JORDANELLE
What Jordanelle is
A water bank first and a state park second. Reclamation built it to hold water through a drought, and the recreation everyone comes for sits on top of that job.
Jordanelle Dam is a Bureau of Reclamation facility administered by the Provo Area Office , on the Provo River north of Heber City. "The reservoir functions as a long term holdover reservoir sized to provide storage through a six year drought."
"Its eastern arm extends approximately five miles from the dam to the Provo River, and its northern arm extends about four miles from the dam to Ross Creek."
Central Utah Water Conservancy District operates Jordanelle Dam. Recreation is managed by Utah State Parks as Jordanelle State Park . The reservoir was filled in July 1996 .
Jordanelle Dam belongs to the Bonneville Unit of the Central Utah Project. The Bonneville Unit serves Duchesne, Wasatch, Utah and Juab counties with irrigation water and supplies municipal and industrial water.
The Bonneville Unit makes a trans-basin diversion from the Colorado River to the Bonneville Basin. Releases from Jordanelle Dam provide the potential for hydropower generation.
The reservoir stores water by exchange for Bonneville Unit water held in Utah Lake and Strawberry Reservoir .
Both agencies agree construction began in 1987. They do not agree on when it ended.
| Figure | What the source actually says |
|---|---|
| 1987 to 1992 | "Original Construction | 1987-1992" U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Jordanelle Dam project page |
| Completed 1993 | "Construction of Jordanelle Dam and Reservoir began in 1987 and was completed in 1993." Bureau of Reclamation, Jordanelle Reservoir Resource Management Plan (2012), hosted by Utah State Parks |
| Completed 1992 | "Jordanelle Reservoir (completed in 1992) forced people to leave their homes, their lands, and their livelihoods." Utah Division of State History, I Love History, Wasatch County |
How big and how deep is Jordanelle?
Reclamation states a depth. It does not state a single surface area or a single capacity, because two of its own documents disagree on both. This page prints every figure with the sentence it came from.
"The reservoir surface area covers approximately 3,024 surface acres with a depth of about 280 feet when at full pool."
The hedge is the source's own word and it stays. No agency publishes a surveyed maximum depth for this reservoir.
Two Bureau of Reclamation documents give different answers, 44 acres apart. This page prints both.
| Figure | What the source actually says |
|---|---|
| 3,068 acres | "Jordanelle has a capacity of 320,300 acre-feet with a surface area of 3,068 acres." U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Jordanelle Dam project page |
| 3,024 surface acres | "When full, the open water of the reservoir covers approximately 3,024 surface acres." Bureau of Reclamation, Jordanelle Reservoir Resource Management Plan (2012), hosted by Utah State Parks |
Reclamation prints two different figures, and one of its own pages carries both of them.
| Figure | What the source actually says |
|---|---|
| 320,300 acre-feet | "Jordanelle has a capacity of 320,300 acre-feet with a surface area of 3,068 acres." U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Jordanelle Dam project page |
| 363,000 acre-feet | "363,000 acre-foot Jordanelle Reservoir" U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Central Utah Project Bonneville Unit project page |
| 320,300 acre-feet | "320,300 acre-feet with a surface area of 3,068 acres" U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Central Utah Project Bonneville Unit project page |
| Structural height | 345.0 ft |
| Crest length | 3,700.0 ft |
| Crest elevation | 6,185.0 ft |
| Hydraulic height, normal operating depth at dam | 283.0 ft |
| Drainage area | 258.0 sq mi |
All from the Reclamation Jordanelle Dam page .
Spillway capacity 6,600 cfs at elevation 6169.0 ft; outlet works capacity 3,600 cfs at the same elevation . Maximum water surface elevation is 6,169.0 ft , while Utah State Parks states the park elevation as 6,166 feet .
No published bathymetric survey for Jordanelle could be located on any approved federal or Utah source. Reclamation holds survey data through its Provo Area Office and Upper Colorado Basin Region.
Ramps, fees, camping and fishing
Four fee locations, three ramps in the state dataset, and a camping season that closes for four months. The ramp names in the dataset do not match the names on the signs, and this page does not force them to.
| Ramp | Latitude | Longitude |
|---|---|---|
| Jordanelle State Park, Hailstone North | 40.622961 | -111.418700 |
| Jordanelle State Park, Hailstone South | 40.616964 | -111.421684 |
| Jordanelle State Park, Rock Cliff | 40.603568 | -111.352401 |
From the Utah statewide boat ramp dataset , rounded to six decimal places, all administered by Utah State Parks.
The main ramp at Hailstone has 8 lanes.
Hailstone has a Personal Watercraft ramp that also serves non-motorized launching.
Ross Creek has a non-motorized boat ramp reserved for non-motorized users.
The Hailstone Marina has an 80 slip private boat dock, with slips categorized by size and availability of power.
| Peak, May to October | Rate |
|---|---|
| Hailstone | $20 |
| Rock Cliff | $20 |
| Ross Creek | $20 |
| Crandall Point Day Use | $15 |
| Seniors 65 and over | $10 |
| Pedestrians and walk-ins | $5 per person |
| Shuttles and buses | $5 per person |
| Off season, November to April | Rate |
|---|---|
| Hailstone | $10 |
| Rock Cliff | $10 |
| Ross Creek | $10 |
| Crandall Point Day Use | $10 |
| Seniors 65 and over | $5 |
| Pedestrians and shuttles | $3 per person |
All rows as printed on the park fee page .
| Camping RV partial hookups | $50 |
| Camping tents, no hookups (McHenry) | $40 |
| Camping hike-in, no hookups (Phostan Bay and boat-in) | $35 |
| Boat camping | $40 |
| Cabin (pet fee applies) | $150 |
| Cottages | $200 |
"Camping CLOSED November – March; Cottages available year-round"
Hailstone RV Campground
103 RV campsites with partial hookups at 30 amp power and water.
McHenry Campground
Four loops designed for tents, with bathrooms, showers and water spigots in each loop.
Phostan Bay Campground
Previously known as Keetley campground. A hike-in tent campground.
Keetley Group Campsite
Accommodates up to 75 people and has four tent pads on the north side of the pavilion.
Two pages on the Utah State Parks site disagree, and one of them disagrees with itself. Call the park before you plan on it.
| Figure | What the source actually says |
|---|---|
| Yes, and it reopened | "The Rock Cliff Campground and Nature Center reopened June 2025." Utah State Parks, Jordanelle State Park, Discover |
| Not in the facilities listing | "There is a fish cleaning station near the vehicle bridge on the way to the campground." Utah State Parks, Jordanelle State Park, Facilities |
The park has five named cabins and three named cottages. Hailstone has 38 reservable day-use cabanas and Ross Creek has 23 first come, first serve day-use cabanas. The Hailstone Event Center can accommodate indoor and outdoor events as large as 500 people.
Park hours are 6am to 10pm. Quiet hours are 10pm to 7am. Check out is 12 PM and check in is at 3 PM.
The Utah Fishing Guidebook carries a single specific-waters entry for this reservoir: "Jordanelle Reservoir, Wasatch County • Limit 6 bass."
"Although known for its trophy smallmouth bass fishery, it also provides fishing for rainbow trout, yellow perch, largemouth bass, walleye, and brown trout."
A Blue Ribbon Fisheries project funds fish habitat structures at Jordanelle Reservoir.
- Perimeter Trail. The trail totals 22 miles from Rock Cliff to Hailstone
- Three Rocks Trail. A .7 mile round trip hike with a 150-foot elevation change
- Wada Way. 1.85-mile loop
- Keetley loop. 1.69-mile loop
Where to fish Jordanelle, and how
Nine markers, six species drawn, seven seasons and the one pattern that most anglers here get wrong. Every rule below comes from a Utah agency. Everything about where and how to fish comes from named anglers and guides, and is marked as such.
Jordanelle Dam
- Forum anglers rate the water off the dam face. The park does not let you fish it.
- Approach from the water and stay outside the marked buoys.
"A permanent row of buoys is maintained 500 feet from the face of Jordanelle Dam."
Hailstone North ramp
- Rocky points either side of the day use area are the classic shore and boat smallmouth water.
- Shore casting range out to the first drop.
- West of the personal watercraft ramp is named repeatedly by forum anglers for smallmouth.
"The main ramp at Hailstone has 8 lanes."
Hailstone South ramp
- Serves the same main basin water as the north ramp.
- Useful when the north ramp parking fills on a summer weekend.
Rock Cliff ramp
- The whole Rock Cliff arm is the shallow, warm, weedy end and it holds the perch forage.
- An old road grade runs underwater here. Forum anglers fish along the road side.
- Standing timber and stump fields give cover through this arm.
Provo River inlet
- First water to warm in spring and the first to hold fish after ice off.
- Since kokanee were introduced they stage here to spawn in autumn, which is a spectacle in itself.
- Brown trout use the inlet and the rocky edges.
Ross Creek arm
- A different fishery from the eastern arm. Shallower, weedier, warms sooner.
- Whatever ice forms on this reservoir forms at the shallow ends like this one, and goes first.
"Its eastern arm extends approximately five miles from the dam to the Provo River, and its northern arm extends about four miles from the dam to Ross Creek."
Eastern arm weed flats
- This is the single best piece of local knowledge found anywhere on this reservoir.
- Yellow perch fry hide in the weed beds. The predators sit outside them.
- Fish the open pockets and the edge hard against the weed, not the rock.
Main basin points
- Rocky points and the deeper breaks. Bass are reported well out from shore here.
- Where the fishery retreats to when summer drawdown pulls water off the flats.
Northern arm mid
- Protected when the wind is up on the main basin.
- Smallmouth, rainbow trout and yellow perch all reported through this arm.
| Species | Where | How | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smallmouth bass The headline fishery and the reason most people come. |
Rocky points, weed edges, submerged roadbed and timber | Tube jigs, drop shot, small crankbaits, topwater in autumn | |
| Yellow perch Illegally introduced, and now the forage the whole food chain sits on. |
Schooled in and around the weed beds | Small jigs, perch meat where legal, ice jigging | |
| Rainbow trout Stocked. The winter and early season fish. |
Open water and the shallower shelf, deeper as summer warms | Bait off the bottom, small spoons and spinners, trolled flies | |
| Brown trout Wild, not stocked. |
Inlets, rocky edges and structure, near shore in low light | Minnow-imitating lures and streamers | |
| Largemouth bass Present but marginal, and the thinnest documented of the six. |
Weedier shallow bays and the stump fields | Soft plastics, spinnerbaits, topwater early and late | |
| Walleye CONTESTED. Read the note. |
Named by Reclamation in 2012. See the note below. | Not applicable until the presence question is settled |
Species the 2012 list predates
Utah's Division of Wildlife Resources has stocked this reservoir deliberately since a 2016 plan. These are in the water and are not in Reclamation's 2012 sentence.
- Kokanee salmon. Introduced deliberately. They stage at the Provo inlet to spawn in autumn.
- Wiper, a hybrid striped bass. Introduced as a predator on the chub and perch.
- Tiger muskie. Stocked every year. Nobody publishes where or how to fish for them here.
- Splake. Introduced, and part of the winter trout picture.
- Bonneville cutthroat trout. Present and stocked.
- Utah chub. Present, and a management problem rather than a target.
- Late winter to ice off, roughly March. Whatever ice formed sits at the shallow ends and goes first. The main body and the dam end are often open all winter. Boat anglers get on the water here long before most people assume they can.
- Spring pre-spawn, April into May. Water warms and smallmouth move shallow and feed. The Provo inlet and the eastern arm warm first.
- Spawn and early summer, late May into June. Smallmouth spawn on shallow rock and gravel. Kokanee trolling comes on and peaks through mid May into June.
- Summer, July and August. Two things dominate and both are about water leaving. The reservoir is drawn down for delivery, so structure that held fish in June can be dry in August, and the fishery moves out to the deeper rock of the main basin.
- Fall, September through November. The best window and the least used. Water cools toward 60F, smallmouth feed hard, and topwater works. Kokanee stage at the inlet.
- Early winter, December into January. Open water. This is the most useful seasonal fact about Jordanelle and it surprises people: it is usually still a boat fishery when the calendar says it should be frozen.
- Ice, late January into February. Jordanelle does get fishable ice, but not reliably, not everywhere, and never as a whole lake. The shallow arms freeze. The main body and the dam end often do not. Anglers disagree about this every year, which should tell you how to treat it.
Three drowned towns, and you can fish the roads
Jordanelle did not fill an empty canyon. Keetley, Hailstone and Jordanelle are all under it, and the highway that served them was rerouted. Forum anglers fish along the old road grade in the Rock Cliff arm.
Standing timber and stump fields
Submerged stumps and trees through the eastern arm give cover that most Utah reservoirs do not have.
A fishery rebuilt on purpose
Jordanelle is one of the most deliberately re-engineered fisheries in Utah. The Division of Wildlife Resources added kokanee, wiper, tiger muskie and splake under a 2016 plan, largely to put predators on an illegally introduced perch population and on Utah chub. The lake you fish today is not the lake of ten years ago.
You are asked to keep the small ones
Unusual for a bass fishery. The stated strategy for growing bigger smallmouth here is harvest of the small ones, and the guidebook sets a limit of six bass with no size or slot restriction.
Drawdown moves the fishery
This is a Central Utah Project storage reservoir, not a recreation pond. Summer delivery pulls the water down fast and the productive water moves with it.
- Does it hold walleye? Several angling sites say yes. No Utah wildlife source found in this research supports it. Reclamation's 2012 plan names it. Unresolved.
- Is there a 12 inch size rule on bass? Older angler posts say yes. The 2026 guidebook says only 'Limit 6 bass' with no size restriction, and the management direction is toward harvesting small fish. Follow the guidebook.
- Does it get safe ice? Both sides agree the shallow arms freeze and the main body and dam end often do not. Nobody claims whole-lake ice. Treat every year as its own question.
- Can you fish the dam? Anglers rate the water. The park prohibits access and requires you stay outside the marked buoys. The rule wins.
- Numbers or quality for smallmouth? Anglers genuinely split on this. Both views are common and neither is settled.
When is Jordanelle busy, and when is it empty?
Utah State Parks counts every visitor to this park and publishes the count by month. That turns the usual advice about beating the crowds into a number you can check.
Fishing writing about Jordanelle keeps saying that autumn is the best window and the least used. The first half of that is an opinion. The second half is measurable, and Utah State Parks measures it. This is the park's own visitor count for the twelve months of fiscal year 2025.
July is the wall
241,389 visits in July 2024, and 220,245 the following June. Those two months alone are 51 percent of the entire year.
October is a sixth of July
36,968 against 241,389. Same water, same fish, about one visitor in six and a half.
November is the quietest month on the water
5,102 visits. That is 2.1 percent of July. If the fishing writing is right that autumn is the best window, November is the emptiest version of it.
February is the annual floor
2,697 visits, the lowest month in the file. This is the month Jordanelle is least likely to have usable ice and least likely to have anybody on it.
Rules and hazards
A marked exclusion line at the dam, wakeless zones at three named places, and a boater course that has been mandatory statewide since 2024.
The dam zone Exclusion
"This is facilitated by maintaining a permanent row of buoys 500 feet from the face of Jordanelle Dam."
Wakeless zones Speed
"Maintaining wakeless zones include the marina and beach area at Hailstone Recreation Area, the beach area at Ross Creek Recreation Area, and the small boat launch at Rock Cliff Recreation Area."
Fire
Stage 2 Fire Restrictions are in effect, with no open fires of any kind including established fire pits and charcoal.
Before you launch Mandatory
"Starting in 2024, all boaters, motorized and non motorized, are required to take the Mussel Aware Boater Course prior to boating at any water in the State of Utah."
- The dry time during the summer for a simple vessel is 7 days.
- If you have a more complex boat that has ballast tanks, live wells, or in/outboard motors that contain unverifiable water, then you must wait 30 days to dry or get professionally decontaminated regardless of the time of year.
Algal blooms
Under the heading 2018 Monitoring Updates the Division of Water Quality lists Jordanelle Reservoir with the date September 11, 2018. The advisories section for that year shows no active advisory for this water.
Build your boat checklist
Pick what you are launching and get only the provisions that apply to it, each one printed with the sentence of Utah law it comes from. Tick it off on your phone at the ramp, or print it. Seventeen items, drawn from the State Boating Act , the aquatic invasive species statute , the state equipment chart and this park's own conditions page . Every quotation in it was confirmed on two separate government addresses.
Four things we could not nail down
Requirements that are real but whose current wording or rule number we could not verify against a live Utah source. Printed as open questions rather than as checklist items.
Four Utah agency pages agree on the age. They do not agree on the scope. Utah State Parks and Utah Outdoor Recreation both state it flatly, that children twelve and under must wear a life jacket whenever the boat is in operation. The administrative rule text we could retrieve conditions it on vessel length and carves out a child inside a cabin. That rule text comes from a 2015 state publication and the rule has been renumbered since, and the current administrative code would not load for us. We are not going to print a rule number we could not check. Treat the flat version as the safe one: on a boat, twelve and under, wear it.
"Children 12 years and under are required to wear life jackets at all times when aboard a vessel."
Utah Outdoor Recreation
"Children 12 years of age or younger are required to wear life jackets."
Utah State Parks
Required, but not by the Boating Act. The statute only lets the division add equipment by rule, and the sound device requirement lives in that rule. Same problem as above: the verbatim rule text we could reach is from 2015 and the numbering has changed. The current state equipment chart still lists it, so carry one.
"Sound Producing Device (Horn/Whistle)"
Utah Outdoor Recreation, required equipment chart
The statute and the agencies read differently. Utah Code 23A-10-304(3)(b) exempts an owner or operator of a nonmotorized vessel from that section, and the course requirement sits inside that same section. Both the Division of Wildlife Resources and Utah State Parks say non-motorised boaters must take the course anyway. Both wordings are below. Take the course.
"A resident or nonresident owner or operator of a nonmotorized vessel or inflatable motorboat is exempt from this section before launching or operating a nonmotorized vessel or inflatable motorboat on the waters of this state."
Utah Code 23A-10-304(3)(b)
"Starting in 2024, all boaters, motorized and non motorized, are required to take the Mussel Aware Boater Course prior to boating at any water in the State of Utah."
Utah State Parks, Jordanelle State Park
The towing observer rule. The current Utah Code chapter reads 'The operator of a vessel may not tow'. The state's own 2022 printed boating code compilation reads 'The operator of a motorboat may not tow' for the same subsection. We use the current code. We are flagging it because the older wording is still in circulation on a state website.
"The operator of a vessel may not tow a water skier or a person on another device"
Utah Code 73-18-15.1(14), current chapter text
"The operator of a motorboat may not tow a water skier or a person on another device"
Utah Outdoor Recreation, 2022 boating code compilation
What is under Jordanelle Reservoir
A town called Keetley, and with it the site of a Japanese American agricultural colony founded in 1942 by families who left the West Coast rather than be taken to a camp.
"As for Keetley, its destiny was to be covered by the rising waters of the Central Utah Project's Jordanelle Dam a half-century later."
"Jordanelle Reservoir (completed in 1992) forced people to leave their homes, their lands, and their livelihoods."
Fred Wada could not buy land, so he made a deal. "Instead, he struck a bargain with Keetley mayor George Fisher, leasing land from him in exchange for a promise to bring Japanese to the area as farm labor."
"On March 26 Wada and a number of other families left Oakland for Utah." "The colony was established as a cooperative, nonprofit venture growing food for the American war effort." "Clearing the land required moving 50 tons of rocks to clear 150 acres."
A second Utah state history source independently records the Keetley settlement .
Rock Cliff draws visitors from around the nation to view more than 200 different forms of bird and mammal life.
Ute ladies'-tresses, a threatened plant species, could be found in the Project Management Area.
- A live reservoir level from a federal gauge. There is not one. USGS site 10155100 below the dam stopped collecting in 1994, and the in-reservoir site holds a single day of samples from 1995. Reclamation publishes no hydromet record for this reservoir. The only live figure is the percentage Utah State Parks shows on its own park page.
- Depth contours or a deepest-point marker. No open bathymetric survey exists for Jordanelle. Reclamation holds survey data through its Provo Area Office and Upper Colorado Basin Region. Nothing published could be traced, so this page shows the shoreline and no depth shape.
- Shoreline length in miles. No approved source publishes one.
- A species count. Reclamation names six fish without stating a count or using the word species. This page names the same six and states no total.
- A DWR fishing report. No Division of Wildlife Resources narrative report or species page exists for this water.
- Tiger muskie, tiger trout or kokanee. No confirmed agency source names any of the three in this reservoir.
- A statewide wakeless speed definition. The distance at which wakeless speed applies statewide was not found in an approved source, so only the named zones above are stated.
- Reservoir closures or swimming closures. None specific to Jordanelle was found.
Jordanelle holds six years of drought reserve.
Reclamation states the reservoir "The reservoir functions as a long term holdover reservoir sized to provide storage through a six year drought." It belongs to the Bonneville Unit of the Central Utah Project , which "The Bonneville Unit serves Duchesne, Wasatch, Utah and Juab counties with irrigation water and supplies municipal and industrial water."
Fathom Restoration is a veteran-founded Utah 501(c)(3) built to pull submerged vehicles, vessels and debris out of Utah's waters, so that what is on the bottom stops being a problem for the water above it. We run volunteer dive cleanups now. Funding is what turns the rest on.
Donate to Protect JordanelleQuestions: info@fathomrestoration.org
Every figure on this page is cited
23 numbered sources, all federal or Utah agency publications. Each one was gathered once, then re-fetched and confirmed against the exact sentence in the source.
Sources
How these were checked
Every figure was gathered once, then re-fetched from the same address a second time and confirmed against the exact sentence in the source. Anything that could not be confirmed word for word was cut rather than softened. Where two approved sources disagree, both are printed and neither is resolved. Sources are federal and Utah agency publications only. The coordinate on the hero is the dam location, 40.5966, -111.424, from the Utah dam safety inventory record NID UT10204, shown in degrees, minutes and seconds.U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Jordanelle Dam project page
Bureau of Reclamation, Jordanelle Reservoir Resource Management Plan (2012), hosted by Utah State Parks
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Central Utah Project Bonneville Unit project page
U.S. Geological Survey, site 10155100, Provo River below Jordanelle Dam
U.S. Geological Survey, site 403557111252801, Jordanelle Reservoir 100 meters north of dam
National Weather Service, api.weather.gov
Utah Code Title 73 Chapter 18, State Boating Act, current chapter text
Utah Code Title 23A Chapter 10, Aquatic Invasive Species Interdiction
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, aquatic invasive species
Utah Outdoor Recreation, required boating equipment by vessel length
Utah State Parks, Jordanelle State Park
Utah State Parks, Jordanelle State Park, Park Fees
Utah State Parks, Jordanelle State Park, Facilities
Utah State Parks, Jordanelle State Park, Discover
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Fishing Guidebook, 2026
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Blue Ribbon Fisheries
Utah Geospatial Resource Center, Utah Boat Ramps, State Geographic Information Database
Utah Division of Water Rights, dam safety inventory
Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Water Quality, harmful algal blooms
Utah Division of State History, History to Go, The Japanese Agricultural Colony
Utah Division of State History, I Love History, Wasatch County
Utah State Parks, Jordanelle State Park, Current Conditions
Utah State Parks, per park visitation, fiscal year 2025, supplied to Fathom Restoration as a workbook
What this is measuring
The forecast cards are the National Weather Service point forecast for the dam coordinate, not for the middle of the reservoir, and not for any particular ramp.
There is no live federal gauge on Jordanelle. USGS site 10155100 sits on the Provo River below the dam and stopped collecting in 1994. The in-reservoir site holds a single day of samples from 1995. Reclamation publishes no hydromet record for this reservoir. Any site showing you a live federal number for Jordanelle is showing you something else.
Utah State Parks publishes a live percentage on its own park page. We do not mirror it here, because a percentage needs a denominator and Reclamation's own capacity figures disagree by 42,700 acre-feet.