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| photo by Danielle Austen |
2,891 miles
Nov 18 – Sand Bar State
Park is a natural, triangular sandbar between South Hero Island and the town of
Milton on the mainland. Over tens of
thousands of years, the Lamoille River washed sediment downstream into Lake
Champlain. The river-borne material sank
to the bottom as the river emptied into the lake, eventually filling the lake
to create marshland and the sandbar. Natural lake depths here, without the sandbar,
would be over 150 feet, but with the sediment, water depth is now only a couple
of feet. When spring runoff raises the water
level in the lake, much of the park can be underwater.
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| no bird pics from this bird-watching reserve |
Additional marshland
south and east of the park is part of the Sand Bar Wildlife Refuge, established
in 1920. Its 1,000 acres are home to
beaver, muskrats, raccoons, and turtles.
Migratory waterfowl use it as a seasonal stopover and a nesting area. Many of Lake Champlain's fish use it as
their spawning grounds. Hunting,
fishing, and trapping are – of course – not allowed on refuge land. Bird-watchers are welcome, but they don’t seem
to carry cameras. Or maybe they just don’t
post their pics.
Because of
the shallow water here, the route along the sandbar served as a ford from the
mainland to the Hero Islands long before construction of the first bridge in
1850. Crossing that first toll bridge,
built of rock, gravel, and logs laid corduroy-fashion through the marsh and
along the bar, must have been an adventure! It was often flooded and always needed major
repairs after damage caused by shifting ice each spring.
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| icewaves, by Randy Abair |
Today's wider, higher causeway was completed
in 1959, but crossing it can still be scary when snow blowing across the frozen
lake blocks visibility, or spray and water from crashing waves washes across
the highway during storms when the lake is high.
The road
across the causeway was part of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway, a
transcontinental “auto trail” route through the United States and Canada that
ran from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. It was designated a memorial to
Theodore Roosevelt after his death in in 199, and the name was used during the
1920s and 1930s, until numbered routes prevailed. Its length was about 4,060 miles (6,530 km).
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| CCC-built stone bathhouse, 1935 |
The park is
on the eastern end of the sandbar. Sand Bar
State Park was established in 1933, and its roads and buildings were built by
workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps.[1] At first it was primarily swampy marshland,
which crews of the CCC cleared, filled, and graded. CCC workers built a stone bathhouse and a
stone grill which still stand in the park. The upper level of the bathhouse was
originally used as living quarters for caretakers and lifeguards, but is now
used for storage, while the rest of the structure, only modified to provide
electricity and plumbing, continues in its original use.
The original 10-acre park included a small campground on the
south side of the highway. As U.S. 2
became a busier and faster road, camping that close to it, and crossing back
and forth, was neither desirable nor particularly safe. In 1970, a land swap gave the former
campground, now a fishing access area, to the Fish and Wildlife
Department. The useable length of the
beach was doubled and the picnic area, newer bathhouse, and long parking lot
were built as the park expanded east onto land acquired from the refuge.
The park's
2,000-foot stretch of sand is considered one of the best beaches on Lake
Champlain, and one where the water tends to stay a bit warmer than other parts
of the lake in midsummer. Its smooth,
sandy lake bottom remains shallow well out from shore, making this a perfect
swimming spot for young children.
The park
offers picnic tables with cooking grills, a food concession stand, volleyball
courts, horseshoes, canoe and kayak rentals, and a swing set with a gorgeous
view of the lake. Sand Bar is also high
on the list for windsurfers and kite surfers, who can be seen whipping around
the lake when the wind is up. All of
these attractions combine to make Sand Bar the most visited day park in the
state.
The park is
open from Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day Weekend, from 10:00 a.m. to “official
sunset”. I guess I can only be here
virtually in November.
images: Google Images
[1] The
CCC was a nationwide public works program created during the Great Depression
of the 1930s to provide jobs and training for thousands of unemployed men.
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