Boise, ID

Sunday Lucky Peak Dam had a spectacular gushing of water show from twelve to two. We looked it up on Google maps for directions and quickly started to drive since it took a half hour and we had only one more hour till the water gushing commenced. Almost there, we were caught in a long line of cars going across a tall scary bridge and people going to Lucky Peak. We sat in the line for nearly ten minutes while I contemplated just how frightening the bridge truly was; my conclusion was not as scary as I had first imagined, but not one I’d ever want to cross; under any circumstance. It reminded me of the movies that have the Golden Gate bridge collapse; and who knows that could come true someday; so I wasn’t going to take any chances.

When we drove passed the long line I couldn’t help telling Andrew to slow down because he was going an uncomfortable speed around the corners; but he pointed out that it was the highway and he was supposed to be going that fast. I calmed down some till I saw how high the river was, it was almost high enough to flow onto the where the bikers below us resided. There wasn’t a lot of parking so we had to park a long way off, to the point if we went any further we would have completely gone off another direction.

There were a lot of people to see the spectacle; and I don’t blame them it was really cool to at. The water was flowing more like powerfully gushing out; and it felt great to get up close to it because we could feel the water from where we were standing and were continually getting sprayed in the face. It made the temperature livable to be in again.

There was a sign that said no boats, wading, swimming, and that it had turbulent water and water discharge like it had now. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would want to jump in. On the left part of the dam there was a huge area of rock and different colors that read ‘keep our forests clean’. It had to be the biggest statement I had ever seen in a usually unpopulated area.

The rocks were being continually crashed upon by the water in a violent way that made the sign’s statement true. On the opposite side of the dam there was a huge bluff that I think would have been impossible to climb to the top because of all the unstable rocks. A person I suppose could climb to where the grass and rocks met instead.

Since we had arrived just in the nick of time the show was soon over and in a matter of about a couple minutes the gushing water decreased until it was just a pool of water flowing down in comparison to what it had looked like before it had stopped.

But the show wasn’t completely over because a few hundred feet away the water went to a different place and though it was spewing out water it wasn’t quite as impressive as the other side. It had two circular holes the water could come out of, but unfortunately it wasn’t close enough that it sprayed us in the face.

Feeling hot again we went over to a small beach to cool off our feet. Andrew didn’t have any trouble, but since I was wearing pants and couldn’t really bend over I had to go over to a bench and roll up my pants to my knees. After Andrew helped me in a gentlemanly manner to take off my socks we quickly proceeded to dip our feet in the water. We soon realized that though the water looked very inviting after about a few seconds we, or I couldn’t feel my toes so going in any more than our feet would have been torture. We got out but went to another beach to see if the water was any different, it was but only if we let the water go over our feet instead of dipping our feet entirely in the water. Andrew stated that the lake is usually this cold because the dam is really deep and it takes it from the dam that the water initially came from the snow in the mountains. After that was explained we put our shoes back on and headed for the park.