The name, itself, says a lot

When the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced proposed possible changes to the way it manages a local fishing beach, it used in an official document the popular name given it by the folks who use it, a name first made popular in the writings of a Star columnist.

Reg Morgan wrote about all kinds of things in decades of writing Morgan’s Musings, frequently about local hunting and fishing, which he loved. During the course of those writings, Reg applied the moniker “Geezer Beach” to the shoreline on Lake Roosevelt behind the Third Powerhouse where you can always look if you want to know if the fish are biting.

Even from across the lake, you can see the rigs lined up when the catch is on. It’s a natural grade on the rocks and sand down to the waterline, often quite a ways downhill in the spring if the lake is being drawn down. Just up-lake a few hundred yards was the former popular swimming spot where everyone used to go before the National Park Service built the Spring Canyon campground, along with its beautiful beach.

An ol’ geezer himself, Reg frequented Geezer Beach. Whether the name was his invention alone, or whether he simply applied a popular nickname is uncertain, but one thing is clear: putting it in the paper repeatedly had the effect of giving it an official name.

And now it’s official, or at least officially published. Ironically, the same document that uses the name also calls into question the continued existence of that particular use. Bureau officials are apparently worried that someone could get stuck or injured by driving down during deep drawdowns.

It’s not an unrealistic concern. The beaches along LR are stratified into alternating sand and very soft, slippery clay, along with rock. Easy stuff to get caught up in.

But then, the geezers that use the beach in that way seem to know that. Maybe the bureau has data on how many mishaps have occurred because someone drove down the beach, but none come to mind immediately. It would be a shame if an entire recreation resource was disallowed out of hyper-cautious concerns. What would all the geezers do?

Scott Hunter

editor and publisher