Damon Arthur

Record Searchlight

People visited the Glory Hole at Whiskeytown Lake on Tuesday to capture photos of what is a fairly rare event — water flowing into the giant concrete cavity.

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area Superintendent Jim Milestone said water flows down the Glory Hole only about once every five years.

Water spilled down the 24-foot-diameter hole last year during heavy rains, but before that it had been many years since it was used to prevent water from going over the dam.

Binny Bawa of Redding said she saw a video of water going over the spillway on the Weather Channel, so she packed her sons up in the family van and drove up to Whiskeytown to witness the event.

Bawa had her sons, Arman, 6, and Aviraj, 4, pose for photos with the Glory Hole in the background.

She and her family have lived in Redding the past two years, and she hadn’t seen water topping over the circular spillway, she said.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” she said. “It’s soothing” to watch, she said.

Water does not flow into the spillway until the lake level exceeds 1,211 feet. The Glory Hole is an overflow drain designed to keep the lake level from rising so high that it spills over the top of the nearby dam.

Water going through the Glory Hole is routed under the dam to an outlet on the other side, where it flows into Clear Creek, Milestone said.

The lake level rose Tuesday because the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Whiskeytown Dam, reduced the amount of water flowing out of the lake through the Spring Creek Tunnel and into Keswick Lake.

Because so much water was being released from Shasta Dam into Keswick, the bureau had to reduce the amount of water flowing from Whiskeytown to Keswick, Milestone said.

On Tuesday afternoon, about 42,000 cubic feet per second of water was being released from Keswick Dam into the Sacramento River.

Flows from Shasta and Keswick dams could reach 79,000 cfs later this week, the bureau said.

Most of the people who stopped to photograph the event parked at the John F. Kennedy Memorial near the dam. The memorial was built after Kennedy visited the area and spoke at the dedication of the dam, which is part of the Central Valley Project.

While most people whipped out their cellphones to get photos, Garrett Meyers came equipped with something much more intricate.

He took photos with a 100-year-old Graflex camera, which captures black and white images on 4 inch by 5 inch negative plates.

He said because of the large format of the film and the excellent quality of the lenses, the camera produces exceptional photos.

But Meyers said he also was drawn to the lake to capture photos of the Glory Hole because it has been a curiosity to him for many years.

“I’ve always wanted to see water flowing over it. I’ve always been creeped out about it,” he said.

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