Bullfrog, Utah
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Bullfrog Basin is one of the
National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...
recreation sites of the
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (shortened to Glen Canyon NRA or GCNRA) is a national recreation area and conservation unit of the United States National Park Service that encompasses the area around Lake Powell and lower Cataract Canyo ...
of Kane County,
Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
, United States, adjoining
Lake Powell Lake Powell is a reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona, United States. It is a major vacation destination visited by approximately two million people every year. It holds of water when full, second in the United States to only the ...
. It encompasses Bullfrog Basin Airport , the Bullfrog Resort and Marina, the Bullfrog terminus of the Charles Hall Ferry, and a campground. It is nearby the 1970s mining town Ticaboo. The National Park Lodge in the site is named Defiance House Lodge. Built on a bluff that overlooks the Bullfrog Bay part of Lake Powell, it is a
stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...
building with several adjoining prefabricated units. Bullfrog Basin has a USNPS visitor centre, and the Bullfrog Resort and Marina includes a restaurant, shops, and a
gas station A filling station (also known as a gas station [] or petrol station []) is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold are gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Fuel dispensers are used to ...
. Its development was personally championed by Calvin Rampton in the 1960s, who secured a  million funds-matching grant from the
Economic Development Administration The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that provides grants and technical assistance to economically distressed communities in order to generate new employment, help retain exis ...
in 1966 to pave an access road to the area. Although the road did not connect to a settlement at either end, the USNPS had already spent  million on clearing the area for the aforementioned airport, marina, and campground; along with a planned restaurant, boat ramp, motel, and visitor centre. The Lake Powell Parkway, originally planned as part of the USNPS
Mission 66 Mission 66 was a United States National Park Service ten-year program that was intended to dramatically expand Park Service visitor services by 1966, in time for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Park Service. When the National P ...
(a.k.a. the Grand Circle) road system, would have joined Bullfrog to US-89 near
Page, Arizona Page is a city in Coconino County, Arizona, United States, near the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city was 7,247. History Page was founded in 1957 as a housing community for workers and their f ...
in one direction and to
I-70 Interstate 70 (I-70) is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from I-15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to I-695 and Maryland Route 570 (MD 570) in Woodlawn, just outside Baltimore, Maryland. I-70 appr ...
near
Moab, Utah Moab () is the largest city in and the county seat of Grand County in eastern Utah in the western United States, known for its dramatic scenery. The population was 5,366 at the 2020 census. Moab attracts many tourists annually, mostly visitor ...
in the other, and would have significantly increased access to Bullfrog. However, it met with significant opposition in the 1970s, with campaigners preferring the Canyon Country Parkway instead, and the much cheaper idea of paving an existing dirt road between Bullfrog and the Burr Trail. This was highly favoured by the Garfield county commissioner Del LeFevre, and the title of the engineering study indicated the intention to increase tourism for Bullfrog: ''Boulder-Bullfrog Scenic Road: A Vital Link in the Grand Circle Adventure''. By 1979 the recreation area had a permanent resident population of 115: 40 Park Service employees and their families, 60 concessions workers and their families, and 15 state employees and their families. Employment of extra staff during the tourist season was raising this to some 200 people. Some of the population was living in 2 Park Service duplexes, and some in the 1 Utah state-owned duplex, but most were living in rented
mobile home A mobile home (also known as a house trailer, park home, trailer, or trailer home) is a prefabrication, prefabricated structure, built in a factory on a permanently attached chassis before being transported to site (either by being towed or ...
s. There was one school in one of the mobile homes, with a single teacher, although a second teacher and mobile home were planned given the contemporary expansion at Ticaboo, and no commercial power. Hobie Cat Beach, a beach near to the Bullfrog Marina, was (along with Lone Rock Beach near to Wahweap Marina to the southwest along the
Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...
) notorious in the 1990s for its
Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May. It i ...
parties, which one park ranger characterized at the time as a congregation of thousands of people between 16 and 25 who came "to drink beer, fornicate, and fight". Unable to effectively police Memorial Day in 1992, with officers outnumbered by an encircling crowd of youths when they attempted to arrest a suspected drug dealer, police presence was boosted in 1993, with a temporary local dedicated justice system erected in Bullfrog, comprising a courtroom, holding cells, judges, bail bondsmen, and bailiffs. The drought at Lake Powell in the first decade of the 21st century caused the USNPS to significantly extend the boat ramp at Bullfrog Marina; so much so, in the words of James Lawrence Powell, Executive Director of the National Physical Science Consortium at the University of Southern California, that "had the ramp been level, a small plane could have landed on it". The airport is owned by the National Park Service. It is located north of Bullfrog Marina and
Lake Powell Lake Powell is a reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona, United States. It is a major vacation destination visited by approximately two million people every year. It holds of water when full, second in the United States to only the ...
. There are no aircraft assigned or stationed here; it is for transient aircraft and visitors to Lake Powell and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. It covers an area of and contains one
runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...
designated 1/19 with a 3,500 x 40 ft (1,067 x 12 m)
asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...
surface. For the 12-month period ending September 30, 2023, the airport had 2,502 aircraft operations: 99%
general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...
and 1%
air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. History The concept of air taxis existed as early as the 1910s. This concept goes back as early as 1917 with Glenn Curtiss’ prototype, the auto-plane. Furthermor ...
. In 1990, given an estimate that 55% of the flights to and from the airport were simply flights to nearby Cal Black Memorial airport at Halls Crossing to refuel, Bullfrog Basin having no refuelling facilities of its own, the FAA raised the possibility of closing the airstrip at Bullfrog Basin entirely, reducing flights by a projected 23% and reducing aircraft noise. Other options considered but rejected were closing both airports, or closing the Halls Crossing airport and leaving the Bullfrog Basin one open. The airport remained open, however, with 6690 total operations in 1999, down from a peak of 10800 total operations in 1991 (figures taken by the USFAA from the Utah Department of Aviation). A 1993 lawsuit had challenged the methodology used in the USFAA's 1990 Environmental Impact Statement, resulting in three requests for comments from interested parties by the USFAA in 1995, 1997, and 1998. In its revised report of 2000 the USFAA still raised the possibility of closure of Bullfrog Basin airport by 2008, but considered this to be the pessimistic view and recorded that the Utah Department of Transport had told it of no such closure plans.


Climate


See also

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List of airports in Utah This is a list of airports in Utah (a U.S. state), grouped by type and sorted by location. It contains all public-use and military airports in the state. Some private-use and former airports may be included where notable, such as airports that we ...


References


Bibliography

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Further reading

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External links


National Park Service map
* {{authority control Glen Canyon National Recreation Area Airports in Utah Buildings and structures in Kane County, Utah Transportation in Kane County, Utah National Park Service areas in Utah