1/05/2008

Final Canyon Lake Post (in HDR)

Here's my last post on the Canyon Lake Drawdown. About a week ago SRP started refilling Canyon Lake. However because of expected rain this weekend they stopped. We decided to go out for one more look before they refilled it. We would not get another chance for 20 years. This time there wasn't much of interest to find as most everything was washed away by the rains we've had recently. However we did get to see how much of the sediment had washed away from the runoff. If you look closely in the picture below you will see Chris in the lower right hand corner, he is 6' 6" the runoff removed about 15' of sediment, leaving this formation that looks like something you would find in the Grand Canyon.
Chris and Mike spent a few minutes throwing rocks at some of the overhanging sediment and caused a small avalanche.

After this we went to the marina, sat around and then had lunch at the Lakeside Restaurant & Cantina. The food was pretty good but maybe just a little over priced. We walked around the marina a bit and saw this collection of anchors that were recovered from the lake bottom (39 to be exact).
After that we decided to drive to Roosevelt lake. A couple of miles out side of Tortilla Flats the paved road ends and a dirt road begins. this road narrows down to one lane for about 2 miles and twists and turns down steep mountain grades, a ride not for the faint of heart. Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures going down the road (to busy driving). At the bottom is a one lane bridge (left pic), The center pic is looking back up the mountain at the road, and the right pic is looking at one of the many cars that we saw that had gone off the edge.

We got to Apache Lake and drove around but there wasn't much to see. Here is a pic of the lake on the way to Roosevelt Dam.
We stopped at the entrance to the dam and took a few pics.

Here is one of the many SCARY signs warning people to stay out.
We then went a little further up and stopped at the lookout point to take some more pictures.

We went further on to the back side of the dam for more pics. Once more passing a SCARY sign. This one guarding another entrance to the dam.
Here are the pics from the back side.

After that we drove to the 87 and went home.

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