Lake Mead’s lonely shoreline reveals the life and times of a lonely boater in Boulder City, New York. A story of Joyce DiManno

LAKE MEAD, NEVADA — Along a lonely stretch of Lake Mead’s southwestern shore, a rattlesnake huddles amidst a cluster of rocks, just feet away from the wreck of an abandoned houseboat that has been baked under the desert sun.

Coffee cups are flung far from their matching saucers in a wreck filled with remnants of a past life. Its wooden frame is splayed over the rock bed and there are a lot of split beams with rope and electrical cords. A toilet sits atop a ruin. Its seat—still attached to the lid—can be found down by the water’s edge.

In the past fifteen years, due to the effects of a decades long dry spell, the water level of the lake has dropped more than 170 feet. Some locals and longtime visitors feel the drawback has made life at the lake a fraction of what it used to be. But the crisis is also attracting a new kind of tourist—those who come to see what the newly exposed shoreline has revealed.

The first National Recreation Area was created in 1964, and has attracted a lot of people who go across the lake in boats and jet skis with their towels in hand. The boaters paradise of Joyce DiManno is nothing like the quiet scene she experienced because of the low water level.

A longtime resident of the park’s neighboring Boulder City, DiManno can see the vista of Lake Mead and its crown of mountains from a wide window stretching across her living room.

When she and her husband went to the lake frequently, DiManno accumulated a large number of photo albums and held them at her kitchen table.

As she combs through them, she points out snippets of weekends spent skiing and boating with friends, the countless hours passed lounging in coves and on beaches. At the time, drought was far from their minds.

The DiMannos Experience at the Edge of the Boulder Beach Reservoir: Observing the Survival of a Dead Marine Bailing Trajectory

The DiMannos eventually sold their boat in 1999. In the years that followed, the couple had front-row views as many of their beloved spots changed.

Road built at the end of the Boulder Beach shoreline to go to the edge of the water line have been abruptly pulled back hundreds of yards from the water line. Cars loaded with folding chairs, umbrellas, kayaks and piles of food must navigate the bumpy off-road ride to the shore, their wheels grinding over delicate white shells that stud the dry lakebed.

The body of a murder victim who died decades ago was found in a barrel near the shore early this year, likely tossed far off the coast. In the months that followed, several more remains have been found in the receding waters, including the body of a 2002 drowning victim.

The true scale of water loss can be seen from many vantage points. Towering rock formations that jut out of the water’s surface and wall the lake’s edges are lined with a thick white stripe of sediment left behind by past water levels. Thebathtub ring can be seen from far away.

Several vessels that were once submerged in water are resting between tufts of brush or on the sandy shelves, formed by the dropping shores. Most of them are covered in layers of dirt and underwater growth. A few look untouched, seemingly unscathed by years of soaking underwater.

Another sleek vessel attracting visitors rockets out of the ground at a seemingly gravity-defying angle. In May, the craft was partially submerged, but its engine has become so firmly lodged in the packed silt that it has remained erect even as the lake has disappeared around it.

The ivory ring sits flush with the top of the hulking Hoover Dam, which holds back water from the reservoir. The dam can produce enough hydropower for 1.3 million people each year, but it is far out of the water. Without sufficient supply, they can only operate at just over half their capacity. If the water level drops by 100 feet, they will not be able to produce power.

The millions of people who visit each year are still able to enjoy the extraordinary playground at the Reservoir despite the fact that the water level has decreased. Getting a boat onto the water, however, is becoming more of a challenge.

When Alan O’Neill was superintendent of the park from 1987 to 2000, the park maintained as many as nine ramps for people to pull boats in and out of the lake, he says, remarking that having only one ramp available at the park is “tragic.”

Bigger vessels are not allowed to enter at the sole remaining launch ramp in Hemenway Harbor. On busy days, wait times can last hours as cars clog the road to the water with boats and trailers in tow. There are warning signs on the runway to the ramp about the danger of boating in low waters.

The visitor experience at the lake has been greatly disrupted by the closing of facilities like launch ramps and marinas though O’Neill is quick to point out that the park still offers abundant land-based recreation.

Looking out and seeing how many people from our community were enjoying not just the lake, but the adjacent shoreline made me feel bad.

News of extreme drought’s impacts on the lake may also be deterring visitors who have the impression that the scene has become bleak, says Bruce Nelson, director of operations at the Lake Mead Marina in Hemenway Harbor.

The National Park Service understands the impact of the water on the visitor experience, so it is trying to come up with a plan to accommodate boaters as the dam drops.

The federal government may soon run out of patience if states don’t commit to big enough water cuts. The US Department of Interior may limit water releases from the basin in order to keep it from going over the dead pool levels.

Still, even further cuts will be necessary to preserve Lake Mead and the Colorado River Basin. Fraught negotiations between states, tribes, cities and farmers have been tedious, however, as they decide who will take on the biggest restrictions.

Even though Joyce DiManno no longer rides a boat, she still makes occasional visits to walk the widening shore. She doesn’t think the lake will live up to the scene she remembers, but she hopes it will not reach crisis levels.

In the reservoir’s northern Overton Arm, the heavy frame of a bomber plane has rested on the lake’s floor for 74 years after a critical miscalculation of the plane’s altitude sent the B-29 Superfortress crashing into the surface and sinking to the lakebed.

Once more than 200 feet below the surface, the spot has been an extraordinary excursion for divers. But after water levels at the site fell around 100 feet, the park restricted diving there altogether this year while it determines how to preserve the historic relic in increasingly shallow waters.

Decades of soaking in the lake’s depths have left the plane’s aluminum body quilted with colonies of invasive mussels. Inside the dented cockpit, a parachute caught while the crew members safely evacuated lies stretched between the seats.

The future of the B-29 and the crucial waters that surround it remain unknown. But for now—and with each passing year—Lake Mead’s underwater curiosities creep closer to the surface.