Utah Lake Adventures 2011

When we moved to Utah County in 1992, people used to swim and boat in the summer and ice skate in the winter in/on the lake.  We didn't have the equipment, time, money, or vehicle to get us there, so we didn't take advantage of it.  I didn't even know how to get to the lake. We did live next to Geneva Steel, which is located on Utah Lake.  While Geneva was much, much larger than this and there is no longer a field as this shows, but streets and pick-n-pull yards instead, this is about as much lake as I had ever seen. 

Within the next few years 7-Peaks made an indoor and an outdoor ice rink, and the Utah Lake ice rink shut down.  At about that same time "authorities" told us not to swim in the lake, because it had been contaminated over the years by the steel company on its shores.  I only had a glimpse of Utah Lake when I traveled west on 800 South in Orem, and only for a few short blocks.

Last May I was carpooling to a meeting in a town very south of where I live.  On the way home we took the route around the lake.  I was falling asleep so asked the driver to wake me up so I could see the lake, because I hadn't seen it this close before.  In 18 years!  It was awesome to see it so close.  This is a picture taken from the west side of the lake, and our view now as we drive home from anywhere.

Only a few months later, August 16 I think, Chiara (Ryan's girlfriend) had her birthday party wave running at Pelican Bay on Utah Lake and invited our family.

I was awed to actually be touching the lake and that we could actually get into it.  Apparently it's been safe for ten years or so, but since I never go there, it didn't affect me. 

Four days after Chiara's birthday, Amy Loveless, a friend of mine who knew we were looking for a place to move to, told us about a rental that just opened two doors down from her.  I had never been to her house before.  Turns out it was in the Pelican Bay neighborhood!  A month later, we moved to that very house.  Now I live 2 blocks from the lake!  Our house is actually light tan, not pink as it shows here.  Our house faces the lake, and across the lake to Orem. We are on a hill from the lake, so we have the best views of the lake and sunrises, especially from the second floor windows! This was moving-in week.


I love, love, love seeing the lake on the way home from anywhere, including at nighttime.

The Wilcox family live right next to Pelican Bay.  As a hobby they collect ice skates and skating equipment, like hockey sticks and pucks and walkers for new skaters to hold while learning to ice skate.  They have taken it upon themselves to shovel the snow off the smoothest part of the ice in the boat launching area for a rink and with hope that ice fishers will drill their fishing holes where skaters aren't as likely to step into their holes.  They own about 30 pairs of ice skates that they let their friends and neighbors use.

Yes, the lake ices over plenty thick to ice skate on.  The ice on the lake was ten inches thick.  I know this from measuring down an unfrozen ice fishing hole.  It's safe for a person to ice skate on 3-4 inches of ice.  It's safe to drive a fully loaded bus, or at least a regular vehicle, on 10 inches of ice.  So, no worries there!  (Not that I would try that myself!)

On December 24, we went ice skating as a family and including Christopher, Deliese, and Chiara.  I always prefer skating outside as compared to inside, but on the lake as compared to a man-made rink -- wow!  Much nicer BECAUSE it's not perfectly flat and slick.  Oh, it's flat, but something about the not as flat allows the frozen lake water to support the skating blade angles, like banking them as we skated, even if visually I couldn't see any swells.  And, the lake wasn't crowded - always a plus for me!  Just our little -- okay not quite so little - family.

 I enjoy practicing skating backwards. Jacob wears his shoes on the ice and hits his own puck around with his own hockey stick.  Jordan enjoys skating with the walker most of the time, even though he does fine without it as well.  The rest of the gang enjoys playing a friendly game of ice hockey keep-away and laugh if they fall.

Generally, the deeper the water, the thicker the ice.  In our lake, however, we have some hot springs here and there, and they flow in the lake as a creek within the lake.  We have none in our little bay, but the warm "creek" flows past our bay close enough that we don't skate out of the bay, because the ice there is thin, if there's ice covering at all.

After a drop in temperature that makes several inches of ice, we'll have a week or so of warmer weather (50 degrees), causing the surface of the ice to get a bit slushy, and the water over the "creek" areas of the lake will no longer be icy.  When a cold front is on its way, we get high winds.  These high winds end up pushing the ice over the lake, pushing the ice toward and past the parts of the lake that don't have ice, like our warm "creek".  This provides a natural "do not cross" border between our bay and the lake.

Earlier this week we had one of those high wind storms, after a warm 54 degrees week which thinned the ice to 6-8 inches thick.  Here's a picture of my friend, LuAnn Markam, to show how big some of these ice blocks were this time around. 

I have loved living in Utah and Utah County.  However, having grown up in California close to a large pond and in an area where you can't go anywhere without crossing at least a couple of rivers and lakes, and of course there's the backyard large swimming pools and the ocean only a few hours away, I have really missed seeing water.  I am so happy to live so close to the bay for now!