Note: This is an Earthcache. There is no physical cache to find. Logging this Earthcache requires that you undertake an educational task relating to the specific Earth Science at the site.
Prior to logging this cache, click on Message this owner, or send an email with answers to the following questions:
- A Google search indicates that Lake Glenville, NC is the highest lake East of the Mississippi River at 3,492 ft elevation. What is the elevation at GZ? Is Mountain Lake higher or lower than Lake Glenville?
- When the lake is full, the shoreline is close to GZ. What is your estimated distance from GZ to the current shoreline? Do you think the lake is in a wet or a dry cycle.
- Required to log this cache: Please provide a photo of yourself or a personal item in the picture to prove you visited the site. Upload the photo with your log.
For Dirty Dancing fans, there is an interesting stone memorial at N 37° 21.370 W 080° 32.153.
Mountain Lake
Mountain Lake is one of only two natural lakes in Virginia. It is also one of the highest lakes East of the Mississippi.
Approximately 6,000 years ago, the rocks at the north end of the lake slid down from the surrounding mountaintop, creating a semi-permeable "dam". With the new layout of the basin, outflow of water took longer, resulting in the creating of a pond or lake as water accumulated faster than it could leave.
Cold underground springs feed the lake and rarely allow the temperature to rise above 70° F on the surface. Due to a unique series of narrow channels and found openings on the lake bottom, the level has a history of rising and falling depending on the direction of water flow through these channels to and from the icy-cold ground water lying deep beneath the surface of the earth. The combination of these natural phenomena make Mountain Lake the only one of its kind in existence. The level of the lake is dependent on the groundwater level. In years of sufficient rain and snow, the lake will fill up. It’s more than 100 feet deep when full. In dry years, the lake’s water level recedes. All year long, the lake's water level fluctuates according to the amount of rainfall in the area.
In 1856, Henley Chapman built a hotel on Mountain Lake. William Lewis Moody, Jr. replaced the wooden hotel with the current native stone structure in 1938. The hotel is currently owned by the Mary Moody Northen Endowment, a non-profit foundation that contributes to scholarships, grants, and funding for environmental research.
Mountain Lake Hotel was the site for much of the on-location filming of the 1987 movie
“Dirty Dancing”. The stone lodge was “Kellerman's Resort”. Hotel is closed in the winter. Check website.
The Mountain Lake Conservancy is a non-profit organization founded to help manage and protect the 2,600 acres of Mountain Lake property around the Mountain Lake Hotel, and to provide environmental and cultural education for the public.
Sources:
Buzz Scanland, Jr., General Manager, Mountain Lake Hotel
Brochure - "The History of Mountain Lake"
Mountain Lake Hotel
Mountain Lake Conservancy
