Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia

As a bit of a lake crawler myself, albeit from the other side of the country, may I just say WOW!
What a beautiful area! Sorry to be so geographically challenged, but how close is this to Huntington, WV? A company I have done business with has a Customer Service center there and I'm trying to think of how I could rangle a "business trip".......
 
Bob... Mapquest says about 268 miles. Our trip was about 185 miles, but with over 500 miles of shoreline, well worth it. Oh... I was surprised at the depths. Mainly in the 60-85 ft. range but many areas over 100 ft. Even the coves were usually in the 40+ range. It was also a nice surprise to pull the boat out of the water after 4 days and find it pretty clean...took very little to get it back to pristine condition.

We did find a gem there... Tony's Pizza and Italian Restaurant, which is about two miles from West Lake Inn. A medium pizza and a Lasagne dinner (two big pieces, a big salad, and garlic bread) ran 20 bucks and the food was excellent.
 
Greg, glad you liked it, but I knew you would :wink:
We just got back from our extended weekend. From Fri thru today with newborn and dog, but it was all good.

It would go way too far to try to list all the markers, but there is a very good lake map from the Smith Mountain Lake Association with all marinas listed available at most marina for three bucks. Get it and don't boat the lake without it!!! It will show you all marinas and has the lake markers to follow. It does not have depth lines though, but shoals are indicated.

As you noted the lake is deep, very deep with extremely steep sloes too so you can often anchor in 40+ foot of water just 100 feet from shore. At the dam the lake is over 200 feet in many places and there are some spots that seem out in the middle of the lake where you go from 50 feet to 5 feet in less than 100 feet of distance.

We left $300 on the bottom this weekend. Our anchor snagged since the wind drove us in cicles around it a couple of times. Those old tree stumps are no fun, especially because the lake was not logged when they filled it, just cut the tops in may areas before it reached full pond. So we had to cut the 22lbs. Delta and chain loose with 20 feet of rode. Second time in three seasons that happened to us. Once it snags this bad there is no way to get 'er lose, unless you can dive down there. :smt013
 
Alex... We had the map (bought it well before we got there) and still had a terrible time locating those places you mentioned in your earlier post. Maybe it was just the overall size that made it difficult but we headed for the markers on the map and then trolled up and down inlets looking for the places but just couldn't find them. I don't know if it was from a lack of signs or us just being in the wrong inlet.

Overall all though an unbelievable place to boat... You are extremely lucky Alex.
 
Greg, If you have some specific places, i will look them up and post the marker. just let me know. :thumbsup:
 

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