The largest U.S. reservoir has shrunken to a record low amid a drought and the demands of 40 million people in seven states who are sucking the Colorado River dry.
Wildfire season has become longer and blazes more intense, scorching temperatures have broken records and lakes are shriveling.
Receding waters of Lake Mead National Recreation Area have revealed the skeletal remains of two people along with countless desiccated fish and what has become a graveyard of forgotten and stranded watercraft.
Houseboats, sailboats and motorboats have been beached, creating a surreal scene in an otherwise rugged desert landscape.
A buoy that once marked a no-boat-zone sits in the dirt, not a drop of water anywhere in view.
Even a sunken World War II-era craft that once surveyed the lake has emerged from the ebbing waters.
Nature did not create this still water paradise for fishing, camping and kayaking.
The mighty Colorado River that divides Nevada from Arizona once flowed beneath the walls of Black Canyon until the Hoover Dam was erected in 1935 for irrigation, flood control and hydropower.
The reservoir is now below 30 percent of capacity.
Its level has dropped 170 feet (52 meters) since reaching a high-water mark in 1983, leaving a bright white line of mineral deposits on the brown canyon walls that looms over passing motor boats as high as a 15-story building.
Most of the boat ramps have been gated and marina docks moved into deeper waters.
A sign that marks the water level in 2002 inconceivably stands above a road that descends to boat slips in the distance.
The dropping water levels have consequences not only for the cities that depend on the future source of water but for boaters who have to navigate shallow waters and avoid islands and sandbars that lurk below the surface before emerging.
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