Yesterday, July 16, we packed up the picnic bag, stopped for gas, picked up some fried chicken to go with the rest of our goodies, and headed North to Oroville and Oroville Dam. It was another warm day and only got up to 89, but still the humidity was high. It was sort of overcast and pictures would have been better with a pretty blue sky. After all these years of taking pictures, I still tend to blame the camera and not operator error!
Boy, what a shock! We knew the dam would be low but had no idea it was as low as what we saw. The lake level is only at 38% of its total capacity. The dam area and overlooks were deserted and many of the large parking areas were all closed and fenced off to prevent entry. We had the place to ourselves, except for a few boaters. There just wasn’t anyone around. Guess not having access to the lake had really hurt the recreation this year. We had just a couple of overlooks with a good view and another view from the top of a tower at the visitors center. There is no longer access to the bottom of the dam. We were here in 2004 and were able to take a tour of the dam at that time. But tours are no longer offered. With it only being July, by September or October, the dam will probably set a new record low water level. At least I have some much better and prettier pictures from our previous visit in my scrapbook, and was using a film camera back then.
Oroville is situated on the banks of the Feather River where it flows out of the Sierra Nevada onto the flat floor of the California Central Valley. It was established as the head of navigation on the Feather River to supply gold miners during the California Gold Rush. Oroville Dam is the tallest Dam in the United States, taller than the Hoover Dam. Amazing that this dam is an earthen dam and the largest of its kind also in the United States. It stands at 770’ tall and over 80 million cubic yards of material were used, enough to build a 2 lane highway around the earth. The lake covers 15,000 surface acres and has 167 miles of shore. When you look at the low lake level, that is A LOT of water that is not there!
Where there is water, there will be a boater! A few die-hard souls still went out on the lake regardless of how low it was. By the descriptions in the picture, all effort was made to provide a boat ramp. The original ramp ends at the floating dock you see in the lower part of the picture. Then notice how far below the water line the large second parking lot is on the left. Then to the right you see where the water receded even further below the second ramp. Finally you can see a one lane concrete ramp down into the water. Who knows how they will solve the problem when the water recedes even further.
Leaving the dam, we stopped by the Feather River fish hatchery. That was a bust! No water, no fish! Maintenance was being done and it would not re-open until September for the fall Salmon spawning and releasing. Oroville Dam altered part of the spawning grounds for the salmon and steelhead so the hatchery was opened in 1967. To get a better view above the waterfall, we drove to the other side of the river and wound up on a narrow dirt/gravel overgrown road through brush and trees. Then voila! There is a huge open area with picnic tables! Who on earth even knows they are there? We certainly wouldn’t want to picnic in such an ugly area. But you never know where our adventurous drives will take us! It was too overgrown to really see anything. But on the way out we did see two twin fawns cross the road. They were so cute!
Next we headed to the visitor’s center, then stopped on the way back down from the dam at an overlook and had our picnic lunch. It was hot, but being at a higher elevation, we did have some breeze. Funny! We didn’t see anybody on the road, at the previous overlooks, or the visitors center. We set up for lunch with a view and that’s when people came out of the woodwork to stop at that overlook!! At least they didn’t stay long. Probably smelled the fried chicken and thought we were going to share!
After seeing this dam so low, we are certain we will see the same at Shasta Lake, below Mt. Shasta, and that is our next stop.
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