Death by Ice Chunks

I came across this picture and really liked it.  It is a picture of Utah Lake with West Mountain (the mountain on the west side of Payson) in the distance from 1927.

Photo courtesy of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University

I don't know if anyone has ever been out to Utah Lake in the winter.  There is a really cool beach located on West Geneva Rd south of the Lindon Boat Harbor (if you go looking for it, the road is different than Geneva Rd.  It runs right along the edge of Lake Utah).  I don't know why it happens, but there are huge ice chunks all over the place, gathering in huge mounds.  You can go walk out on it, and even have dinner out there if you'd like, like some have suggested to me.

The same thing happens down by the Provo Airport at the mouth of Provo Bay.  There is a little dirt road that you can access from Provo Center Street just before you cross the Provo River.  If you follow it, it will take you along side the airport, and eventually out to a nice little point jutting out into Utah Lake.  That is where the following picture is taken from.

This winter, the ammount of ice has been exceptionally bad.  The chunks are now piled about 15 feed high onto the road that dikes the airport  resulting in the road's closure.  The following comes from the Mayor's blog about the current situation:   

"After closing the road, we heard from a man who had narrowly escaped disaster earlier in the day. He was ice fishing, and after catching several fish, noticed that the water in the hole was moving very fast. Actually, the ice he was on was moving fast. He knew something wasn't right, so he started to leave. When he got to the dike, the ice had already started to pile up, and pushed a chunk the size of a dog house into his truck causing $5,000 worth of damage. A 20-foot pile of ice now sits where his truck had been parked. Some pieces of ice are16-20 inches thick and as big as the seat of an office chair."

There is some really interesting things happening out by the Provo Airport which you can read about in this Daily Herald article.  Provo has spent millions of dollars on a new radar system for the airport.  They have also invested a lot of money into additional needs, such as fencing around the entire airport, snow plows, and a huge lawn mower to cut the weeds down that grow around the runways.  The goal is to get commercial flights to come to Provo.  Right now, the airport is mainly used for the Utah Valley University flight school and private flights.  However, the mayor has recently been trying to get a commercial airline to do flights directly into Provo.  Who knows what will happen, but may be one day if you are trying to fly to Southern California, you will be able to fly directly into Provo rather than going up to Salt Lake.