Among the cameras on my webcam page is one at Horsetooth Reservoir. The reservoir is nestled at the base of the mountains west of Fort Collins and hosts one of the few live streaming cams I’ve found along Colorado’s northern Front Range.
In winter the reservoir’s docks are pulled out of the water. You may only see the waves moving or an occasional bird. Of course, any time of year there’s something for skywatchers.
A few weeks ago I noticed the docks had been deployed again, so I’ve started checking in a little more often. Today there’s a new dock, much closer to the camera, in the same area where I once watched people walking along the shore.
With the weather warming, people and their boats will be returning. And this webcam will get more interesting.
In this screenshot, the new dock is in the foreground. Just above it are several people with a small blue inflatable boat. Farther from the shore, if you zoom in, you can see their dog retrieving something. (I only noticed the dog when I was watching the live camera.) Despite a lot of new foliage, the older docks are visible a little more than half way up on the left. Sometimes you can see people launching or landing their boats there. A road is visible along the opposite shore, where you’ll likely see headlights at night.
I’ve always assumed this camera is near the south end of the reservoir, looking north. Probably because of the light. If so, there is a lot more to the reservoir than seen from this vantage point. A map confirms it.
I’m still wondering about something I noticed last winter when the reservoir was frozen over. Vehicle tracks of some kind (snowmobile?) began where the new dock is and ran diagonally across to the opposite shore, where some kind of mass or wreck was visible. It looks like something might still there, but I can’t tell what it is. Maybe it’s just rocks.
Oops. A correction already. Of course that’s not “new foliage” along the shore. It’s high water. The reservoir is so full it’s up over the base of some of those trees, covering the bare shoreline I saw last summer. Can’t have too much water in our reservoirs.
So sittin’ on the dock of the bay has much more meaning than ever I knew ! 🙂
I always thought it was some kind of shore-based wooden structure – like a boardwalk, I suppose.
Shows how much Australia has been influenced by the USA – much more so when I was young.
And also maybe more than I ever knew. I went looking for what a dock might be called in Australia. The first page I hit upon was titled “Difference Between a Jetty, Wharf, Pier, Quay and Berth.” (And as it happens, that’s an Aussie website.) Didn’t even mention dock! I guess my ignorance stems from being raised on the Great Plains, nowhere near an ocean or large body of water. If it’s made of wood and sits in the water, and people can stand or walk on it, and boats can tie up to it, I call it a dock. Sometimes it’s anchored a little way out from the shore and you have to swim out to it. Then it’s a floating dock. I dunno. What would you call that structure in the foreground?
Docks that float? Must be since Susan notes that they’re taken in during winters. That’s new to me.
It may all have begun when I was a kid vacationing at my uncle’s farm near Glasgow, Missouri. There was a small lake where we could swim and fish. The dock was mounted on pilings or posts and extended out from the shore. Some yards out from that was an anchored floating platform that we could swim out to. We swam, fished, or boated from the fixed dock.
Jim, I know you were a Navy officer. No doubt the Navy has very specific names for each type of structure — be it wharf, pier, or whatever. What would you call that structure in the screenshot’s foreground? Looks like there are cables on both sides, anchored on the shore and attached to the structure about a third of the way out.
It could be these “docks” are pulled out of the water in winter because the reservoir freezes and that would damage permanent structures? Or maybe it’s to discourage wannabe boaters in winter?
In truth, I dunno, Colorado ! – we have nothing like it.
Were it on legs it’d be a jetty, of course. But its body all floating makes it something I’ve never seen. I imagine it can’t be permanent because it would be gradually destroyed, bottom-up, as are the legs of said jetty …?
At the moment there is rain on the camera lens but it looks like there’s a boat tied up there (at the new structure). Bad weather in the area. The occupants may have just pulled in at the nearest place to get off the water.
it’s definitely sure to get more interesting.
I hope so. In the past there’s been a fair amount of action at those far docks, watching people trying to maneuver and get their boats in and out of the water.
it must be quite a show –
Aha! More research has revealed that those structures in the distance are boat ramps. On some level I knew that because I talked about seeing boats being launched and taken out of the water there. And I must not have looked closely enough to see that they are there all winter because such structures necessarily include concrete ramps into the water. “Ramps may be closed for poor weather conditions, water level, or staffing constraints,” noted the article.