from another site can be checked directly.
Which elevation these thresholds are compared against
A ramp threshold is only meaningful next to an elevation measured the same way. Two things decide that, and both are stated below so the comparison can be checked rather than trusted.
The first is the vertical datum. The USGS gage at Glen Canyon Dam reports parameter 62614 against the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929, so every figure on this page is NGVD29. A site reporting NAVD88 is using a different zero, and the offset is not a rounding artifact. Comparing a ramp cutoff on one datum against a lake reading on another quietly moves the answer.
The second is which series the reading came from. Three federal series publish Lake Powell elevations, and they disagree on any given day because they are measuring differently rather than because one is wrong. Here is what each published for a single date, 2023-04-13.
3,519.92 ft, the daily pool elevation for that date
3,519.5 ft, the approved daily average, statistic code 00003
3,519.1 ft, the lowest of that day's 15-minute readings
Spread
0.82 ft between the highest and lowest of the three
A daily mean smooths a day that moved. An instantaneous reading catches one moment inside it. A pool elevation is Reclamation's own operational record. All three are correct and they are not interchangeable, which is why this page reads the instantaneous series and says so rather than publishing a number with no series attached.
USGS EROS states the lake's lowest level came in April 2023. No source found states in words which single day of the record was the lowest, so this page does not call any of the three figures above a record low. It calls them what they are, the figures each series publishes for that date.
Today's reading sits 2.72 ft below the 3,519.92 ft Reclamation carries for 2023-04-13.
Questions about launching at Lake Powell
Which Lake Powell ramps can I launch from right now?
At 3,517.2 ft, one of the fourteen ramps with a published minimum elevation clears it. The table above shows the margin for each one. A ramp clearing its published elevation is a necessary condition, not a promise that it is open, because closures also happen for dredging, debris and staffing. Confirm with Glen Canyon National Recreation Area before you tow a boat.
What does the minimum elevation for a ramp actually mean?
It is the lake elevation the National Park Service publishes as the point where that concrete stops being usable for launching. Below it the water line has retreated past the end of the ramp. The exact wording differs per ramp, so this page quotes each one rather than paraphrasing, and some thresholds apply only to a vessel size class.
Why do other sites show a different Lake Powell elevation than this page?
Three federal series publish Lake Powell elevations and they do not agree to the tenth of a foot on any given day, because a 15-minute instantaneous reading, an approved daily mean and a daily pool elevation are three different measurements. This page reads the instantaneous USGS series and says so. The section above shows all three for a single date so the size of the gap is visible.
What vertical datum are these numbers on?
The USGS gage reports parameter 62614 against the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929, so every elevation on this page is NGVD29. That matters when comparing against a site that reports NAVD88, because the two datums do not share a zero and the difference is not a rounding artifact.
How close is the lake to where it was in April 2023?
Today's reading sits 2.72 ft below the 3,519.92 ft that Reclamation's daily record carries for 2023-04-13. USGS EROS states the lake's lowest level came in April 2023, so that date is the useful comparison point, though no source found states in words which single day of the record was the lowest.
Where these numbers come from
The live surface elevation is the most recent reading from USGS monitoring location 09379900, parameter 62614, on the NGVD29 datum. It refreshes on every build of this site, and a reading older than seven days is never shown as current.
Each ramp threshold is quoted from the National Park Service page for that ramp, linked in the table above. Full pool of 3,700 ft comes from the Glen Canyon FAQ. The 2023 comparison figures come from the three federal series linked beside them. Every margin, gap and change on this page is subtraction done in code against those sources, not a figure typed by hand.
Related on this site, the live Lake Powell level with its 64 year almanac context, and how deep the water is at the dam, and the water level chart shows where today sits against every daily reading since 1963.
Levels are point-in-time readings and can lag real conditions, confirm ramp and hazard status with the lake operator before heading out. Not affiliated with any government agency, data is republished from public USGS, CDEC, and USBR feeds.