“Recreation has always been a part of the picture there,” BLM recreation branch chief Russ von Koch said.
However, that recreation wasn’t always actively managed. “Initially, under the right-of-way, the recreation along the shore was not BLM’s responsibility,” von Koch said. “When we built the facilities at Ken’s Lake, that’s when that changed.”
With the campground and trails, and the gravel beach with pit toilets, parking and a dumpster, the area attracts both visitors and residents, but the focus is on local recreation.
“We’ve never signed it, or anything like that,” von Koch said. “We recognize that it is a place with a lot of strong local use, a place where people like to go and get away, so BLM’s never really put it on brochures or signed access to it in any way, that there’s a campground or beach out there.”
Skating, fishing, swimming, sunbathing and boating (electric motors only) all draw visitors. That diverse use has led to a spreading array of access points, so BLM crews went out this winter to provide better access points and parking.
“When you were coming in from the south on the pavement, into the day-use area, the pavement ended and there was sort of a mish-mash of routes where people had been driving to get over to the fishing area or the lake,” von Koch said. “Several of them were low spots, and they were wet and rutted out.”
The BLM has graded a route to the boat launch area, and created a parking area large enough for 15 vehicles and trailers. They’ve also expanded the parking area at the gravel beach, and they’ve bolstered the rock border that prevents motorized access.
Von Koch said the improvements should help limit traffic on the lake bed, which is particularly heavy when the reservoir is low. “The work we did discourages that activity. It gives you a place to back down. We’ve replaced those rocks to keep people out of the beach area, and we’ve expanded parking there,” von Koch said.
While the floor of the reservoir would seem indestructible, it’s actually a clay liner designed to prevent the water from seeping into the porous sandstone beneath. The Grand Water and Sewer Service Agency is responsible for maintaining the integrity of that liner.
The clay is about four feet thick, there’s four to six feet of additional fill on that, and it has sediment from the creek on top of everything. That means a few doughnuts on an ATV probably aren’t going to dig through the liner – but they may still lead to costly analysis and repair.
“Sometimes we don’t know if it’s a natural problem, or it’s man-made. You get sinkholes, and they just kind of collapse, and you have to excavate them out, and you have to put new clay in the liner, and you have to fill it all back in,” GWSSA manager Mark Sovine said. “Is it man-made or is it a sinkhole? We have to err on the side of caution.”
Sovine said the agency isn’t planning any restrictions on accessing the lake, but he hopes education and voluntary compliance can prevent the need for future regulations.
“Be aware it’s there, and try to protect it,” he said. “We have a lot of expense every year repairing that, and I don’t think that’s something everyone’s aware of. So we just want to say help us protect this resource, so that it can remain a valuable resource for the community.”
So far this year, the water level at Ken’s Lake is down a bit, at about 70 percent of its level last year, Sovine said. With snow levels at 94 percent of normal and precipitation down about 25 percent, the lake will be filling slowly.
“Nobody really gets excited until the end of March,” Sovine said of the lake’s potential for this year.