Friday, August 13, 2010

8-8-10 Lonesome Lake Postscript

I got down from Greenleaf in mid-morning last Sunday ((8-9-10) and decided to run up to Lonesome Lake again to snorkle the full length of the lake as the weather would not be in the high 70s (F) again for some time. This time I went in at the outlet and swam as straight a line as I could to the inlet at the northwest corner of the lake, near the bog. The sun was straight overhead and the water was cool bordering on cold to start out. This photo was taken a few feet out from shore as I headed northwest up the lake.

Within 75 feet I spotted the remains of a canoe or Adirondack-style cedar ribbed boat buried in the plants and mud.

As I dove down to look at the debris from the boat I found that the turbulence from my flippers made the grass-like aquatic plants (reeds) on the bottom "dance" in patterns. I don't know what the plants are and have to key them out but they reminded me of spaghetti.


This is one of the deeper locations I found on this swim. It's 11 feet deep and pretty close to the center of the lake. There's a lot of vegetation and light.

The approximate center of Lonesome Lake......

and the water was 14 feet deep with a lot of light getting to the bottom and an abundance of plants. I surmised that there's still plenty of oxygen in the lake and the water is probably recharged by a consistent influx of fresh which is moved north to south by a slight current produced by the outlet. There's a lot of algae on the plants.

Near the inlets at the northwest corner of the lake, where I had been snorkeling the week there was a high density of plant life and more diversity. I'll have to key out (identify) all of these and put their names here at a later date. The bottom was 3 feet below the surface and consisted of a fine silt that I could easily stick my hand down into at least a foot. There were deep foot prints left by moose who probably come here to browse, cool off and escape horse flies.

The area of the bottom covered by these plants including the algae that is clinging to them was probably two acres and was shallow, only 2-3 feet deep at the most. The water here was cold and after being in the lake for an hour my calves and thighs began to cramp up painfully so I headed back to the south end of the lake.

I encountered this pattern of vegetation as I returned to the south end of the lake by a different "line" closer to the east shoreline. There was a consistent depth of 8 feet.


I was going to say I had this huge audience applauding my every move but it was just the regular Sunday afternoon crowd of hikers relaxing by the dock.

No comments: