From the Loveland Reporter-Herald (Tom Hacker):
Carter Lake and Horsetooth Reservoir, the two largest Eastern Slope vessels of the C-BT system, likely will be close to brim-full soon after Memorial Day. Carter Lake on Thursday was 94 percent full. The level is high enough that the bureau’s water managers looked for lower spots to put all the water that’s coursing through the system…
That good news stands as a paradox for Glenn Werth, owner of Horsetooth’s Inlet Bay Marina. “We got 16 inches of snow here yesterday,” he said. “We’ve been shoveling docks instead of putting boats in. We can’t quite figure out if we’re coming or going.”
The spring runoff has already begun even as the mountain snowpack builds, with Thursday yet another snow day at high elevations…
Granby is the linchpin of the C-BT system, connected via a trans-Continental Divide tunnel to the Eastern Slope reservoirs. It also stood just one-third full on Thursday, awaiting the runoff from the west-slope snowpack that still remains a question mark.
But owners of the marinas at Horsetooth Reservoir and Carter Lake, two of the region’s most popular summer recreation destinations, know that no matter what happens west of the divide, their seasons have been saved by the late snow. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining,” Werth said Thursday as he was immersed in snow-clearing chores. “It’s not how we start the season. It’s how we finish it.”