California Activates Gigantic Glory Hole

California has finally done it. For the first time in six years, the "glory hole" has been activated, CBS News reports.

Please, people. There's no innuendo here. We're, of course, referring to the iconic and distinctly designed spillway in the North Bay's Lake Berryessa, a reservoir next to the Monticello Dam. 

"It's called a glory hole spillway. That's really what the engineers called it and we shortened it to glory hole," local historian, scientist, and journalist Peter Kilkus told CBS. "Some people say, 'Oh, that's really beautiful.' Some people say, 'That's frightening.'" 

The drain's actual name is no less suggestive: the Morning Glory Hole spillway.

Californias “Glory Hole” has been turned back on after 6 years. pic.twitter.com/TW1Ur4KGiH

— Nature is Amazing (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 26, 2025

But what's the deal with this thing? In a nutshell, it's an enormous 70-feet wide drain — or "passive spillway," in the technical nomenclature. Whenever the water levels in the dammed-off lake exceed 440 feet, the water spills into the drain, directing overflow into an underground discharge channel.

While in action, the "glory hole" looks almost otherworldly, like some portal to a magical aquatic realm — or maybe a glitch in our ever-crumbling reality simulation. There's not supposed to just be a hole in the middle of water, damn it!

It's not something you see every day, in other words.

"Yeah, it's a big tourist draw," Kilkus, who runs the site Lake Beryessa News, told CBS. "In fact, on a heavy day on the weekend, you can't even park here."

And it's rarely used. Before winding back up in February, the drain last saw action in 2019 and 2017, the Los Angeles Times reported. Before that, it was unused since 2005, Chris Lee, general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, told the newspaper.

The hole and its home's histories are intertwined. Lake Berryessa was created with the construction of the Monticello Dam in 1957 (grimly burying a small community that existed there, according to Kilkus) and the hole was the only solution that could make it work. Typically, dams have spillways built into them, or right beside, churning out towering cliffs of water. But in the canyon that the dam's saddled between, there's no room for such a design. As a compromise, engineers placed a drain in the middle of the lake, plunging the water straight down some 200 feet before making a 90-degree turn and releasing the overflow into Putah Creek. 

"Yes, this is fairly rare," Kilkus told the broadcaster. "There are only two in California, and there are a couple others in Europe, but they're very rare."

More on aquatic curiosities: Iceberg Breaks Off Antarctica, Revealing Tentacled Creatures Beneath

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