I took my nephew to the lake today. I thought he’d like to look for some rocks to add to his collection. I totally forgot that Lake Champlain is under a flood warning.
I took him to the Port Kent ferry dock. That particular branch of the ferry system is closed for the winter but the parking lot at the beach is till open. Well, when I drove down the ramp to the dock, I got a huge surprise…
First view. That fence you see in the background?? That’s the end of the paved area of the dock. The lake is usually about 5’ beyond that. Those lines you see under the water are the lanes for people to line up in to get on the ferry. There’s a dock to the right and one to the left.
Second View . That thing that looks like gallows is actually where the ramp to the right side ferry dock is. It’s probably in a minimum of 5’ of water right now. Very likely much more than that. There was no way I was walking out there to find out for sure.
Third View. This is the gift shop. The left side dock is behind this building. I love how you can even see how big the current is, even in the parking lot. See that rock against the far wall of the building? The next view is from there.
Last, and coolest view. I was standing on a step, to the right of that rock. The water line started about 1’ in front of the step. It got deep very quickly. That’s the right side dock again.
We went to the beach, which is behind the gift shop, to look for rocks. I was just there last week. The beach is about 4’-8’ smaller (from parking lot to lake) than it was last week. There’s a massive line of driftwood completely lining the beach. Unfortunately, I was too busy looking for rocks to take pictures.
Flooding can be interesting and scary. The lake I used to live at flooded once about 10 years ago, I couldn’t go down the road either way because the lake backed up into the feeder streams and was covering the road. The railings on the dock across from my house were just visible above the water.
Damn, all that flooding I’ll bet that the smallmouth are all pushed up shallow and holding to structure…fishing would be excellent if you could get close enough…
I used to live in a small apartment on a farm that was 300’ or so from a river. One spring, I got in my kayak on the front lawn about 20’ from the house, paddled down the driveway between the cornfields, hung a right onto the road, and sunk my paddle in to see how deep it was. I could not touch bottom. It was that way for a month, and the only other way out was on foot through the woods. It was very strange to kayak to work.
I’m originally from Louisiana–the piney-woods part, not the swamps proper. We got backwaters covering the road to our house every two or three years. The water would cover the road for weeks at a time, at depths of up to about 10 feet. We generally got enough warning to park the truck out by the highway (which usually didn’t flood). I learned to drive a Swamp Fox (a six-wheeled amphibious vehicle) when I was about eight, so I could drive/paddlewheel out to the highway and back.
The Fox gave up the ghost when I was in Junior High, I think, and after that we just used a boat. I had to paddle out to go to my high school graduation.
We’ve had a lot of rain in Toronto recently. I remember walking home late at night, feeling some drizzle on my face… and then stepping into a muddy puddle that covered the entire street. At a nearly ankle-deep level. I thought the drains had overflowed or the main was leaking.
congodwarf, those are seriously awesome photos. Why all the extra H20–has it been raining a lot?
A combo of lots of rain, and sudden warm weather that has melted a lot of snow in the mountains, leading to a lot more flow from the rivers that feed the lake.
bouv, Thanks for the VT pictures! You guys are much more flooded. Always having to show us up. What do you mean “wrong” side? Oh, wait, I live in Plattsburgh. Yep. Wrong side it is. Hey bouv, keep your eyes open. Roland Orzabal mentioned having a Plattsdope when he’s up here in a few months.
I was going to go out to Grand Isle tomorrow. I was there last Friday when I took my nephew to Echo and the lake looked high but definitely not flooded. I’m pretty sure though, that the Grand Isle dock is higher up than the Port Kent dock. After all, PK has a beach. Grand Isle seems to be too high for that.
Kythereia, Until about a week ago, we still had a fairly large amount of snow in some places, especially on the mountains (of which we have many, on both sides of the lake). It got really warm, for us, in the last week or so, and it’s also been raining a lot. So, the snow is mostly all gone. When I was out today, the only mountain which still appeared to have snow was White Face. This is a picture I took about 2 weeks or so ago. It’s Ausable Chasm, covered in ice and snow. This is a picture I took today, of the same spot. It’s all water now.
congodwarf, you are among the “wimp to end all wimps” set. You call that “flooding?!” HAHA!! HAHA!! Again!!
We also take tornado warnings seriously. THEY’RE WARNING YOU DAMMIT!!
Lol. I’m from a landlocked city. I never saw any of the lakes in Worcester do that before. I’ve seen them get high, like bank high. But, never anything like that. The largest lake I’ve ever seen is Champlain. I’ve never even seen the Atlantic get that high (in person) because I’ve never been there during any kind of thaw or heavy storm season. So, I thought it was pretty friggen cool.
Lake Champlain is cool. We came by there many moons ago, on a trip to Middlebury VT. We ventured up to Montreal and so came by Champlain. I wish I had been able to spend more time checking it out. I’ll just have to satisfy myself with your photos. I love the rainbow at AuSable Chasm!
Well, I’ll definitely be taking more. I’m sure I’ve said it here many times before but pretty much the only thing I like about this place is the views. I spend a lot of time just driving around enjoying the scenery. I just need to remember to bring a proper camera with me. These pictures all were taken with my cell phone.
Isn’t the rainbow cool? It’s the backside of Rainbow Falls. I didn’t even know it was called that until after I took the picture. I can see where they got the name.
I’d be careful about going down to the lake shore during floods, congodwarf - Everyone knows that the flooding is what wakes up Champie each year. And she wakes hungry.
I hear that nephews really make for great Champie snacks, though.
I was near Albany a week ago and we took a day trip to the Adirondacks and whoa boy was there high water – all of the riverside park benches were flooded or floating. In no creek did we see any exposed rocks, only the eddies the water was creating by flowing over them. Even in managed streams the water was still extremely high. (But it was amazing being in a green pine forest with snow covering the ground right next to a flowing stream, a color/element combination I’ve never experienced before!)
) side of the lake?
