Mountain Lake Shrinking

Click for a Series of Before & After Lake Photos

July 2018 - This may be the highest level in at least several years. This only 10 months after it was almost empty.

October 2017 - Lake at lowest level again, possibly first time this low since 2008?

The earlier (2008) drain hole was below the big rocks on the left. It is currently towards the right end of the remaining pools, close to the pontoon boat.

There were a whole lot of fish stranded in the shallow pool just before the water submerges into the rocks on the right.

October 2016 - Lake still at a low level. An interesting 2015 article discusses Varying lake levels and attempts to plug the holes

Feb 1, 2013 - In 2011 JM Roningen completed a Master's thesis (Virginia Tech), Hydrogeologic controls on lake level at Mountain Lake about research on the changing water level of Mt Lake.
This work was published in the Hydrogeology Journal in 2012 (Vol 20, #6, pp 1149-1167)
The author kindly provided a presentation regarding this work with permission to post here: HydrogeologicControls_MountainLake.pdf. Anyone interested in the technical details about Mt Lake should find this work fascinating.

Aug 8, 2009 UPDATE - A comparatively rainy summer, following a wet Spring, and the lake level continues to rise.

(the image above is a now (8/8/09)/then(5/19/09) photo overlay - must have Javascript enabled - move mouse on/off of image)

It still has a long way to go before it is 'full' again, but that's not stopping many people from enjoying a good swim. The dead fish smell of last summer is long gone, and the water is clear and smells clean again.

While the level may seem to be rising slowly, the level has reached the gradually sloping portion of the bottom. Each foot the lake rises, the larger the surface becomes, and the more water is required to raise it another foot. A more optimistic view of the rising lake level can be seen in this chart posted at the Hotel:

May 19, 2009 UPDATE - a wet Spring has continued to raise the lake level.

(the image above is a now (5/19/09)/then(9/21/08) photo overlay - must have Javascript enabled - move mouse on/off of image)

New Year's 2009 UPDATE - recent rains have raised the lake level, but it still has a long ways to go. Despite higher than normal rains in December, drought conditions continue to persist in the area. NOAA records show the Blacksburg area rainfall as 9 inches below normal for 2008. With an average annual rainfall of 42.6 inches, that is an over 20% deficit. This adds to the deficit at the end of 2007, which was nearly 8 inches, putting the area at nearly 17 inches below normal precipitation in last 2 years.

October 26, 2008 UPDATE - Photo from Craig Ferguson

October 3, 2008 UPDATE - There is more information about the body found at WDBJ 7 News Story (If that link has expired, here is a PDF Copy of the WDBJ 7 Story)
There has been some rain recently, and the level has actually risen slightly, it is higher than it has been in over a month:

We may have seen the lowest point for a while - Pete Sauvigne paid a vist September 24 and passed along this photo. The level had only dropped a few inches, but there was an audible flow through a crack at the edge of the last pool. The circles show the location starting from the photo of Sept 21.

Here is a brief video (also from Pete) where you can see and hear the water running into the crack: Drain Hole Video (4 MB)

September 21, 2008 UPDATE - The big news from this weekend was not the lake level, but the discovery of a human skeleton buried in the mud. The little info we could get is that they think it is about 50 years old, and don't know yet whether male of female. They're going to do an archeological style dig to see if there are any more.

As for the Lake, it's holding steady at the same level in the last pool. It looks the same as the last couple of weeks (you can see the Sheriff's people in the upper right corner):

September 15,2008 UPDATE - There was a little bit of rain in the past week (under an inch), but it was enough to help the last pool to hang on. Not much change since the previous visit:

September 7,2008 UPDATE - What a difference a week makes. Hannah completely missed this area. This is almost exactly the same view as the first photo for the August 31 set (move mouse over photo to see previous for comparison):

The last two pools are turning out to be deeper than they looked in that earlier pic:

Lots more dead fish:

September 4, 2008 UPDATE - From Pete Sauvigne, down to 1 pool, lots of dead fish.

August 31, 2008 UPDATE - The recent rain (2.5" in Blacksburg, maybe more up here?) just made things wetter, but did not help the water level any. It's down to just 2 small pools now. There are still fish in these pools, but may not be for long.

A couple of other pools are now dry, leaving behind a lot of dead fish.

Another view - the now-empty pools with the dead fish are on the left, the two remaining pools with water are near the upper center of this photo:

The deep cracks in the former bottom have become solid and you can walk on them without getting muddy. Even the plants are starting to move in, along with this guy studying to become a fossil:

August 25, 2008 UPDATE photos from Pete Sauvigne, just prior to some rain. More rain expected in the coming week, but whether it will have any effect on the levels remains to be seen. According to the Mt Lake Conservancy Website (under Research), the Lake has a more or less constant outflow of 600 gallons per minute. The Lake will only start rising when the flow into it exceeds that rate.

UPDATE: Here are some August 16 Photos from Craig Ferguson.

These pictures were taken August 10, 2008. We had been at Mt Lake a month or so before, and the water level, while very low then, was nothing like now. This is the view from the Gazebo, which used to be on the bank of the lake:

This was taken from a spot that only divers used to see:

This is the 'deep end' - I remember diving from those rocks on the right during a "midnight raid":

It probably wont' be long before the legendary drain hole will be visible.
This is the only water I could find flowing into the lake:

View back towards the hotel from the lake bed:

Photos by unless noted otherwise.

A surprising bit of information is that the hole that drains the lake is also the reason the lake still exists. If not for the hole, either erosion or silt buildup would have caused the lake to disappear thousands of years ago. Some fascinating details about how it works can be found here:
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/watersheds/mountainlake.html

More Information:

The Mt Lake Conservancy Website

Mountain Lake Recreation Blog

Wind Drifter (Richard Cobb's Web Page)

(updated July 21, 2018)