Lake Ozark Live Cam

• Fort Myers Beach Lake of the Ozarks

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Central Missouri

Being one of Missouri's most scenic panoramas, the Lake offers a wide range of sightseeing opportunities as well as leisure choices. Whether you're looking for fast-paced action or a peaceful escape from the city, it will turn your next family vacation or getaway into one of your fondest memories.

Central Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks is fast becoming Mid America's Premier Golf Destination. There are currently over 180 holes of golf available at the Lake, including designs by Robert Trent Jones, Sr., Bruce Devlin and Robert Von Hagge, Ken Kavanaugh and Arnold Palmer. Additional courses are in the planning stages, including a Tom Weiskopf Signature Golf Course. The golf courses' length, various degrees of difficulty, hole variety, elevation changes, water and strategic layouts are enjoyable yet challenging for both the serious and weekend/vacationing golfers.

The Lake offers 58,000 acres of boating ranging from yachts to sailboats to speed boats to fishing crafts to P.W.C.'s (rent or bring your own). Water activities include skiing, boarding, tubing, para-sailing and swimming. The season starts on the first warm day of early spring and ends with the first freeze in the late fall. Fishing is year' round.

The Lake is fast becoming one of Missouri's major year 'round retail centers, having the largest top brand outlet mall in the state. Outlets and malls, some enclosed for customer comfort, are sprinkled throughout the Lake area. Most have restaurants and snacks for your convenience and some, movie theaters. These centers hold an abundance of high quality, top name bargains, as well as those hard-to-find, one-of-a-kind gifts for that special person or occasion.

There are 57 antique stores within a 50-mile radius. There are art galleries, "handmade" shops, music stores, gift and specialty stores, country sampler shops with quaint tea rooms, trading posts, emporiums, bazaars, marine stores and boutiques-on and off the water.

When it comes to activities, variety is only word to describe the wide range of leisure pastimes available to you during your stay at the Lake. Some are kid oriented and some are oriented to the kid in you. Some are are for land lubbers and others for sea dogs. Some are for music lovers and some for sportsmen. Some are educational. Some are romantic. They're all worth experiencing.

The Lake: One of the Best Birding Spots in Missouri - The Lake of the Ozarks, although man-made, functions as a natural water environment that is a feeding and resting grounds for numerous species of wildlife, including a spectacular variety of birds. Species that are a familiar sight on the Lake (and in the area), include the Great Blue Heron, hawks and ducks of many varieties, Wild Turkey, Pectoral Sandpipers, Cliff Swallows, Terns, American Goldfinches, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Robins, Bobwhites, Whippoorwills, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Wood Thrushes, Eastern Meadowlarks, Phoebes, Belted Kingfishers, Pileated Woodpeckers and the "leftovers" king of the sky, the Turkey Vulture.

Regardless of the length of your stay-one weekend or the entire season, we think that you will agree that camping is a great way to enjoy the Lake of the Ozarks. Whether you prefer to rough it in a tent or commune with nature from a fully appointed recreational vehicle, you will find campgrounds and facilities that are perfect for you and your family. There are rugged, woody sites at the water's edge or tucked up in the Ozark hills, as well as finely groomed, paved sites with full hookups and numerous amenities.

Historically the Missouri has been both a boundary and a highway. In frontier times it marked the line where the West began. It also provided the main path into the western wilderness. French explorers Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette discover ed the mouth of the Missouri in 1673. Early fur traders traveled the river, and during the late 18th century they began to explore its upper reaches. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark followed the entire course of the Missouri on their journey to the P acific (1804-06). For many years settlement stopped at the lower Missouri. On its eastern side were farms; on the west was the prairie, which farmers considered worthless. Then pioneers began going to Oregon, California, and Utah in the 1840's. The Oregon Trail followed the course of one of the Missouri's major branches, the Platte. The first river carriers were dugout canoes and "bullboats" made of buffalo hide. Then came the keelboats, powered by oars, poles, or sails, or towed by men or animals walking along the banks. Getting keelboats upstream was a backbreaking job, for the Mi ssouri was a tricky, dangerous river. Some said that Missouri mules got their cussedness from drinking its waters. It had a powerful current and was full of sandbars, snags, and rapids.

In 1819 the first steamboat appeared. River traffic, including furs and military and civilian supplies, increased. In the 1870's railroad competition reduced river traffic. Today, the Missouri is again an important waterway.

The Missouri rises in southwestern Montana. Three mountain streams, the Red Rock Jefferson, the Madison, and the Gallatin, form its headwaters near Three Forks. Here it is over 4,000 feet above sea level. It flows through Montana and in North Dakota is joined by the Yellowstone. Then it runs southeast, forming boundaries between several states. North of St. Louis it pours into the Mississippi at an average rate of 64,000 cubic feet of water per second. Some of the Missouri's major branches are the Yellowstone, Big Sioux, James, Cheyenne, Milk, Osage, Kansas, White, and Platte. The whole river system drains an area of 530,000 square miles, which includes a small part of southern Canada. As it cuts thro ugh mountains and prairies the Missouri gathers huge quantities of sand and silt, earning its nickname "Big Muddy." It dumps approximately 200,000,000 tons of silt a year into the Mississippi. The water is considered good to drink once the silt is removed. But the Missouri can be an enemy to man. It can change its channel overnight. At flood stage it is a powerful destroyer. Melting snow in the Rockies and heavy spring rains sometimes swell the volume of water and flood millions of acres. The federal go vernment is building dams and large reservoirs. The program will aid in flood control, increase irrigation, and develop electric power and recreation areas. The river is being deepened to form a 9-foot channel as far upstream as Sioux City, Iowa.

Missouri has two great rivers – the Missouri and the Mississippi. The Mississippi forms all the eastern boundary of the state except in the extreme northeast. There the Des Moines River separates Missouri from the southeastern tip of Iowa. The Missouri River forms the western boundary as far south as Kansas City. There it turns generally eastward and winds all the way across the state. It empties into the Mississippi about 17 miles north of St. Louis.

The chief rivers north of the Missouri are the Grand, the Chariton, and the Salt. Rivers south of the Missouri include the Osage, the Gasconade, and the Meramec – all in the central part of the state – and the White, the Current, and the St. Francis in th e south.

The Ozarks region has 11 of the 75 springs in the United States classed as first-magnitude springs. All springs of this kind have a flow of 100 cubic feet or more of water each second. Big Springs in the gorge of the Current River is the largest of the Mi ssouri’s first-magnitude springs.

Missouri has no large lakes, but it has several important man-made lakes. Most of these are in the rugged sections of the Ozarks. The Lake of the Ozarks is formed by Bagnell Dam on the Osage River. This huge lake, with its many arms, stretches about 130 m iles through west central Missouri. Just west of it is Kaysinger Bluff Reservoir. The White River area of southwestern Missouri includes four large lakes – Table Rock, Taneycomo, Bull Shoals, and Norfolk. All are formed by dams on the White River system i n Missouri and neighboring Arkansas. These and other man-made lakes are good places for recreation. The dams provide hydroelectric power or help to control floods.