Lake Powell Is Gone !!

Don't worry. The drought will pass. The lakes will fill.

I was in 6th grade back in '58/'59 when the dam was "half way completed", we used to see "newsreels" in school back in those days and the dam was big news, along with film showing the latest nuclear tests and rocket launch failures, all kind of things little boys liked to watch. My first visit to the dam was about 1980, when the lake was brim full and the round overflow tubes at the bottom of the dam were wide open, very spectacular...

Lake Mead supplies water to 25 million people- Las Vegas population is 650.000, so they use less than 4% of the total- the rest goes to Arizona, Mexico and California, with Los Angeles and San Diego grabbing the biggest share.

Thanks for showing Page. I haven't been there since 1992 when it was 101 degrees in the late afternoon. I camped near the north rim of the Grand Canyon in my new 1992 Tioga RV that night.

On April 11th 1956 the United States Congress authorized the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam.

No matter what you take from nature, nature will always take it back.

Wow! Beautiful hometown Page, Az. I'm Navajo grandma from small town Page America . Thanks for Sharing.

I have houseboated out of Bullfrog marina a couple of times back in the day. The lake is magical when you get way back in there. I never thought it would look like this. ☹️

3 years ago we spent a night there, toured the dam & lake Powell on a bus tour of 5 National parks in the area. Incredible difference.

My grandfather took me to Glenn Canyon the last summer it was open. I think it was 1957-58. It was a beautiful place!

Hey Russ!!! Water level "LOWER" Then your "LAST" Trip!!!

I was on lake Powell when it was full. How times have changed.

That's why I am going north and will put up with the snow and rain. Thanks for the video, Russ

Wow.... I have never seen Lake Powell from ground level, but I have flown over it way back in '87--that was after the 80-86 years of heavy rain, and it looked like a lake then. My parents and I saw this type of drought in the great California drought of '77 at Howard Prairie Lake in Oregon, then the rains came, really lasting from about '77 to early '95, the year I quit RV'ing with my parents and got married, just b4 I turned 34. Weather is an oddity--despite global warming, we may be in for more rain, as ocean currents change, or if a large volcanic eruption happens in the Northern Hemisphere like Mt. St. Helens in 1980, and our weather in the Northwest changed like a light switch was thrown--we even had snow down into the Napa Valley, near sea level, dusting our hills down to about a 300 foot elevation--took my nephews up to see it. We campers know--what's underneath us we just do not know how it will affect us, because it sneaks up on us the way Mt. St. Helens did. Mt. Ranier, Mt. Lassen, and Mt. Shasta can all change our global warming scenario into the big chill, and like Mt. St. Helens we might only get a few months warning. Many of us in the Bay Area knew in our gut the 89 earthquake and the 2000, and 2014 Napa afterquakes that followed were coming, because the 89 earthquake was preceded by some smaller quakes near Gilroy, garlic capital of the world (good to mention on All Hallows Eve since it is well known that garlic, due to the smell alone, keeps vampires away :) ). I kid u not, I took in 89 a trip to Tahoe, and I took a sailboat ride there, the day before the Loma Prieta Quake. One of the tourists asked the 20 something boat captain about quakes since they were headed to San Francisco to see the World Series. All of us who lived around the City By The Bay then were euphoric, knowing whatever team won the series it would be a home team. The boat captain bragged to the tourists, with all the "invincibility" some kids think they have at that age, that he'd lived in California "All his life" and had never felt a quake. Given he had lived in Tahoe, that is, I had felt about a half dozen quakes since our parents moved us to the Napa Valley in 67, the strongest being the 69 quakes and the Livermore Quakes, and several others leading up to 89 some being strong enough to put cracks in our stucco and walls. I drove home to Napa, assigned to help my Mom babysit my nephews, and got there about three hours before I unpacked and collapsed in a rocking chair to rest from the drive down from Tahoe, which is harder than driving from Reno because of the two lane mountain stretches. My nephews were watching TV in our den, and I was not going to turn on the World Series since it was just about to start, but then I heard the TV go to static and was going to yell at my nephews to quit fussin with the remote control (they were not scared of me, but they were scared of my Mom which is why I always gave them a lazy, preemptive warning. Since the center of the earthquake was about 80 miles south of us, and since earthquake waves travel close to the speed of sound, it took 8 seconds for my chair to start rocking, a confused second or two to realize one of my nephews had not snuck into our frontroom to get even at me for yelling at them, and about a millisecond later my Mom in a panic yelled "We're Having an Earthquake" I yelled to everyone, "stay where you are" estimating the shaking was too strong to even walk, which it was, and knowing the location of my Mom and Nephews, that they'd be safe. It took about a minute before we felt we could walk. Our den bookcase almost, but not quite, fell on my nephews since the shock came from that direction. Our outside sidewalk was moved up like the slant of a pup tent, a lamp fell down in my parent's master bedroom, and we had a wide, one inch wide crack, around the stucco surrounding our foundation (termite bait but not as serious as it might have been). I had warned my Dad about my growing sense we were going to have a strong, though not as strong as 1906, earthquake. He had a contractor bolt our non-slab foundation into the wood beams holding it up above the flood plain, as homes in that area were required to be elevated from the local creek's flood plain. Our homes were undamaged, as that was being done already by many in the bay area fearing a big quake was coming. After that quake, my Dad bolted our tallest bookcases to the walls so they would not fall and put a belt around our gas tank for our gas appliances so it would not break our gas main. He passed away (RIP) in 99 and in 2000 along came a strong earthquake, an aftershock of the 89 quake on an unknown subsidiary fault just six miles north of my Mom's home--dumping the contents of every cabinet into the home, but not causing the bookcase in her bedroom to fall on her. I am happy to say she got the heck out of California after that and moved to be near me, where only dust storms happen. Nature, like that sailboat captain should have known, is nothing to scoff at. The resorts in Las Vegas consume so much darn electricity I'd be curious how their size city compares to an average size city's electricity use. The rampant building of suburbs, vs more efficient apartment living, has also caused challenges with water uses, especially when it comes to lawns. We who RV and camp, know nature more than those who sit in their homes watching the boob tube, or sit at slot machines all day long waiting for Santa to reward them with money and his maiden elves to give them a drink, not that I am condemning that--moderation is key even in that, leading to a happier life, and more time in the outdoors, and if you are in a tent, you are more likely to survive a quake, but don't go tent camping in Tornado and Hurricane country unless u know the forecast...

The dam was built in the early 60s. My dad worked on it and I remember my mom driving us kids up to visit him when I was a toddler.

I just rewatched your trip there from last year. Stopped the video at the same spot as the lookout ( by the dam ), wow, low is an understatement. Looks like at least 50 feet lower.

Love your videos. We were at Lake mead in early September. So sad how much that lake has disappeared as well. Thanks for taking us along!

In the late 80s the dam nearly over flowed. The diversion spillways had to be opened. There were 8 foot emergency boards placed on top of the dam to keep the water from going over.

So gorgeous!!! Love these road trips! Thank you Russ!!!

The party never stops & the road goes on forever✌💜🎼🎵🎶