Lately I have been really excited about the amount of water in the lake! It is almost full. We had to take the bollards away from the boat ramps because the water was rising so fast that we had to get them now or it would be really difficult later. Unfortunately I was off the day they took them out.
These two pictures were taken about a day apart. I was excited to see water touching the main boat ramp in the first place...the next day was even more exciting!
This is the picture I sent my supervisor when she decided the bollards had to come out very soon! I started this job in 2014 and have never seen the water this high. When I started, kite boarders were still able to launch from the north boat ramp area, but as the summer progressed, they had to walk further and further down the beach. It was March 2015 when the lake was finally completely dry. We found the last remaining mud puddle on the full moon hike that month.
I learned how to plow snow! Actually my one and only lesson was last year and I never really had to do it, until mid-January this year! We got a couple atmospheric rivers that came over the Sierra Nevada and loaded the valleys up with snow and rain. I was visiting family in Utah so I missed most of the flooding, but came home to this!
There has been a constant flow of water through our day use area for almost a month now. Other places in the park have water flowing that haven't had water in years, I think since the 2005 floods. (The 1997 flood was the worst in a long time, but the 2017 flood was closer in size to the 2005 flood) It's hard to tell from the picture, but this "river" is flowing through what used to be grass, and there is a small waterfall flowing down through the rocks and into the lake. It's a good lesson to see water flowing across the road, parking lot, and grass into the lake, carrying with it anything that crosses its path, whether it is litter or other contaminants like oil from leaking cars.
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