On Sunday, October 17 we diverted from our planned route so that we could proceed over the Teton Pass into Jackson, Wyoming on our way over several scenic byways through Soda Springs, ID and our eventual destination - a Worldmark condo on the shore of Bear Lake, Utah (gotta love the off season price of $41 a night).
In addition to keeping us on our selected route, my GPS allows me to record the exact "track" of our trip including elevation along with exact time/location information. I always enjoy reviewing the resulting data and charts -- and have included a couple below which I have annotated to show our stops:
As previously arranged, we are staying two nights here in Bear Lake -- so today, Monday, Oct 18, we took a leisurely trip around the circumference of the lake. It's an interesting and beautiful area but we found it odd that the supposedly "lake-front" homes and camping sites that surround the lake are some 100 yards or more from the actual lake with clear indication that the lake is not at its normal level. We wondered if this result was seasonal or indicative of a changing environment. I stopped and spoke with a couple of locals and learned that a drought in this area beginning around 2002-2004 caused the lake to drop to its current level and while there is hope that it will someday recover -- it hasn't happened yet. Lakeside residents/vacationers have adapted by now using tractors to haul their boats and water toys to the waters edge. We couldn't help but wonder what it might have done to property values to have these luxuriously built "lake-side" homes that are no longer lake-side! Here's an easy way to see what I'm writing about on Google Maps.
No comments:
Post a Comment