‘Dirty Dancing’ lake that mysteriously dried up 12 years ago is filling with water
Before Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey nailed the iconic lift at the end of “Dirty Dancing,” they took to a lake at the fictitious Kellerman’s resort to iron out the kinks.
But in 2008, the lake used in the 1987 movie — known as Mountain Lake and located at Mountain Lake Lodge in Pembroke, Virginia — completely dried up, leaving behind rotting fish and perplexed scientists, the Roanoke Times reported.
Now, 12 years after it dried up, Mountain Lake is starting to fill with water, WSLS reported. It’s about a third full thanks, in part, to a wet spring, lodge workers say.
“It’s very exciting,” Heidi Stone, the lodge’s general manager, told CNN. “The guests get very excited because for so many years it’s been dry and looked more like a meadow. It’s the prettiest when it’s filled with water.”
“Dirty Dancing” fans are coming from far and away to pay homage to the lake.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” Jenifer Stevens, who traveled from Ohio, told WSLS. “Pretty much the entire summer of 13 years old, I watched that movie 2-3 times a day.”
The lake’s water levels first dropped in 1999 before rising again in 2003, according to the Times. Levels dropped again in 2006 before drying up completely two years later.
Researchers have called the lake’s cycle of draining and refilling a “phenomenon.”
“This lake basin is the only one on the entire planet that goes through this sort of [cycle] and has this kind of plumbing system,” Jon Cawley of Roanoke College said in a video on the lodge’s website.
Scientists believe the lake has a natural cycle of rising and falling water levels hitting low periods roughly every 400 years.
But the dry spells don’t mean there’s anything wrong with the lake. On the contrary, Ross Irwin of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum said the lake is actually “healing itself” during low periods by eroding sediment off the basin floor and washing it out.
The process will ultimately yield a cleaner and deeper lake, Cawley said.
This story was originally published July 15, 2020 at 11:49 AM with the headline "‘Dirty Dancing’ lake that mysteriously dried up 12 years ago is filling with water."