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LAKE LURE – Before the sun had peeked over the craggy horizon on a recent cold morning, frost covered temporary plywood docks on the shores of Lake Lure as dozens of athletes carried long, pointed fiberglass rowing boats down to the water.
They had come to Rumbling Bald resort, on Lake Lure, from as far away as New York, Washington, D.C. and Rhode Island for spring rowing practice on the lake, which is slowly refilling since being drained after Tropical Storm Helene in late 2024, to the lowest level in its nearly hundred-year history.
The lake is still closed to the public, more than 18 months after Helene filled it with silt and debris, severely damaging the dam and leaving the Town of Lake Lure without much of the tourism that is the lifeblood of its economy.
During a typical tourist season, Lake Lure’s population of 1,300 grows to 10,000 visitors a day, the Citizen Times reported.
Kimberly Sayles, owner the Grafton Lodge Bed and Breakfast in Lake Lure, told the Times-News in February that she had seen up to a 70% drop in customers since Helene.
“Our major loss was the road being cut off,” she said, referring to the closure of U.S. 64/74A, the most direct route from Asheville and Hendersonville, at the hard-hit community of Bat Cave.
But the annual pilgrimage of college rowing teams, interrupted for a year by the draining of the lake in order to clean it out, has returned.
Rumbling Bald's manager, Jeff Geisler, said that rowing teams have been coming to Lake Lure regularly for at least 15 years.
“It’s one of the better lakes out there … there’s great scenery and the water’s nice,” Ben Sommer, 22, captain of the Columbia University crew team, told the Times-News March 20.
The teams come for the relatively warm weather and the lake’s long, slender shape, practicing for around five hours a day, he said.
The lake in Massachusetts that the University of Rhode Island team practices on during the warmer months had been frozen over within the previous week or so.
In addition to being relatively warmer, generally attractive and set up to easily accommodate visitors, Lake Lure is also significantly bigger than Rhode Island's home lake, with a straightaway of around 4,000 meters compared to 2,000, Cooper Rosen, 21, a junior at the University of Rhode Island, told the Times-News.
Spring practice also falls at a time of year when the lake is typically empty of other boaters, even before it was shut down by Helene, several people said.
Lake Lure’s water level is still around 6 feet below its full pond of 990.5 feet above sea level, which is why the temporary docks were necessary to reach the water from the long, shallow slope of muddy sand above. But that’s up about 9 feet since early February, according to previous Times-News reporting.
Rowers from Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C., and Stony Brook University, in New York state had been there the week before, Lake Lure Mayor Carol Pritchett told the Times-News March 20.
The lake will be reopened for boating and swimming by Memorial Day, and will likely be ready even before then, she said.
"This is the first sign we're almost there. It's a huge impact," she said.
The lake needs to be refilled slowly, to reduce the strain of refilling on the dam and because the Rocky Broad River needs to continue flowing downstream of the lake, so rainwater is the only source of the lake’s rising tide, the Times-News reported.
Ian Wizeman, 21, a junior at the University of Rhode Island, told the Times-News that it wasn’t all smooth sailing out on the lake.
There’s still some debris in the lake, “some logs half as big as me,” which made it hard at times to row at full speed, he said.
Some boats were bumped, and an oar snapped when a rower knocked it against a log, rowers said.
Still, Rosen, Wizeman and others said they’re glad they came, for a spring break trip that, for some, seemed to be almost as much about team bonding as athletic practice.
The return of the rowers, and others like them, “is sending a message out there that we’re ready to receive people,” Pritchett said.
Lake Lure hosted the Rumble, a festival held by the Carolina Climbers Coalition March 6-8, for the first time since spring 2024 and the event brought in hundreds of visitors.
The rowing and climbing events are “such a big boon for our economy. It’s been a long 18 months,” she said.
“We don’t have shops, really … What we have is lodging and restaurants and things like that. Everyone needs to stay somewhere,” she said.
There were 46 members on the Rhode Island rowing team in Lake Lure, and that’s not including coaching staff and even the families of some of the team members, Rosen said. Other teams brough dozens more.
Together, the teams booked around 25 or 30 cabins at Rumbling Bald resort, about a third of its capacity, Geisler told the Times-News.
“We lost half of our volume last year. Summer vacation was pretty much dead,” in 2025, he said.
Most of the year, Rumbling Bald employees around 100 people and that rises to 250 in the summer, to meet the demand of the roughly 100,000 yearly customers, including guests at its rental cabins, restaurant, golf course and venue.
“It really is psychologically a huge lift to see this lake and see these rowers and know that Helene is definitely in our past,” he said.
Six teams came to stay at Rumbling Bald resort to practice this year, compared to a typical 11 or 12, Geisler said. He thinks that might be a sign that people are still wary about the quality of the lake water.
Despite the driftwood reported by rowers, the town tests the lake’s water quality every week for chemicals and other contamination, and it’s “perfectly safe,” Pritchett said
Patricia Temple, 57, of Northern Virginia, hopes to dispel those doubts about water quality when she embarks on a 12-hour, 18-mile swim around the entire circumference of Lake Lure in May, she told the Times-News March 20.
She hopes that the stunt will prove to people that the lake isn’t polluted and serve as a fundraiser for Helene recovery and first responders, she said.
She's doing her swim in partnership with the Lake Lure Olympiad, which is holding the Run for Recovery Helene benefit event in August, which includes the Slam the Dam 10K and the Race to the Rock 5K.
“It’s been so dark, the recovery effort, and people are still coming back, (some) don’t have jobs or housing. It’s just to bring a little distraction from the ongoing recovery,” she said.
“(I hope to) bring a little joy, celebrate the reopening, show that the water is clean and safe.”
More: Lake Lure is refilling after Tropical Storm Helene. When will it reopen?
More: Lake Lure, NCDOT, NC Emergency Management to get $233 million from FEMA
George Fabe Russell is the Henderson County Reporter for the Hendersonville Times-News. Tips, questions, comments? Email him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: When does Lake Lure reopen? College rowers return for practice
Continue reading...
They had come to Rumbling Bald resort, on Lake Lure, from as far away as New York, Washington, D.C. and Rhode Island for spring rowing practice on the lake, which is slowly refilling since being drained after Tropical Storm Helene in late 2024, to the lowest level in its nearly hundred-year history.
The lake is still closed to the public, more than 18 months after Helene filled it with silt and debris, severely damaging the dam and leaving the Town of Lake Lure without much of the tourism that is the lifeblood of its economy.
During a typical tourist season, Lake Lure’s population of 1,300 grows to 10,000 visitors a day, the Citizen Times reported.
Kimberly Sayles, owner the Grafton Lodge Bed and Breakfast in Lake Lure, told the Times-News in February that she had seen up to a 70% drop in customers since Helene.
“Our major loss was the road being cut off,” she said, referring to the closure of U.S. 64/74A, the most direct route from Asheville and Hendersonville, at the hard-hit community of Bat Cave.
But the annual pilgrimage of college rowing teams, interrupted for a year by the draining of the lake in order to clean it out, has returned.
Rumbling Bald's manager, Jeff Geisler, said that rowing teams have been coming to Lake Lure regularly for at least 15 years.
“It’s one of the better lakes out there … there’s great scenery and the water’s nice,” Ben Sommer, 22, captain of the Columbia University crew team, told the Times-News March 20.
The teams come for the relatively warm weather and the lake’s long, slender shape, practicing for around five hours a day, he said.
The lake in Massachusetts that the University of Rhode Island team practices on during the warmer months had been frozen over within the previous week or so.
In addition to being relatively warmer, generally attractive and set up to easily accommodate visitors, Lake Lure is also significantly bigger than Rhode Island's home lake, with a straightaway of around 4,000 meters compared to 2,000, Cooper Rosen, 21, a junior at the University of Rhode Island, told the Times-News.
Spring practice also falls at a time of year when the lake is typically empty of other boaters, even before it was shut down by Helene, several people said.
You must be registered for see images attach
Lake Lure’s water level is still around 6 feet below its full pond of 990.5 feet above sea level, which is why the temporary docks were necessary to reach the water from the long, shallow slope of muddy sand above. But that’s up about 9 feet since early February, according to previous Times-News reporting.
Rowers from Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C., and Stony Brook University, in New York state had been there the week before, Lake Lure Mayor Carol Pritchett told the Times-News March 20.
The lake will be reopened for boating and swimming by Memorial Day, and will likely be ready even before then, she said.
"This is the first sign we're almost there. It's a huge impact," she said.
You must be registered for see images attach
The lake needs to be refilled slowly, to reduce the strain of refilling on the dam and because the Rocky Broad River needs to continue flowing downstream of the lake, so rainwater is the only source of the lake’s rising tide, the Times-News reported.
‘Ready to receive people’
Ian Wizeman, 21, a junior at the University of Rhode Island, told the Times-News that it wasn’t all smooth sailing out on the lake.
There’s still some debris in the lake, “some logs half as big as me,” which made it hard at times to row at full speed, he said.
Some boats were bumped, and an oar snapped when a rower knocked it against a log, rowers said.
You must be registered for see images attach
Still, Rosen, Wizeman and others said they’re glad they came, for a spring break trip that, for some, seemed to be almost as much about team bonding as athletic practice.
Sports and outdoor events 'such a big boon'
The return of the rowers, and others like them, “is sending a message out there that we’re ready to receive people,” Pritchett said.
Lake Lure hosted the Rumble, a festival held by the Carolina Climbers Coalition March 6-8, for the first time since spring 2024 and the event brought in hundreds of visitors.
You must be registered for see images attach
The rowing and climbing events are “such a big boon for our economy. It’s been a long 18 months,” she said.
“We don’t have shops, really … What we have is lodging and restaurants and things like that. Everyone needs to stay somewhere,” she said.
There were 46 members on the Rhode Island rowing team in Lake Lure, and that’s not including coaching staff and even the families of some of the team members, Rosen said. Other teams brough dozens more.
You must be registered for see images attach
Together, the teams booked around 25 or 30 cabins at Rumbling Bald resort, about a third of its capacity, Geisler told the Times-News.
“We lost half of our volume last year. Summer vacation was pretty much dead,” in 2025, he said.
Most of the year, Rumbling Bald employees around 100 people and that rises to 250 in the summer, to meet the demand of the roughly 100,000 yearly customers, including guests at its rental cabins, restaurant, golf course and venue.
You must be registered for see images attach
“It really is psychologically a huge lift to see this lake and see these rowers and know that Helene is definitely in our past,” he said.
Six teams came to stay at Rumbling Bald resort to practice this year, compared to a typical 11 or 12, Geisler said. He thinks that might be a sign that people are still wary about the quality of the lake water.
'A little joy'
Despite the driftwood reported by rowers, the town tests the lake’s water quality every week for chemicals and other contamination, and it’s “perfectly safe,” Pritchett said
Patricia Temple, 57, of Northern Virginia, hopes to dispel those doubts about water quality when she embarks on a 12-hour, 18-mile swim around the entire circumference of Lake Lure in May, she told the Times-News March 20.
You must be registered for see images attach
She hopes that the stunt will prove to people that the lake isn’t polluted and serve as a fundraiser for Helene recovery and first responders, she said.
She's doing her swim in partnership with the Lake Lure Olympiad, which is holding the Run for Recovery Helene benefit event in August, which includes the Slam the Dam 10K and the Race to the Rock 5K.
“It’s been so dark, the recovery effort, and people are still coming back, (some) don’t have jobs or housing. It’s just to bring a little distraction from the ongoing recovery,” she said.
“(I hope to) bring a little joy, celebrate the reopening, show that the water is clean and safe.”
More: Lake Lure is refilling after Tropical Storm Helene. When will it reopen?
More: Lake Lure, NCDOT, NC Emergency Management to get $233 million from FEMA
George Fabe Russell is the Henderson County Reporter for the Hendersonville Times-News. Tips, questions, comments? Email him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: When does Lake Lure reopen? College rowers return for practice
Continue reading...
