Our guests love Mountain Lake - enjoy this YouTube video!

Posted by a guest this summer, really shows off the highlights of anyone's visit here and pays homage to the movie.

Very nicely done!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhLXr9bXHAs

--dB

Sandbag update

Last week we had hoped to plug the holes in our lake with sandbags. We actually had the first few bags loaded in our jonboat and were ready to go. Then our divers came up to the surface with bad news. Silt had covered the holes where we needed to place the sandbags. Silt, the consistency of mayonnaise, has been migrating down the steep sides of the lake, pulled down by gravity and washed in with rain and getting deeper and deeper into the bottom of the lake. The silt has slowed the exodus of water from the lake, but has not seemed to have much effect on the water loss.

We have hydrologists and other engineers studying our problem and working toward a thoughtful and responsible solution. We'll keep you updated here in the meantime.

Enjoy some pix we took recently as we GPS'd the around the lake's edge - sometimes we had to wade through mud as deep as our waists. You can see the we found a lost boat among other things that included a variety of beer cans dating back about as far as beer cans go, and some interesting shapes and patterns from the recently dried mud higher up the receding shoreline. Notice the rings in the last picture - they were fish beds that dried up.

Virginia Tech Long Distance Running Camp Visits MLC!

Last week we were excited to host the Virginia Tech Long Distance Running Camp with James DeMarcos of Runabout Sports. The weather was perfect for the runners as they breezed their way up Rt. 700 over the 6.5 mile climb that ascends about 2,750' to an elevation of over 4,200'.

The 125+ ravenous runners enjoyed a special brunch prepared by Mountain Lake's chefs and spent the rest of the morning enjoying various recreational opportunities led by our staff.

Check out the pix...

Sandbaggers to the Rescue

If you have been following the lake as it continues to recede you may have wondered, "is there anything we can do to stop the water loss?"

In an attempt to answer this question, The Mountain Lake Board has commissioned some divers to try to fix a major part of the suspected problem. The divers have recently found 18 holes in the lake's bottom. One hole is approximately the size of a pickup truck bed.

Obviously, with the combination of other major factors conspiring against us there is only so much we can do. The other cracks, seismic faults and sandstone geology also contribute to the lake's constant water loss. The droughts we have suffered since 1999 are the biggest issue and have affected lakes all over the southeast.

It is hoped that by attempting to plug the hole with sandbags we can at least decrease the rate output enough for normal rainfall to be able to turn things around. So the Conservancy's Recreation staff spent most of the afternoon yesterday preparing sandbags for the divers and placing them on the shoreline.

Check out the pictures...

Adventure Mountain Lake Week Starts today!

Adventure Mountain Lake Week is here at last! We have all kinds of special fun things to do for both our hotel and day guests.

We've already had lots of folks trying out their skills on our portable climbing wall!

Don't miss out, the climbing wall is only here till Friday then it is gone till next year!






Find out the schedule for what all else we'll have to do here...

http://www.mtnlakeconservancy.org/special-adventure.html

Lakebed Cleanup While We Can! Trash or Treasure?

Chris and I ventured out on Monday, June 23rd for a solid 4 hour mud intensive cleanup around the receded lake. Since there is not a clue as to when the water will rise again, we have decided to seize the wonderful opportunity to gather decades and decades of revealed trash and TAR! Yes, there was a mess of tar down very close to the water. We can only hope that this was not dumped recently. Chris and I folded the tar over on itself several times to make it more manageable. The viscous black substance seized all the earth within reach even modling to our arms like pizza dough as we lifted.

We collected everything from ancient 'talking cameras' to boxer shorts abandoned by skinny dippers of the past. Chris and I concluded that the drink of choice back in the day must have been Pabst Blue Ribbon. Pabst barely beat out Coca-Cola as the most popular bottles/cans we found around the lake. There was also an old fence which may have marked low water levels of the past. The steel fence posts had rusted into a rubbery substance. There was also quite a variety of homemade anchors, the most interesting of which being a long piece of phone line strapped to an old brake drum with a leather belt. We also found a giant piece of auto glass, which had been broken in a couple places.

The most challenging obstacle to out cleanup was the black, all consuming, "quick-mud" that immediately surrounds the water. We used some scrap wood from old sunken boat hauls and tossed them ahead in lines to balance beam our way out to recover a rusty can, mucky bottle or shoe!. An incredible treasure that I have noticed among the waste left in the lake are these naturally forming terrariums! Some of the bottles have actually used the greenhouse effect of nurturing seedlings with no assistance from humans other than the act of littering. I have brought one home so far and plan to either drill some holes or score and break the top open to encourage further growth. So maybe the bottles aren't all bad, but the plants will definitely need a hand towards the next step of freedom.

We have also been saving all intact bottles which I am personally cleaning and recycling. I've recently picked up the hobby of home brewing and decided it would be neat to fill these lake bed bottles with my own carbonated beverage. There should be more pictures to come on this topic, and believe it or not I'm sure we will find even more spectacular treasures. I wish we had a camera for the tar and fishing rods we found.

Chris and I also stumbled upon an incredible wildlife encounter while trudging through the mud. There was a small pool with hundreds of salamanders dipping in and out of the lake. This seemed to be very out of character for salamanders to be so social and out in broad daylight! Whelp that's about all I can remember for now. When Chris gets back in I'm sure there will be more to share.

Toodles and talking cameras,
Greg

Dirty Dawg!!

This weekend, as we all know, was the big Dirty Dawg bike race weekend here at Mountain Lake. I was at marshal station 5 and had a great group coming through. Everyone was so psyched for the race and kicked butt coming up those hills. One guy asked me "so, this is the relay point where I pass my bike off to you & you finish for me, right??" :] Everyone did an awesome job & I was excited to be a part of it. After everyone was finished with the race, Kyle and I headed up to the horse barn to check out the post-race festivities. Everyone was in high spirits and having an awesome time. We cooked and provided concessions for everyone, and watched Greg's "Captain Insano" kid's challenge, which looked like a blast. We hung out and listened to everyone swap race stories for the next few hours. All in all, an awesome weekend!!

-Mallory

Hike around the lake

Hey everyone!
Last week I took a very diverse group on a hike down Indian Trail, around the lake - there were about 10 people ranging from 3 years to retired! They had a blast checking out the wildlife, and asked me a lot of questions about the trees which excited me - I love it when groups get engaged. The little guy, 3 years old, was fantastic - he kept everyone going, laughing, and having a great time. We stopped a few times to get great views of the lake and a couple people got some great shots with their cameras, and everyone ended happy and healthy. I had a great time with them!

Mallory

Hello,

Yesterday Greg and I discovered that there are some amazing rocks that you can boulder on the other side of the lake! To be safe we took an older mattress and covered it with a tarp to keep it from getting wet. This gave us the perfect thing to land on if we fell. We have also started scoping out three or four really good climbs that we could take people on. The rocks were pretty easy to clean with a stiff brush and were really great to hold on too! Also I picked up a book called Rock Climbing A Trailside Guide, hopefully this will help us to learn more about the rock and how to climb it. Bellow are some pictures of the supplies we used and the rocks were climbing!

Peace,

Chris

New River Sampler [May 25]

I know it's a little late, but here I am, after figuring out how to sign in to this thing, blogging about the New River Sampler trip Kyle and I took with a family on my first day, May 25. The family of 6 was a really fun outgoing group, and some had experience on a river while some did not. They picked partners and we put in and were on our way - they all had a blast on the small rapids, and about 15 minutes into our trip, one of the girls with less experience said "dad, do you still have that canoe?" and I felt (as corny as it may sound!) proud that they were having such a great time - the first time I got in a canoe I wasn't sure I was going to be too thrilled, but I instantly fell in love with it and I heard that same excitement in this group. It was a gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky, and by far the best first day of work I have ever had. I think the canoe trip set the stage for a great summer - both for Kyle and I, and for our guests.

-Mallory

May 29 Pictures

New River Sampler (May29)

On Thursday the 29th, Kyle and I took two families on a canoe trip down the New River. Both families had little experience but picked up the sport fast. It was a little difficult at first pairing up who should ride with who, but then we got it together and headed out. About 5 minutes on the water and we realized the last boat, which had a child and his mom, needed a guide. So in the middle of the river we "McGivered" Kyle out of the back of our boat and into the back of ours, while switched to the back of our boat with the little boy in the front. The ride down the river was very calm and everyone did a really good job of keeping together. The rapids were small but amused the kids. About 3/4's of the way down we stopped at Whitt-Riverbend Park, in Giles County for some lunch. We had the lunches prepared and boxed from Tangent Outfitters, who also provides us with the water equipment. Before we stopped for lunch we were trying to find a good place to dock the canoes and I happened to step into a mud hole that went up to my knees and promptly lost my brand new shoes I had just gotten that day, specifically so that they would stay on my feet! Needless to say I had to walk around the rocky riverbed the rest of the lunch and when we finished our trip. After lunch the float down the river is only about another 15 min so all in all we finished the trip in about 2 hours. Everyone really enjoyed themselves. Take a look at our pictures as well...

-ash

First New River Sampler Canoe Float

On Friday (May 23rd) Ben, Kyle and I kicked off our first canoe trip with two guests.
At 11am we headed down the mountain to Tangent Outfitters. Our friends at Tangent kindly had our canoes waiting for us on the truck. A short shuttle to the Drop-in at Pembroke and we were off and in the water. Kyle and I each took a guest in the front of our canoes and Ben ran his own low rider all to himself. The water level was fairly high from the rain we'd been getting recently. There were beautiful cliffs and rock faces with caves cut out surrounding the river. We could not have asked for a more gorgeous day with no clouds in the sky and heavy sun there were even kids swimming as we floated out. The river sent us into a bit of rapids right from the start and and everyone proved to be energized and eager enough to keep our boats strait and up right. Our guests did an especially wonderful job of picking up paddles for the first time and helping dodge rocks and shallow waters.
After about an hour we stopped at a park off the the left called Whitt's for a stretch and some grub. Then we hopped back in for the last bend of our float. Our guests now felt comfortable enough to try navigating their own canoe together. Kyle and I got a chance to see what our canoes were made of besides heavy duty plastic. Over all it was a great time, our guests seemed to enjoy themselves, we saw a team of geese tackle the rapids with more grace than any watercraft. Ben was spotting turtles our along the shoreline. Next time we will definitely have some pictures to share.
Below I have my canoe right after I replaced my seats with hemlock and added a third to the middle. Also, last week I was up in West Virginia fishing and swimming in the Lost River and I found a baby Painted Turtle with a hole in its shell, so I've included a pic of the home I started creating for him. You can see my little sucker fish in the bottom of the tank, hopefully keeping things clean.

Toodles,
Greg

First Tawney's Cave Trip

On Sunday afternoon I took a group of 6 into Tawney's cave, located at the bottom of Mountain Lake Road. We all met in front of the rec. office and made our way down to Tawney's which only takes about 15 minutes to get down to the bottom of the mountain. We all met at the "bat ranch" to fit our helmets and get all of the gear together. Everyone in the group was very excited about going into a wild cave, this was the first time that anyone in the group had been into a cave and by the end of the trip it seemed like they could have spent the whole day underground. One young girl in particular immediately fell in love with caves, she was off exploring on her own and it was really cool to see this young girl experiencing something new and really enjoying herself. We were in the cave for about an hour and half and by the time we made our way to the twilight zone to come out, the entire group was blown away with how much fun they had underneath the surface. This was the first caving trip that the Mountain Lake recreation gang ran and hopefully we can get more people to sign up for our great off-mountain trips.

KB

Picnic Hike

May 27, 2008

On Saturday I took a group up to Wind Rock for the Picnic Hike. There were about twelve guests on it which made for a really good sized group. The guests had to drive themselves to the hike following me in my jeep it worked out really well though. The families I took were amazing and really great to work with (it didn't even seem like work). When we got to Wind Rock everyone took lots of pictures! and then had there lunch. After they were finished with there lunch they all seemed ready to head back to the hotel. The hike as a whole was really fun and I cant wait till the next one!

Peace,

Chris

New disc golf course underway

Today two of the rec staff helped local volunteers on opening up the first 6 fairways for the new disc golf course. We're tired, more info and pix to come.

Beautiful weather today in the mid-sixties, with blue skies and sunshine - wish you were here!

We're open for 2008!

Things are warming up here at Mountain Lake and Recreation has come out of hibernation.
Check back here often to see what is happening at 4,000 feet!

Check out our website in the mean time... www.MtnLakeConservancy.org
--dB