On Thursday, June 20, we enjoyed a wonderful day touring the Elephant Butte Dam and Lake area… with a side trip below the Dam along the Rio Grand River. Our ‘guides’ were friends from back at the Benson, AZ, Escapee Park, Bruce & Sue Burt. We met them there and became fast friends when we discovered that we were all from Michigan… and retired.
The Burts have spent a lot of time around the Elephant Butte area, and are inclined to travel a little ‘off road’ with their Suzuki Samurai. We spent the day traveling below the Dam, on top of the Dam, and around the lake that the Dam creates. The lake is considerably down now, a result of a long term regional drought (5 years) and also a planned drawdown to let water flow downstream for irrigating the vast agriculture operations that line the river valley from Albuquerque to Las Cruces.
So… just where is Elephant Butte Lake and vicinity? Here’s an Interactive Map… Click on it to zoom or change:
Feel free to focus in (+) or out(-) to see more.
Alice, with our good friends from Michigan… Bruce & Sue Burt…. Overlooking Elephant Butte Dam.
The Rio Grand River below the Dam. When the Dam is not releasing water, the river level drops… and this river access becomes a river crossing.
This is a view of Elephant Butte Reservoir, from the Dam overlook. Note the water level lines… depicting a greatly reduced lake level.
The Dam, with water being released down below. The Dam was finished in 1916, is 300 feet high,and 1,671 feet long.
Alice and Sue… probably talking about their husbands.
Our 2008 Honda CR-V. Great little car, 27 mpg, and easy to tow behind a Motorhome.
Upstream from the Dam, in the upper reaches of the lake… The water is being released at a rapid rate, and this land was underwater a couple of weeks earlier.
There is abundant wildlife at the lake… as these geese show.
Walking back from the shore, this picture shows the smoke from from the Silver City Forest Fire, still burning and only 5% contained.
For more information about this wonderful lake and region, be sure and click on the hyperlinks above.
Jim & Alice… with Bruce & Sue.