Qualla: The Lake That Swallowed a Valley

The Lake That Swallowed a Valley: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alex Wild, CC0. There is a hole in Lake Berryessa that swallows water whole. Near the southeast shore, a concrete funnel 72 feet across opens its mouth to the sky, and when the reservoir fills past capacity, water pours over the lip and drops 200 feet straight down before narrowing into a 28-foot pipe and vanishing underground. They call it the Glory Hole, and in 1997, a woman swimming nearby was pulled into its current and killed. But the Glory Hole is only the most visible of the lake's appetites. Beneath these 20,000 acres of water lies an entire valley -- farmland, orchards, roads, and the town of Monticello, all deliberately drowned in the 1950s to create Napa County's largest reservoir.

Image: Alex Wild | CC0

The Lake That Swallowed a Valley: Death of a Valley

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The land that became Lake Berryessa was Pomo territory long before it carried a Spanish name. The Berryessa family received Rancho Las Putas from the Mexican government in 1843, and for a century afterward the valley was an agricultural region whose soil was considered among the ...

Image: Public domain

The Lake That Swallowed a Valley: The Reservoir That Skeptics Doubted

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit en:User:Paul.h, Public domain. Some predicted the dam would fail and the valley would never fill. They were wrong. By 1963, the reservoir had reached capacity, creating what was then the second-largest in California after Shasta Lake. The Solano Project, as the system of dams and distribution infrastructure is...

Image: en:User:Paul.h | Public domain

The Lake That Swallowed a Valley: The Zodiac at Lake Berryessa

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Postema, CC BY 4.0. On the evening of September 27, 1969, Pacific Union College students Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were picnicking on a small island connected by a sand spit to Twin Oak Ridge when a man approached them. He wore a black executioner-style hood with clip-on sunglasses over the...

Image: James Postema | CC BY 4.0

The Lake That Swallowed a Valley: A Contested Shore

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Her93, CC BY-SA 4.0. For decades, seven lakeside resorts operated under 50-year concession contracts with the Bureau of Reclamation, and some 1,300 long-term trailers lined the shores. When those contracts expired in 2009, federal rules against exclusive occupancy of public recreation land forced the...

Image: Her93 | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Lake That Swallowed a Valley: Wild Edges

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Her93, CC BY-SA 4.0. The lake's eastern shore holds a 2,000-acre Wildlife Management Area where mountain lions, black-tailed deer, golden eagles, and osprey share habitat with western rattlesnakes and wild turkeys. Adjoining the reservoir is the Cedar Roughs Wilderness, 6,350 acres of terrain so thic...

Image: Her93 | CC BY-SA 4.0