{"id":38912,"date":"2022-08-11T18:12:45","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T00:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/where-does-the-water-in-glenwood-canyons-iconic-hanging-lake-come-from\/"},"modified":"2022-08-12T00:12:45","modified_gmt":"2022-08-12T00:12:45","slug":"where-does-the-water-in-glenwood-canyons-iconic-hanging-lake-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/where-does-the-water-in-glenwood-canyons-iconic-hanging-lake-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Where does the water in Glenwood Canyon\u2019s iconic Hanging Lake come from?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ozark
Ozark Underground Laboratory\u2019s Trevor Osorno, a senior hydrogeologist, at left, and Dave Woods, a senior project scientist, at work along the Hanging Lake trail on Tuesday near Glenwood Springs. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

GLENWOOD CANYON \u2013 Standing on the boardwalk at the edge of Hanging Lake, seeing it all for the first time, Trevor Osorno noticed two things in particular: How striking the turquoise lake appeared and how much water was cascading off the roots and rocks above the lake down into the mineral-rich pool.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty damn cool,\u201d said Osorno, a senior hydrogeologist at Ozark Underground Laboratories. \u201cMore flow than we saw up canyon, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osorno and his Ozark colleague, Dave Woods, spent the previous several days camping out at a U.S. Forest Service cabin on the Flat Tops above Glenwood Canyon. The pair were hired by the Forest Service to conduct research aimed at determining the source of the water flowing into Hanging Lake, one of Colorado\u2019s most prized outdoor spots.<\/p>\n

After the Grizzly Creek Fire ripped through the canyon two years ago, burning more than 30,000 acres, yet somehow sparing Hanging Lake, the Forest Service realized it did not have a good grasp of the origin of the water that flows into the lake, a National Natural Landmark.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fire highlighted that we don\u2019t really know or have a good understanding of the hydrology, where the water comes from that feeds Hanging Lake,\u201d David Boyd, a spokesman for the Forest Service, said.<\/p>\n

Enter Woods and Osorno from Ozark, a Missouri-based company that specializes in tracing source water. The Ozark mappers conduct their work by dropping dye into different drainages above the lake and sampling the water below to track where it\u2019s coming from.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to delineate the recharge area of Hanging Lake, and that involves figuring out where the water is coming from,\u201d Woods said. \u201cNobody knows right now \u2013 and we\u2019re starting to get an idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Neil
Neil Hooker, a survey assistant for the U.S. Forest Service, collects samples of water at Hanging Lake on Tuesday. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Forest Service\u2019s Boyd said this research, which is being funded by the National Forest Foundation, would help the agency make strategic decisions about anything that might affect the lake in the future \u2013 trail rerouting, logging projects or anything else related to forest health \u2013 as well as help with understanding where any potential impacts might be from a future forest fire.<\/p>\n

Last September, in their first field visit, Ozark researchers, including Woods, placed dye into three headwaters above the lake \u2013 the east and west forks of Deadhorse Creek and French Creek. The first dye detections showed up in May.<\/p>\n

Although the east fork of Deadhorse Creek drains directly into Hanging Lake, the researchers did not find that dye in their samples from the lake; that dye did, however, end up in French Creek, suggesting a groundwater connection.<\/p>\n

Dye from the west fork of Deadhorse did show up in the lake, even though there is no surface water connection between the two, also suggesting an underground connection. The west fork dye was placed 5.5 miles away and 2,500 feet above Hanging Lake.<\/p>\n

The researchers did not find traces of the dye they placed in French Creek, meaning it could have traveled to another basin the researchers are not monitoring.<\/p>\n

\"Ozark
Ozark Underground Laboratory\u2019s Trevor Osorno, a senior hydrogeologist, at left, and Dave Woods, a senior project scientist, research to find the source of the water in Hanging Lake on Tuesday. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

This month, Woods returned for a second round of field work. He brought along Osorno, who was seeing the canyon and the lake for the first time. The Ozark team\u2019s goal for this trip was to continue narrowing down the lake\u2019s recharge area, focusing on the western and northern boundaries.<\/p>\n

This time, the team placed dye into flowing water in four new spots on the plateau above the lake, three in major surface drainages and one in a cave. Last year, there was very little running water during their trip in September, and so the team had to wait for the snowmelt to get their detections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we did find flowing water up there,\u201d Woods said. \u201cNot a lot, but we found some, so we were able to get dye in the flowing water, which was good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Forest Service is assisting Ozark by collecting water samples from Hanging Lake as well as from the water flowing below the lake. The researchers collect dye samples by using a pouch containing an activated carbon substance made from charred coconut that can detect dye flowing by, even in extremely small amounts. Wood said the dye is commonly used for this purpose globally, not toxic and not harmful to wildlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time, when we get our detections, the average person wouldn\u2019t even know there\u2019s dye in the water,\u201d Woods said. \u201cIn fact, we wouldn\u2019t even know there\u2019s dye in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo or three magnitudes lower than a visual detection limit is what we can see,\u201d Osorno said of the Ozark sampling method.<\/p>\n

\"Lorraine
Lorraine Negr\u00f3n, a resource assistant for the U.S. Forest Service, takes a quick break from work along Hanging Lake Trail on Tuesday. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Depending on how quickly the dye shows up in samples collected by the Forest Service, this round of Ozark field work might also give the researchers a sense of how long it takes any source water to move into the lake. Woods said they could have new data in the next week or two.<\/p>\n

Woods said that although Ozark has conducted numerous water-tracing projects, this one is notable because of the setting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a pretty spectacular opportunity,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do work all over, but this is a great one because of where it is and the lake.\u201d<\/p>\n

That beauty, however, also makes for hard work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had to hike around a lot into some pretty crazy places to get dye into the ground,\u201d Woods said. \u201cIt\u2019s been difficult, but it\u2019s been really rewarding, and I think we\u2019re getting some good results.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Forest Service and a Missouri water-tracing company are trying to find the water source of the popular hiking destination <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,28,29,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38912"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}