Columnist Susan Snyder: A tight spot at Lake Mead

Tuesday, July 25, 2000 | 10:19 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Break out the Crisco and shoehorns!

Lake Mead Recreation Area's new entrance stations could be a tight squeeze for some of those big honkin' houseboats.

Park officials say the new fee lanes are 12 to 14 feet wide. Unfortunately, some vessels are 16 feet wide.

Oops.

"We need to look at this carefully," Bert Byers, Lake Mead spokesman, said. "We talked about it before (the stations were built) but apparently it got dropped."

Byers says the issue was raised publicly by one boat repairman, who aired his concerns on a local television station a couple of weeks ago. Byers said late last week the man still hadn't contacted park officials, and no one else has complained.

Well, maybe not to the Park Service.

"I have heard of some problems. I've had a customer call me," said Rod Taylor, manager of the lake's Callville Bay Resort. "But we haven't had any yet."

That's because Taylor's newest rental houseboat, a 16-by-65-foot model, was delivered before the entrance stations were built.

He plans to order a second such vessel, however. He figures if there's a problem with the width of the entrance stations, he'll find out when it's delivered. Taylor says park officials are working on a document called the "superintendent's compendium," which updates boat guidelines. He expects the document will suggest some kind of size limit for lake vessels.

"They haven't determined that yet," Taylor chuckled. "It may be determined by the size of those stations."

He was joking. Honest. Don't call him.

For a long time the usual houseboat was a smaller mom-and-pop type, and there weren't a lot of them, Taylor said. But younger folks with a taste for luxury are bringing in big boats with a vengeance.

That new 16-foot-wide model Taylor rents out has satellite television with a 27-inch screen, four staterooms and a six-person hot tub, among other things.

He guesses 50 of the boats already on the lake are 16 feet wide. Problems could arise if a big boat was towed out for repairs but couldn't get back in.

See, getting out isn't a problem. The stations' exits are wide enough. And therein may lie the solution, Byers said. Park officials can knock out the curbs or place ramps over the curbs, allowing bigger vessels to go in the "out" side.

"We're looking at whatever we need to do," Byers said. "We don't get a lot of huge boats."

Yet.

"With the way the economy's been the past couple of years, it's really catching on," Taylor said. "(Big boats) are the hot item. That's the way the trend is going."

But be nice. Park officials have taken enough grief over these fee stations. Some people are still griping about paying user fees at all.

I figure anybody who can drop $30,000 or more on a boat can cough up $20 a year to use the lake. (Now, I'm not joking. Honest. Don't call.)

"They go 'oops' every now and again, but they're pretty good," Taylor said.

Yeah, they are -- with everything except maybe a tape measure.