"Big Hole in Lake" - Bathtub Drain Styled Spillway in Action. Local's call it the "Glory Hole". The outside "DRAIN" diameter is 72 Feet wide (about 22 meters), and the FALL is 280 feet. Lake Level in photo is 440.89 feet, 0.89 feet over spillway edge. Highest Lake level recorded is about 446 feet. The dam, seen behind the "hole", is designed to hold a maximum lake level of 455.5 feet, top of the dam is 456 feet. Click photo for Full Size 1600x1200. Taken @ Lake Berryessa, Napa County, California

刘红石 liuhs, on February 15, 2009, said:

Cool!

numenorian, on February 15, 2009, said:

amazing! voted

tipci, on February 16, 2009, said:

cool "water hole" :) W A W

© Mustafa ERKEK, on February 20, 2009, said:

interestings photo

christian.senger, on February 21, 2009, said:

Amazing picture, I first thought about some heavy photoshopping at first glance, but it's actually a original picture. Crazy!

Greetings from Germany,

Christian

+++ My ATOMIC contest contribution +++

CuriousJM, on February 21, 2009, said:

Great Photo.

I have used it in my travelogue http://armchairtravelogue.blogspot.com and have given due credit to you.

Hope it is OK with you.

The travelogue is a non-profit ads free blog which I have created as a pastime and I do not derive any monetary benefit from it.

Auggee, on February 22, 2009, said:

That's fine with me, CJM. You could correct/add some info about the "hole" on your blog. The "outside" diameter is 72 feet. The outlet for the spillway is a little less than 100 meters downstream from the dam. http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/dams/ca10170.htm

The best overhead photo of the dam and the glory hole is at this website: http://www.scwa2.com/

Enlarge the photo of the dam and hole, and on the right side you will see the shoreline on the right go sharply back into the mountain. That is the location of the outlet. On the right side of the dam is a parking lot and overlook, this can be seen on the map on Panoramio, or Google Earth, as you zoom in. The parking lot has 3 peaks and the outlet is directly below the middle peak.

YouTube videos of the spillway in action, not my videos.

video1

video2

video3

Auggee

Auggee, on February 22, 2009, said:

Left out this video on YouTube of the outlet. Not much water, but bikes riding in the 'tube'

video4

Auggee

__filipa__, on February 25, 2009, said:

bem, espectácular...

Eva Kaprinay, on February 25, 2009, said:

FANTASTIC SHOT Cheers Eva

lacika60, on February 26, 2009, said:

Excellent photo. Congratulations!

Greetings from Hungary by Lacika

I can suggest my favourite contest photo

Przemas84, on February 26, 2009, said:

amazing photo! Greetings from Poland

John Su, on March 2, 2009, said:

Welcome to China

Angie Carolina, on March 10, 2009, said:

simply without words....

PAISAJE

:)

Stroganov Alexey, on March 11, 2009, said:

wow! very good!

© Dragan Cekic ™, on March 20, 2009, said:

My favorite!!! Beautiful!!! Greetings, Dragan

Abzsf, on March 20, 2009, said:

Amazing, a great idea and execution, congratulations!

uni*, on March 21, 2009, said:

difficult to imagine such a thing on earth. this "glory hole" looks like a big black hole in the universe. marvelousness picture! best of. greetings..uni February 09

®ock, on March 21, 2009, said:

absolute fine Best Wishes Greetings from Austria/VIenna.

Vyacheslav Leksin, on March 21, 2009, said:

As in a fantastic film-"travel in the parallel worlds". Simply super!