empty the oldman dam is nearly dry

Nope, I was not prepared for this.

I’d read the stories talking about the low water level behind the Oldman Dam and seen a picture or two so I figured I’d head down there and have a look for myself. I already knew it was low; it had been down quite a bit when I was last there back in the summer. But as I crossed the bridge over the Oldman River arm at the reservoir’s west end, my jaw dropped.

The water level wasn’t just low. It was pretty much non-existent.

Because the days are so short now, I’d headed down there a little more quickly than I usually do, rolling south through Longview and past Chain Lakes without making any sidetracks. The sky was filled with grey chinook clouds and the light was dim so I managed to roll on all the way to the head of the Waldron Ranch valley before I finally had to stop.

The view from here down toward the Oldman River valley and beyond to the mountains trailing off toward Montana is always amazing but today, it was even more so. From the pullout along the highway I could see the edge of the chinook arch and the bright patch of apricot light where the morning sun had managed to peek past it and light up the sky.

The snow in front of me had a bluish cast from the thick clouds overhead but it was still fresh and mostly untracked. A huge stack of lenticular clouds hung below the arch about halfway between me and the southern horizon, an indication of the roaring wind coming over the mountains, a wind that, fortunately, hadn’t made it down to the ground yet.

That changed a bit when I turned west at Maycroft and headed up the Oldman River toward the mountains. The full force of the chinook hadn’t hit quite yet but the first gusts were shaking the stands of limber pines and blowing flags of snow off the peaks up toward the Gap.

The river itself didn’t look particularly low here. It was low, of course, but it always is at this time of year. Without the rain and melting snow of spring and summer, the Oldman, like most rivers, had settled into its winter flow.

And the same was true further downstream.

I’d cut over to Skyline Road and then hit the river again where tiny Olin Creek joins its flow. Down here, the Oldman was tumbling clear and fast over the cobbles on its bed while a pair of bald eagles sat in a tall cottonwood along its banks. The base of the tree and those around it still held piles of detritus swept here by the big flood of 2013 while new cottonwoods nurtured by the silt the flood had also brought grew among them on the floodplain.

There was very little snow here in the flat valley though that wasn’t particularly unusual. With the generally dry weather in this part of the world and the desiccating chinook winds, snow doesn’t get much of a chance to accumulate. And any that had been here would likely have been stomped to mud by the sheep.

There was a bunch of them here, every shade of brown, black and cream, and all of them were staring at me. They had been bleating the whole time I’d been taking pictures away from them but now that I was aimed in their direction, they just stood there, staring in absolute silence.

Sheep are strange.

I caught my first view of the reservoir as I came down from the Porcupines toward the Oldman valley. I could see water off to the southeast though there was none directly in front of me but, as I knew the reservoir was low, I didn’t pay it much heed. Turning west along the lake’s northern flank, I continued on toward the Oldman River arm of the lake.

Nope, I was not prepared for this.

The Oldman River was still there but it was running through a canyon of silt. The water that had once filled the valley had all drained away and left behind more than thirty years of accumulated sand and soil and who knows what else. The river, it’s flow now unimpeded by the missing volume of reservoir water, had cut its way through all that stuff and was back to running on its original bed a good three or four metres below the silt level.

Looking upstream I could see sunlight hitting the Livingstones and the edge of the chinook arch. There were patches of snow where wind had piled it up or valley slopes kept it shadowed from the sun. Grass cover reached down to the high-water marks where it ended at the bare ground, marking where waves had once lapped against the valley walls.

All else was silt.

Across the bridge, it was the same story. Looking south toward the main body of the reservoir, the only water visible was the slim, twisting flow of the Oldman snaking it’s way through the silt. Here where the valley widened out, it wasn’t quite as far below the silt level but the level itself was now a couple of hundred metres across.

So many thoughts went through my mind as I looked at it. How did all this muck accumulate in just the thirty years since the dam was built? How did the river manage to remember where its old channel was once the water disappeared? What will happen when spring runoff - assuming there is any - hits all this? Will it all sluice downstream and clog the river below the dam?

The only question that wasn’t a mystery was what happened to the water. Like a bathtub, the water level in the reservoir was able to stay fairly stable as long as the taps were running more or less as fast as the water was being drained. But once they slowed - the Oldman, the Crowsnest and the Castle Rivers - due to low snowpack, scant rain or changing weather patterns, the level in the tub got lower and lower until all that remained was the ring around the rim and the dirt on the bottom.

It was both devastating and fascinating seeing this mess but as I looked at it, I wondered how the rest of the reservoir would look. So I headed downstream.

From the north side, I could see that there was very little water at all. And almost no ice. Looking across the silty desert toward the mouth of the Castle River I could see a bunch of geese flying in to land on the open water and join another couple of hundred of them along the new shoreline. A pair of eagles flew by.

At the east end, buffalo grazed in a pasture just beyond the reservoir’s old shoreline while mule deer lazed in the brown grass close by. Heading down into the valley below the dam, I stopped to aim my camera down at geese grazing on grass still green on the valley floor.

The river itself was flowing at its usual winter rate. The only real difference was that it had a greenish tint to it, no doubt the result of all that liberated silt in the reservoir above. The ponds over in the campground on the flats below the dam reflected the cottonwoods along the shore and the big wind turbines that were spinning in the chinook breeze on the ridge above.

Down here, all was pretty much normal. Warm and windy and mostly snow-free but nothing unusual.

I turned around here and headed back west along the north side of the dam, crossed the silt-filled valley of the Oldman and turned south to take the bridge across the Crowsnest River arm of the reservoir.

And was dumbstruck again.

Not just by the silt-filled valley with the skinny Crowsnest River running through it but by the view to the southeast down the former lake. It was a desert, a wide expanse of silt and exposed sandstone outcrops. I could see vacation homes and an RV community, built and situated there, no doubt, for the lake views and recreation possibilities.

How far did this silt-scape go, I wondered, so I made for a road that runs along the Crowsnest River upstream from the dam. Turns out, fortunately, not all that far.

Dropping into the Crowsnest valley where Tod Creek joins the river, I was glad to see that everything looked good. The sun had made it past the edge of the chinook arch and was shining brightly on the willows and grass along the river’s course and clear, sparkling water was flowing. Upstream a bit, the view from the valley rim was every bit as lovely as before, the cottonwoods in the valley catching the sun, the snowy mountains beyond, blue in the shadows of the chinook clouds.