Low Water

With the heat and drought we've had this summer, the lakes in our area are quite low.

We took a trip to Point Au Roche, just north of Plattsburgh, and launched the kayak at the state park there on Lake Champlain. Those tall concrete walls have cleats on them to tie up to when the water is high. Thank goodness it also has the floating dock.

On the NOAA weather website (click HERE for it), you can follow the water temps and lake level, given in feet above sea level. In the spring, the average level starts out at about 100ft., depending on melted snow runoff. Today the level is about 94.6 ft. 

This is the mooring field in the next bay over, aptly named Deep Bay, because it is so long.

We could really see how low the water in Lake Champlain is, at the Point Au Roche beach.

That's Dave in the distance trying to find water deep enough to swim in.

One hot day last week, I  took Pink up to Sacandaga Lake to paddle around and cool off in the water (the water was quite warm though!). It's a long way to the lake at the Broadalbin boat launch ramp.

It was flat calm as I paddled out to Sand Island, and it certainly has lots of the sand that its named for, showing or awash.

On the other end of the scale, there has been so much rain up in Ticonderoga this past week, that we could barely get under the Eagle Lake bridge with the kayak a few days ago. We could hear streams and waterfalls all along the shore, filling up the lake. Some of the docks were even underwater. It's too bad it can't trickle down to the places that need the water the most.