YUBA

We took our boat out for the first time on June 30th.  We have started putting in on the Gunnison side rather than the Scipio side.  After launching, we took a drive around the entire lake.  When we got to the Scipio side near the dam, we could see several fires burning on the left side of the freeway near Scipio. The smoke was blowing up I-15  towards Nephi.  It was exciting as the helicopters with their water buckets were coming to Yuba to get water. We were hoping they would dip in near us but they were taking it from the output of the dam.  We could also see planes flying in to dump retardant. The smoke would all of a sudden turn odd colors and then you could see a plane flying out of the thick of it.

As the day progressed, the smoke from the fire over the ridge got thicker and thicker.  Soon it was covering the sun which made it bright red.  It looked like a sunset and the reflection of the sky turned the lake a bright orange.  The pictures above were taken about 6:00 in the evening.  The smoke looks bad in the picture but it was never so bad that we were uncomfortable or could even smell it.  It just made for an unusual experience as the lake water looked fiery.