# Follow the Water > By David Bingham · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/ > Work by David Bingham. > Site index: https://studiobing.com/llms.txt · The whole site in one document: https://studiobing.com/llms-full.txt My family camps over my birthday each summer. This year we returned to Arapaho Bay on Lake Granby, where we had camped 6 years before. The water had fallen far enough to walk out across the lakebed, and there we found Monarch, a mining town that went bust and was flooded when the Bureau of Reclamation built the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. The next day I built a quick app with Claude to explore it, then a presentation following the water from that lake to the people who depend on it. - **Period:** 2026 ## Follow the Water Block `hotdrysummer/opener` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#opener The opener of Follow the Water: a rusted spoked iron wheel lying in the cobbles of the exposed lakebed, with the remaining water and the forested ridge behind it. It states the subject at once, what the falling water uncovered. - Image: A large rusted iron wheel with eight spokes lying flat among rounded cobbles on a dry lakebed, a strip of blue water and a dark forested ridge behind it under a clear sky A hot, dry summer ## Lake Granby ### Route maps Block `hotdrysummer/route-maps` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#route-maps The way there: the drives around the mountains between the Front Range and Lake Granby, then the lakes themselves with a pin at the camp on Arapaho Bay. It sets out the geography the page returns to. - Image: Road map of northern Colorado with driving routes in blue looping around the mountains from Boulder and Denver to a campground on Lake Granby, the northern route 2 hours 51 minutes and the southern 2 hours 47 minutes - Image: Map of Grand Lake, Shadow Mountain Lake and Lake Granby in blue among green forest, with a red pin at the far eastern end of Arapaho Bay ## June 20, 2020 ### June lede Block `hotdrysummer/june-lede` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#june-lede The first camping trip at Lake Granby, 6 years before: the same camping spot, canoeing, fishing, and the beach, with the lake as full as anyone would expect. This story starts at our first camping trip 6 years ago, oddly with the van in the exact same camping spot. We canoed, fished, and splashed at the beach. The lake was exactly as you would expect. ### At the lake Block `hotdrysummer/at-the-lake` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#at-the-lake Four views of Lake Granby full, in June 2020: the camp above the water, a sunset, the bay from a canoe, and a person and a dog at the water's edge. Each carries a locator map. They establish the water level that the August 2026 photographs are measured against. - Image: A forested campground above a lake, a white van with a blue roof box parked on a dirt loop among pines, with a circular locator map at lower right - Image: The sun setting through cloud behind a dark ridge, reflected orange in a full lake edged with pines, with a circular locator map at lower right - Image: The bow of a canoe on rippled blue water, wooded shore and snow-streaked peaks ahead under a long smooth cloud, with a circular locator map at lower right - Image: A person in a sun hat holding a leash on a sandy beach at the edge of a full lake, a black and white dog beside them, with a circular locator map at lower right *June 20, 2020* ## ~1905 ### Company Block `hotdrysummer/company` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#company A view over the town of the Monarch Consolidated Gold and Copper Mining and Smelting Company in 1905, before Lake Granby was dammed, with the locator map marking where it stood on Arapaho Creek. The text says what the town had and how it went bust. - Image: A black and white photograph looking down over dark pines onto scattered snow-covered buildings in a valley, on a dark ground, with a circular locator map at lower right But in 1905, Lake Granby had not yet been dammed and there existed a small town called the Monarch Consolidated Gold and Copper Mining and Smelting Company on the bank of Arapaho Creek. The town had a railroad, cottages, a hotel, stores, a bowling alley, a theater, and a dance hall. The mine produced only $150 in copper per year, the box factory burned down, and the town slowly went bust. ### Town Block `hotdrysummer/town` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#town Three photographs of the town and what it left: people at a national forest sign, the works, and machinery abandoned in the forest. - Image: Three people, one standing and pointing, at a heavy log-framed Arapaho National Forest sign, black and white - Image: A large pale frame building and timber structures on a rocky flat below mountains, black and white - Image: A rusted upright boiler and winch gears standing abandoned among tall trees, black and white ## 1941–1950 ### Project map Block `hotdrysummer/project-map` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#project-map The Bureau of Reclamation's illustrated map of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, beside the account of how the project dammed Lake Granby and put the remains of Monarch underwater. - Image: A printed U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation map headed Colorado-Big Thompson Project, showing Lake Granby, Shadow Mountain, the Alva B. Adams Tunnel, Estes Park and Horsetooth Reservoir either side of the Continental Divide In the early 1940s the US Department of the Interior began the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, whose goal was to manage water resources on the Western Slope of the Rockies. Lake Granby was dammed to create a working reservoir, and the remains of the town of Monarch disappeared underwater. Credit: Map: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation. ### Dam Block `hotdrysummer/dam` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#dam Building Granby Dam: formwork on a steep excavated slope, a worker in a pith helmet at a railing, and the finished dam with water running down its spillway into the Colorado River. - Image: Steel reinforcing and concrete formwork laid into a steep excavated slope, black and white - Image: A worker in a pith helmet leaning over a railing above the works, in hard shadow, black and white - Image: Aerial view of a rock-faced earth dam holding back a blue reservoir, white water running down a long concrete spillway at its side — Granby Dam spillway into the Colorado River. ### Tunnel route Block `hotdrysummer/tunnel-route` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#tunnel-route The tunnel: the road map with a dotted line straight through the mountains the drive goes around, beside 4 photographs of the work, a crew riding out on a narrow rail car, a drill at the face, men shaking hands through the holing-through, and the finished bore. The caption says what it took: two teams, 13 miles under Rocky Mountain National Park, meeting to within an inch. - Image: The same road map of northern Colorado with a dotted orange line running straight between two circled points across the mountains that the driving routes loop around — The project also included one of the most ambitious civil engineering projects of the century. Two teams drilled a 9-foot-high, 13-mile-long tunnel from Grand Lake under Rocky Mountain National Park to deliver water to the eastern side of the Continental Divide. Despite some delays due to World War 2, the teams met on June 10, 1944, to within an inch of each other's bore holes. - Image: A crew in hard hats riding small rail cars out of a rough tunnel portal under a Bureau of Reclamation sign, black and white - Image: Four miners in hard hats standing around a drilling machine at the rock face of a tunnel, sepia - Image: Men in overcoats reaching through a ragged opening in a rock wall to shake hands with hard-hatted miners on the other side, black and white - Image: A long tunnel lined with arched steel ribs, rail tracks running to a vanishing point and a figure far along it, black and white ## From the Colorado River ### Tunnel video Block `hotdrysummer/tunnel-video` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#tunnel-video A clip from the film Rivers of the Rockies, in which Nick stands on the shore of the reservoir and tells the story of the Alva B. Adams Tunnel, the 13 miles under the Continental Divide that the page has just shown being dug. It opens the section on where the water goes. - Image: A man in a green shirt and khaki shorts standing on a grassy shore among yellow flowers, one arm out toward a reservoir and a concrete building beyond it — Rivers of the Rockies Clip - Alva B. Adams Tunnel, Rocky Mountain Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv-ytCJ-EbM 2:54 In this clip from "Rivers of the Rockies", Nick tells us about the Alva B. Adams Tunnel - one of the most remarkable engineering accomplishments of all time. ### Basin Block `hotdrysummer/basin` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#basin The Colorado River basin from source to Mexico, with the Granby system drawn out in a circle: the tunnel, the dams, pumping, and the camp site. Beneath it, what the river supplies: about 40 million people, about 5.5 million acres of irrigated crops, and about 1,600 megawatts. - Image: A map of the Colorado River basin from Wyoming to the Gulf of California, with a circular enlargement of Grand Lake, Shadow Mountain Lake and Lake Granby labeled with the tunnel, the Colorado River, pumping, two dams and the camp site - **Municipal** — ~40m people — Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Tijuana - **Irrigation** — ~5.5m acres — Lettuce, spinach, broccoli, onions, carrots, cauliflower, herbs, kale - **Energy** — ~1,600 MW — 4 dams supplying electricity for ~700,000 people Credit: Basin map: [Shannon1, CC BY-SA 4.0](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colorado_River_basin_map.png). ### Salad Block `hotdrysummer/salad` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#salad The reach of the river in one sentence: the winter salads of the whole country depend on it. The river supplies every American eating a salad between November and March. ### Mainstem Block `hotdrysummer/mainstem` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#mainstem A table of every impoundment on the Colorado's mainstem in downstream order, read on 15–16 August 2026, setting what each holds against what it can hold. Lake Granby is highlighted at 59 percent; Lake Powell and Lake Mead are marked at or near record lows. - Image: A dark table headed The Colorado Mainstem, readings 15–16 August 2026, listing seven lakes from Grand Lake to Lake Havasu with full-pool elevation, volume and depth, Lake Granby highlighted in orange at 59 percent ## August 6, 2026 ### Dry river Block `hotdrysummer/dry-river` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#dry-river The bay six years on: where the canoe floated in 2020, a shallow river now braids across bare lakebed. - Image: A shallow river braiding across a wide bare lakebed of gravel and silt between forested mountains, with a circular locator map at lower right ### Compare Block `hotdrysummer/compare` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#compare The same view of the same valley, side by side: a full lake in June 2020 and a river over bare lakebed in August 2026. - Image: From a canoe, rippled blue water filling a valley to its wooded shores under a long smooth cloud — June 20, 2020 - Image: The same valley with the water gone, a shallow river running through bare gravel below the same mountains — August 6, 2026 ### Lakebed Block `hotdrysummer/lakebed` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#lakebed Walking the exposed lakebed: lines of stone marking out shapes in the silt and a rusted spoked iron wheel in the cobbles, each photograph placed by its locator map at the old townsite. - Image: A wide lakebed of silt, boulders and pale gravel running to the far mountains, water only at the edge of the frame, with a circular locator map at lower right - Image: Pale cobbles and red brick fragments on bare silt, a straight line of stones running through them toward low green growth, with a circular locator map at lower right - Image: A large rusted iron wheel with eight spokes lying flat among rounded cobbles, its hub full of sand, with a circular locator map at lower right ### Remains Block `hotdrysummer/remains` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#remains More of what stands on the lakebed: a mortarless pier of fitted stone, two blocks with iron bolts standing out of them, and two long lines of stones laid across the silt, the plan of something built showing through. - Image: A low square pier of fitted stones standing in pale sand with a few plants growing at its foot, with a circular locator map at lower right - Image: Two dark rough blocks on the lakebed with rows of iron bolts standing out of their tops, mountains and green growth beyond, with a circular locator map at lower right - Image: A line of large rounded stones curving away across bare lakebed toward a gap in the mountains, with a circular locator map at lower right - Image: A straight row of dark stones across the lakebed with a gap in it and a second line turning toward the camera, forested ridge behind, with a circular locator map at lower right ### Lakebed video Block `hotdrysummer/lakebed-video` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#lakebed-video A 39-second silent pan across the exposed lakebed, from the remaining water around a wide bare valley floor of silt, cobbles and low green growth to the forested ridge. It gives the scale that the single photographs cannot. - Image: A wide lakebed of dark gravel, boulders and low green growth, a strip of water at far left below a forested slope and a pale sky /media/hotdrysummer/video/lakebed.mp4 0:39 A silent pan across the exposed lakebed. It starts with the remaining water at far left and a boulder in the foreground, sweeps past a steep slope of rock and scattered trees above a wide floor of pale silt, cobbles and patches of green, and ends on a dark forested ridge with a strip of water below it. ### Dry shores Block `hotdrysummer/dry-shores` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#dry-shores From higher up and at the far end: a pale band of exposed lakebed where the water stood, and the road across the dam. - Image: A wide band of pale exposed lakebed below pines and a long valley, the water a thin line far off, with a circular locator map at lower right - Image: Pale exposed lakebed beyond the tops of pines, with brown mountains behind under haze, with a circular locator map at lower right - Image: A dirt road and bridge beside a concrete tower on a rock-faced dam, a low reservoir at right, with a circular locator map at lower right ## Beneath Lake Granby ### App lede Block `hotdrysummer/app-lede` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#app-lede Monarch, built with Claude back at camp to explore the lakebed in context and record findings: it lays a historic USGS topo over satellite imagery, tracks live GPS, cross-fades past and present with a waterline slider, and pins physical remains, with JSON export. Sitting back at camp, I researched the history of the area and used Claude to build an app that would let me explore the lakebed in context and record my findings. The app overlays a historic USGS topo on satellite imagery, tracks live GPS, has a "waterline" slider that cross-fades past and present, and lets me drop pins on physical remains I find, with JSON export. [Open prototype →](https://davidcbingham.github.io/monarch/) ### Waterline Block `hotdrysummer/waterline` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#waterline One view of the Arapaho valley at three positions of the app's waterline slider: today's satellite, the two cross-faded, and the 1919 USGS sheet that names Monarch, its railroad and Arapaho Creek. Captured later from the live app, not in the field. Interpreting landscape change here means letting a person move between a place and what it was before the disturbance. - Image: Phone screen of the app titled Monarch, Beneath Lake Granby: satellite imagery of a dark lake and forest, the waterline slider at its right end, Water, Today - Image: The same phone screen with the slider at its middle, a historic topographic map half faded over the satellite image - Image: The same phone screen with the slider at its left end, 1900s, Lakebed: the 1919 topographic map in full, showing Monarch, Monarch P.O., a railroad and Strawberry Lake Credit: Historic map: U.S. Geological Survey, Rocky Mountain National Park sheet, 1919. Satellite: Esri World Imagery. ### App screens Block `hotdrysummer/app-screens` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#app-screens Setting up the app: its first screen with the caveat about drift, the choice of how to bring the old map in, the hand alignment of a sheet over the satellite by drag, pinch and twist, and the sheet for naming a find. Captured later from the live app, not in the field. - Introduction to the app. - Image: The app's first screen: the wordmark Monarch, Beneath Lake Granby, two paragraphs on the flooded town and a note headed One honest caveat, up front, with an orange button, Set up the map - Select the historic map to overlay. - Image: A screen headed Get the historic map onto the ground offering two choices, Load it automatically, marked Recommended, and Use a screenshot, marked Manual - Pin the old and new maps to one another. - Image: A historic map floating semi-transparent over the satellite view, with controls headed Align the old map, drag, pinch, twist, an opacity slider and buttons Cancel and Pin it - Record the location of interesting finds. - Image: A sheet headed Mark a find, with a text field whose placeholder reads Stone foundation, about 4 by 6 m, and buttons Cancel and Save find ### Rings Block `hotdrysummer/rings` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#rings The design principle of the app, honesty about precision: around the position sit two rings, one for how sure the GPS is and a dashed one for how far the old map can wander, which makes it easier to spot correlations between the modern high-resolution map and the historic low-resolution one. The GPS dot shows two rings, one for GPS accuracy (~5 m) and one for historic map drift (~65 m). This makes it easier to spot potential correlations between the modern high-res map and the historic low-res map. ### Finds Block `hotdrysummer/finds` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#finds The survey from the evening of August 6: 17 finds marked on the lakebed between 6:11 and 6:46 pm, among them rock walls, a door, the four corners of a house, a large foundation, wagon wheels, metal rods, and entry sign pylons. Shown as the diamonds and the two rings on the 1919 sheet, the same diamonds on today's satellite, which shows the lake full over the lakebed, and the app's list, its middle rows cut to fit the screen. The finds are real; the position on the first screen is simulated. The app was used where it was built. - Image: Phone screen with the 1919 topographic map nearly opaque over the satellite image: 17 white diamond markers in the same places as on the map beside it, along a railroad line and a blue creek, an orange position dot among them inside a dashed ring, and the status line reading GPS plus or minus 5 m, dashed ring equals the old map's own plus or minus 65 m drift - Image: The app's map on today's satellite image: 17 white diamond markers spread across dark water below a green shore, where the imagery still shows the lake full - Image: The app's screen headed My finds, cropped to phone height with its middle rows cut: 10 of the 17 finds with their coordinates, from Rock wall corner to Long Big Rock Wall, then Large Foundation, Wagon Wheels, Entry Sign Pylons, Land of Pillars and More Rock Wall, each with a Remove link, and buttons Close and Copy as JSON at the foot Credit: Historic map: U.S. Geological Survey, Rocky Mountain National Park sheet, 1919. Satellite: Esri World Imagery. ## Optimism ### Optimism lede Block `hotdrysummer/optimism-lede` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#optimism-lede Why two Mark Twain quotes close the page: in the face of drought and climate change, the choice of learning, of leading efforts for change, and of optimism, taking inspiration from audacious efforts like the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. I found two competing Mark Twain quotes that spoke to me in this moment. The optimist who is sometimes wrong is hopeful, and hope leads to change. And knowing too little is an ageless problem, especially if you just turned 49. So in the face of drought and climate change, I choose learning and leading efforts for change. I take inspiration from humanity's audacious efforts like the Colorado-Big Thompson Project and its modern equivalents. I choose optimism. ### Twain Block `hotdrysummer/twain` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#twain Two lines from Mark Twain on optimism, side by side, each beneath a photograph of him on a porch. They turn the page from the dry lake to what might follow. - Image: Mark Twain seated on a log porch in a dark suit, among pines, black and white - Image: Mark Twain in a white suit in a rocking chair on a columned porch, a cat at his feet - **Mark Twain** — “It’s better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right.” - **Mark Twain** — “The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.” ### Optimism Block `hotdrysummer/optimism` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#optimism Reasons for optimism: a winter forecast of an El Niño wet season, with snow favored over the Southwest, the abundance of renewable resources across the United States, a large solar field, and an old relief drawing of the tunnel under the Continental Divide. - Image: A map of North America headed 2026-27 North America Winter Forecast: Snow, by OpenSnow, above-normal snowfall in blue over the Southwest and below-normal in orange across the north and east — Upcoming El Niño wet season. - Image: A National Renewable Energy Laboratory map, A Simplified Look at Renewable Energy Resource Abundance in the Conterminous United States, with zones of wind, solar and geothermal and dots of hydropower — Renewable energy across the USA. - Image: Aerial view of rows of dark solar panels spread across a desert basin, snow-capped mountains on the horizon — Massive solar projects. - Image: An old relief drawing of the Rockies with the words Continental Divide and an arrow marked Continental Divide Tunnel running from Grand Lake toward Estes Park — Moving mountains when motivated. Credit: Forecast: OpenSnow. Renewable energy map: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. ### Summit Block `hotdrysummer/summit` · https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/work/hotdrysummer/#summit The close: two people smiling in sun hats and glasses at a wooden trail sign reading Elevation 12,005 feet above sea level, on high tundra with haze over the mountains behind. - Image: A selfie of two people in caps and sunglasses beside a wooden sign reading Elevation 12,005 feet above sea level, mountains in haze behind them - **AI:** 3, Edited. I wrote the draft. AI suggested changes, and I took, refused or rewrote each one. The tiers: https://studiobing.com/davidbingham/writing/#ai