LOVELL - For the first time since 2001, the marina store at Horseshoe Bend on Bighorn Lake will be open this summer, ensuring that fuel and supplies will be available to weekend recreationists.

A tour boat with capacity to carry up to 44 passengers will also ply the waters at the southern end of the 70-mile-long reservoir for the first time.

Visitors will find a refurbished swimming beach and campground renovations that include water and electricity at campsites big enough for recreational vehicles. Canoes and paddleboats will be available to rent for those who like to play in what park officials refer to as the best family recreation site in Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.

It all depends on water and the weather, but National Park Service officials, the Bureau of Reclamation and concessionaires at Horseshoe Bend hope there will be water up to the boat docks and swimming beaches by Memorial Day weekend.

"The water will bring the people," said Lisa Dickerson, a Lovell convenience store owner who has a two-year contract to operate the marina concession.

She plans to open Memorial Day weekend and will keep the marina operating Thursday through Sunday from late morning until just before dark for the rest of the summer. Plans could change if Park Service improvements draw crowds more often.

"If it's busy seven days a week, we will be open seven days a week," she said.

But if there is no water, she won't be there at all.

"If the water level falls below 3,617 feet elevation, she is under no obligation to open," said John Keck, a National Park Service official who has been working with Dickerson. "We tried to make it as attractive as we can to have someone put in an agreement."

Water level in the lake last week was 3,607.7 feet. Full pool is 3,640 feet, and it is possible Bighorn Lake will not fill completely this year. But Tim Felchle, reservoir operations chief for the Montana office of the Bureau of Reclamation, said he is confident there will be good water through the summer.

"We need 11 more feet to launch," said Michael Durtsche, maintenance and operations supervisor at the canyon.

Snowpack that feeds the reservoir was a little higher than normal this year, but it has been slow coming out in unusually cool spring weather. Seasonal rains that help fill the reservoir and melt the snow have been largely absent.

Horseshoe Bend isn't exactly high and dry, but about the only water there now concentrates in large puddles where flocks of pelicans feast on minnows trapped with nowhere to escape. The boat ramp and two new courtesy docks provided by Wyoming Game and Fish are sitting on the muddy shore.

Durtsche has kept a wary eye on snowlines on the picturesque mountain landscape that looms in the distance, and he's a little worried about predictions for good water.

"The snow's gone at the lower elevations, and the lake hasn't done anything," he said.

"With all the wind, the snow that's melting isn't going into the lake," Bighorn Canyon Superintendent Darrell Cook theorizes. "The wind's evaporating it or the snow's melting so slowly it's going into the ground instead of running off."

An unsuccessful reopening of the marina 14 miles southwest of Lovell would be a blow for Cook, who is retiring this month from the Park Service. He has led projects to reopen the marina and refurbish the campground to make them more alluring to campers, boaters and picnickers.

Cook estimated that about 250,000 people visit the national recreation area each year, combining numbers at the Montana end at Ok-A-Beh and the Wyoming end at Horseshoe Bend and Barry's Landing.

It's probably one of the most spectacular parks in the Park Service system, he contends, but without a boat, visitors miss the iconic canyons soaring hundreds of feet above the deep blue water.

'A lot of potential'

This year the boatless will get a chance to see at least part of the views that prompted the canyon's inclusion in the Park Service system. Lovell attorney and Coast Guard-certified boat captain Mark Garrison plans to run a 34-foot former Navy launch four times a day on weekends starting Memorial Day weekend.

Garrison said he wants to offer a one-hour tour to Devil's Canyon and a two-hour tour to Barry's Landing and back. The shorter tour will be $25 for adults and $15 for children 12 and under. The two-hour tour costs $40 for adults and $25 for children. The number of tours daily will depend on demand. He said he needs at least eight people for the larger boat. He has a smaller boat available for groups of six.

He's also open for charters and will negotiate prices with hotels, tour groups or event sponsors who can guarantee a minimum number of passengers.

"This is untouched," he said. "There's a lot of potential here. My operation is the only way a lot of people will be able to see the park. It's unbelievable when you get down there."

Garrison, a Wyoming native, will run the boat tours with the help of his wife, Kim, and their daughters Katie, 16, and Courtney, 13.

A renovated campground now about two weeks from completion could add extra incentive for people with RVs who may be sticking closer to their Montana and Wyoming homes this summer because of soaring fuel prices.

Although there will be smaller sites without hook-ups for people who want just the basics, 20 older sites have been converted to accommodate the needs of RVs. They will have power, water, a fence to shelter them from prevailing winds and an area for picnicking. Cook began looking for funding for the project five years ago, and work finally began this year.

"Basically the old campsites were pretty much designed for cars and tents," Cook said. "That's not how people are camping today."

Standing on the dry bluff above the lake bed, the superintendent notes that visitors will also have an astonishing view of stark red knobs of scoria contrasting and reflecting in the deep blue waters below.

For those without boats, a large pink swimming beach runs down to the shoreline, where a lifeguard will be on duty. Just above, a picnic pavilion complete with outdoor shower, restrooms, barbecues and a playground are ready for visitors.

At the marina, Dickerson will have paddleboats, canoes, tubes and other items for rent. She'll have packaged foods and snacks and a couple of microwaves to cook them in. There will be cold pop and beer, sunscreen, sporting equipment, water toys and minnows and live bait. She'll have almost everything she stocks at her Conoco Country Store in Lovell, including fishing licenses.

"We're going to try to include everybody and everything," she said. "That's what mainly we're thinking. We can get something for everyone to do."

Keck said short-term concessionaire agreements were signed because the Park Service does not want to bind businesses to something that may not work out in this era of uncertain water supply. There have been seasons in the last 10 years where water has been so low that docks were never even placed in the water or when docks were usable for only a few days or week. That's why there has been no concessionaire at Horseshoe Bend for the past seven years.

"The long-term potential is all predicated on water," Keck said.

If keeping a concessionaire at Horseshoe Bend is successful, the concession contract will be put up for bid on a more typical long-term basis at the end of two years, Keck said.