Now that most of its water has been sent downstream, Pineview Reservoir is ready to get a new pipeline. Crews have begun laying rock across the lakebed to serve as a temporary road.
But as the water levels dropped, some long-submerged surprises came to the surface.
The biggest one was a yellow truck. The Weber County Sheriff’s Office learned about it on social media, said Chief Deputy Colby Ryan. Based on the vehicle identification number and license plate, they discovered it had been stolen in Ogden in 2007.
“We think that's about the time that it went into the water,” Ryan said.
Pulling vehicles out of the lake isn’t unheard of. The search and rescue crew trains at Pineview Reservoir every year, using sonar to locate objects in the water. They find a vehicle every couple of years.
“Sometimes we know about it,” Ryan said. “Sometimes we don't.”
Another vehicle that turned up was already on law enforcement’s radar. Search and rescue crews had located it in training, but the water was too deep to tow it out at the time.
That vehicle had been in the lake since 2025 due to the driver’s mental health crisis.
“Fortunate for them, as they were driving towards the water, they had a change in their thought process and jumped out of the vehicle before it went over the edge,” he said.
The sheriff’s office got two calls this year about bones. Investigators traced them to animals.
Two firearms also turned up, but they were too degraded to be traced to any crimes. Ryan isn’t holding his breath to solve any cold cases, but the sheriff’s office is asking the public to call in anything suspicious they find while exploring. The mud is sticky, so Ryan recommends treading carefully on the newly exposed mud and keeping a cell phone close.
Pineview’s lost water had to go somewhere: it charged down the Ogden River to Willard Bay, making late summer phenomenal for tubing.
Philip Burnett, rental center manager at the Weber State University Outdoor Program, said it’s safe to tube the Ogden River in a normal summer, though thin tubes from big box stores could pop on rocks.
“But this year was exceptional, with a lot of rocks being covered and further underwater,” he said.
Indeed, the Ogden River sat higher than normal from June through early September, according to provisional data from the U.S. Geological Survey. The difference was especially noticeable in recent weeks, when the river would normally decline.
Paddleboard rentals fell 31% this summer compared to last year, Burnett said. But tube rentals were up 15%.
The river is closer to normal now that Pineview has reached its target level. Going forward, water will only be released to maintain the current elevation.
The new pipeline will be trucked up in segments via Trappers Loop, and crews will work day and night to install it. Jeffrey Putzke with Sunrise Engineering is confident they’ll finish ahead of the Feb. 1 deadline.
For those who want to follow the progress, Putzke plans to set up a time-lapse on the pipeline construction website.
And if any locals want to see what treasures they can find, the U.S. Forest Service and Ogden Valley Watershed Action Group are hosting a clean-up day Sept. 26.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
