Boating here means two different habits, sometimes in the same week. One is running a wide pool held behind a dam, Lake Umatilla at 201.1 square kilometers or Lake Wallula at 122.7, where the water is a working river kept at a level and the wind comes up the reach in the afternoon. The other is the Klamath basin and the high desert, Upper Klamath Lake and Goose Lake and Lake Abert, big shallow water sitting in closed basins that stands wherever the last few winters left it. Then there is storage water like Wickiup Reservoir and Brownlee Reservoir, held at whatever level suits the month you happen to launch. No hydrographic office ever surveyed any of it.
The pack carries 2,755 charted water bodies. Of those, 1,335 have a name on them, and 171 of the named ones measure more than a square kilometer. Depth on that inland water is built from state elevation surveys, and the water bodies themselves come from the National Hydrography Dataset, so a reservoir arrives on the screen as charted water with contours and a depth reading on it.
The pack is described by three numbers. It carries 2,755 charted water bodies, of which 1,335 carry a name, and 171 of the named ones measure over a square kilometer.
Set against the other 47 state packs, the first two land in the middle: 29th for water bodies, 23rd for named ones. The third is the one somebody towing a boat should look at. 171 named lakes larger than a square kilometer puts this pack 12th of the 48, near the top for big named water. Small ponds are everywhere and they count for very little. Water you can spend a morning crossing is rarer, and this pack has a lot of it.
| Lake | Charted surface area |
|---|---|
| Goose Lake | 379 km² (93,727 acres) |
| Upper Klamath Lake | 250 km² (61,727 acres) |
| Lake Umatilla | 201 km² (49,693 acres) |
| Lake Abert | 149 km² (36,893 acres) |
| Summer Lake | 127 km² (31,407 acres) |
| Harney Lake | 126 km² (31,086 acres) |
| Lake Wallula | 123 km² (30,320 acres) |
| Malheur Lake | 112 km² (27,799 acres) |
| Lake Bonneville | 78 km² (19,324 acres) |
| Clear Lake Reservoir | 65 km² (16,087 acres) |
| Brownlee Reservoir | 56 km² (13,764 acres) |
| Crater Lake | 53 km² (13,121 acres) |
The twelve largest named lakes the Oregon pack carries, by charted surface area, measured from the chart polygon itself. The pack carries 2,755 charted water bodies in all, 1,335 of them named, and 171 named lakes larger than one square kilometer.
There is no NOAA chart for a reservoir. The federal charts cover the coast, the intracoastal and navigable rivers, and a storage lake up a Cascade drainage was never on that list. Inland depth in Helm is built from state elevation surveys instead, and the water bodies come from the National Hydrography Dataset. That is the whole reason Wickiup Reservoir or Lake Owyhee shows up as water you can plan a line across against your draft, rather than a blue shape with a name floating in the middle of it.
The other half of reading a lake is the level. A reservoir sits wherever it is being held on the day you launch, and a closed basin lake like Harney Lake or Summer Lake sits wherever the runoff left it. Contours describe the basin, and the basin does not move. The surface does. So a contour on a reservoir is read as the shape of the bottom first, then against how far down the pool is that week, which is the same arithmetic anybody does at the ramp looking at the ring on the rocks. Each reading carries the date of the survey behind it. What the shading and the router then do with your own draft is covered on the depth and routes pages.
The largest named lake the pack carries is Goose Lake at 379.3 square kilometers, or 93,727 acres, measured from the chart polygon itself. Upper Klamath Lake follows at 249.8 square kilometers (61,727 acres), then Lake Umatilla at 201.1 (49,693 acres). These are the ten largest named waters in the pack.
Five of those ten are closed basin lakes in the southeast: Goose Lake, Lake Abert, Summer Lake, Harney Lake and Malheur Lake. For that country the figure is the extent of the polygon, and anybody who has driven out to Malheur Lake in a dry year already knows to check what is standing there before hitching up.
Comparisons are worth more than the raw figures. Crater Lake at 53.1 square kilometers (13,121 acres) is smaller on the chart than Brownlee Reservoir at 55.7 (13,764 acres). Agency Lake at 41.5 square kilometers is roughly a sixth the size of Upper Klamath Lake at the other end of it. Goose Lake is more than eleven times the area of Crump Lake, 34.1 square kilometers, which sits in the same corner of the map.
The packs are cut to a box rather than to a state line, so a lake sitting near the edge is carried by more than one of them. Goose Lake, Clear Lake Reservoir at 65.1 square kilometers and Tule Lake at 43.4 all sit along the southern edge and the California pack carries them too. The Columbia pools sit on the northern edge and appear in the Washington pack the same way.
Surface area doubles as a wind figure. Air crossing the 379.3 square kilometers of Goose Lake has room to build a chop that the 34.1 of Crump Lake never gives it, and on the Columbia pools the afternoon wind runs the length of the reach rather than across it. Choosing between two lakes on a blowy Saturday, the smaller polygon is usually the shorter ride home.
Acreage sets the expectation for a crossing. Upper Klamath Lake at 61,727 acres is a long open run in a sixteen foot boat, and Agency Lake at 10,255 acres sits at the north end of it, so taking in both is a day rather than an afternoon. Lake Owyhee at 11,046 acres and Wickiup Reservoir at 10,107 acres are close enough in size that the planning for one carries over to the other, though the canyon and the drawdown make them feel nothing alike.
The rest of it is ordinary preparation. Draw a line across a cove before you run it and look at where the bottom comes up. Put the chart pack on the phone at home. Neither Owyhee nor Wickiup is a place to discover at the ramp that the download never finished.
Inland lake depth comes from state elevation surveys rather than from nautical charts, and a reservoir sits at whatever level it is being held at that week. Treat the shape and the depth as a guide, keep a lookout, and verify locally.
Depth data. Upper Klamath Lake is carried at 249.8 square kilometers (61,727 acres), the second largest named water in the pack, with contours and a depth reading on the lake itself built from state elevation surveys. Agency Lake at the north end is carried the same way, at 41.5 square kilometers (10,255 acres), and both keep working with no cell service once the pack is downloaded.
The contours are the shape of the basin, so they stay put while the surface drops. Read them against the pool level for the week you are going and you can see which arms still hold water and where the old creek channel runs through the flats. Wickiup is carried at 40.9 square kilometers (10,107 acres), and every depth reading shows the date of the survey it came from.
They are in the lake pack. Lake Umatilla is carried at 201.1 square kilometers (49,693 acres), Lake Wallula at 122.7 (30,320 acres), Lake Bonneville at 78.2 (19,324 acres) and Lake Celilo at 35.2 (8,698 acres). They sit along the edge of the box this pack is cut to, so the Washington pack carries them as well and either one puts them on the screen.
Helm Boating