Beaver Creek Recreation Area–last weekend

This weekend is our last one here at Beaver Creek Recreation Area. We will be moving on next weekend to a new job. We’ve had rain off and on again this week and, luckily, no severe storms or hail.

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.

                          

We had five campers this weekend who came in on Thursday instead of their scheduled day of Friday. Friday we let the ranger know they were a day early and he checked to see if they have paid for the extra night. They didn’t, so he went to collect. How many people did this all summer when there were no camp hosts? Don’t people care?  I guess that goes along with garbage in fire pits and dog poop left and leaving fires burning. 
                                    

Some history of the area - the earliest residents in the region were members of the Arikara Tribe. Later the Sioux, Mandan and Hidatsa Tribes also lived along the river. In September 1804 the famous explorers Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark explored the area on their way up the Missouri River.


The Beaver Creek Recreation Area is part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Oahe Dam and Lake. The Oahe Dam was built between 1948 and 1961 along the Missouri River, just north of Pierre, SD. It is one of the world’s largest earth-rolled dams, at a cost of $340 million. The fourth largest artificial reservoir in the US, which stretches 231 miles up the course of the Missouri to Bismarck, ND.  Lake Oahe has a maximum depth of 205 feet and shoreline length of 2250 feet.