Sunset view from Lake Powell Resort over Lake Powell
Lake Powell is a reservoir on the Colorado River, straddling the border between Utah and Arizona (most of it, along with Rainbow Bridge, is in Utah). It is the second largest man-made reservoir in maximum water capacity in the United States behind Lake Mead, storing 24,322,000 acre feet (×1010 m3) of water when full. Current water levels, however, put Lake Powell ahead of Lake Mead in water volume and surface area. Lake Powell was created by the flooding of Glen Canyon by the controversial Glen Canyon Dam, which also led to the creation of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, a popular summer destination. The reservoir is named for explorer John Wesley Powell, a one-armed American Civil War veteran who explored the river via three wooden boats in 1869. In 1972, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area was established. It is public land managed by the National Park Service, and available to the public for recreational purposes. It lies in parts of Garfield, Kane, and San Juan counties in southern Utah, and Coconino County in northern Arizona. The northern limits of the lake extend at least as far as the Hite Crossing Bridge. Lake Powell is a storage facility for the Upper Basin states of the Colorado River Compact (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico). The Compact specifies that the Upper Basin states are to provide a minimum annual flow of 7,500,000 acre feet ( km3) to the Lower Basin states (Arizona, Nevada, and California). The southwestern end of Glen Canyon NRA in Arizona can be accessed via Route 89 and State Route 98. State Route 95 and State Route 276 lead to the northeastern end of the recreation area in Utah. The current Lake Powell lies above Glen Canyon, which was flooded by the Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1966.
Size: 5616px × 3744px
Location: Lake Powell Resort Page Colorado USA
Photo credit: © Niall Ferguson / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: boats, lake, marina, mountains, powell, resort, sunset, view
