Current Stanford students go for a sunset paddle on Lake Lagunita in their inflatable raft on February 20, 2023. Photo by Nikolas Liepins
Sunbathers and studiers scattered across Lake Lagunita’s sun kissed-sandy beach, while windsurfers dotted its barely breezy waters. Prince, Madonna and the Cars echoed from the parking lot where today’s Denning House stands. Meanwhile, the Rolling Stones and Bowie used to blast from boomboxes that boozily floated along.
“On a nice day, people were always there. You could sit by the lake and get some work done, or not, or sit in the sun or meet friends,” Cynthia Benjamin ’85 reminisced of Lake Lagunita in the 1980s.
But today’s Lagunita is far from what Benjamin and her friends remember. Fences keep students from the berms where their predecessors studied or let loose. Now, students are instructed to only look at the water, not enter it. Admittedly, those fences haven’t stopped students from reclaiming the territory as their own; periodic poles hold up plastic mesh fencing around the lake, which the community occasionally tramples down for shoreline access.
Today’s Stanford students can’t even sit on the lake’s shores without the threat of encountering the police (and we’re not talking like “Every Breath You Take” as you also would’ve heard back in the day). But Benjamin and her friends earned a course unit for windsurfing and sailing in the very same place, despite Lagunita not being known for its wind.
“It was enough to get your sailboard out to the middle of the lake but maybe not back again,” Benjamin shared.
Once on the lake, sailing students had to intentionally capsize and recover their sailboat, but “the water was so shallow the top of our mast got completely stuck in the mud,” Alyson Yarus ’87 wrote.
Regardless of shallow waters, students like Benjamin and her friend Alisa MacAvoy ‘85 still welcomed a break from the hustle of academics. It was a “great way to spend a few hours each week. Such a California dream,” MacAvoy shared of her time in the windsurfing physical education class.
If students found academic fun in Lagunita, that lake life was surely a key to extracurricular fun, too. The “Big Way Yacht Club” was known for organizing lake events, Benjamin remembered. Even Stanford alumna and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s son Jay served as the Admiral during his sophomore year in 1982.
While it used to be a hub for fall bonfires and spring sunbathing, today’s Lagunita is almost unrecognizable to many who graduated before the 1990s. Riddled with fences and restrictive signage and rarely wet, today’s lake is generally something to pass by rather than a place to pass time.
But with the recent atmospheric river that pounded California’s Bay Area, the lake stands at levels that revive the imagery from the 1980s. Flocks of alumni come to relive their memories. Current students bring rafts and defy the “FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY” signage. But how exactly did such a 180-degree turn on Lagunita policy come to pass?
In the 1980s, Benjamin recalled, the University began paying more attention to the wildlife that made its home in and around the lake, including the California tiger salamander. Many faculty have studied the species, which has been on the University’s radar for decades, according to Stanford Conservation Planning Director Alan Launer.
By the 1990s, the salamanders were recognized as a candidate for federal and state protection, which fueled the efforts to preserve them. Eventually, the University ceased recreational activities at Lagunita in the name of wildlife and water conservation and safety, according to Launer.
The new attention to Lagunita species and eco-impacts in the 1990s culminated in a 50-year Habitat Conservation Plan, coordinated with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The plan provides for maintaining water levels that support the now federally- and state-protected California tiger salamander populations that live in and around the lake bed.
These salamanders “control pests by eating insects like mosquitoes and in turn they become food for larger animals,” according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “Each species is important,” Launer wrote, but “if the salamanders went locally extinct, it would be difficult to document impacts to the other members of the community.”
While Launer expects that today’s salamander populations are lower than in the 1990s due to generally drier conditions that have “been tough on all organisms that depend on aquatic habitats,” he is confident that “the local salamander population is in a better place than if the conservation program did not exist.”
To support the salamanders and other seasonal wetland species, the University adds water to Lagunita “when conditions allow,” Launer explained. The salamanders only need two to six feet of water to survive, and the University automatically maintains those water levels if winter rains pool in Lagunita for a week or two, which is long enough for the salamanders to reproduce.
Since salamanders reproduce in Lagunita, different life stages persist through different seasons, according to Launer. “Several of these stages are quite susceptible to disturbance,” he explained. “Human activity will likely be detrimental to [eggs, larvae, juveniles and adults in shallow water] as well.” But Launer said that “teasing out the specifics” of what impacts specific activities has “is difficult.”
Maintaining water levels for conservation purposes requires less water than recreational use, which reduces strain on University water resources, according to Launer. While old Lagunita recreational water levels sat around 14 or more feet deep, Launer said the University’s conservation objectives only require six to eight feet in the early season and two to three feet in the late season. However, Lagunita’s water levels have always been seasonal and rain-dependent.
“Water is a limiting resource, and with climate change making water availability less reliable, all water delivery systems are strained,” Launer said. “Lagunita did not receive supplemental water in dry years.”
Until the 1990s, the University added water to the lake as needed to maintain recreational water levels. However, Launer explained that “keeping the reservoir filled to the water level required for recreational activities put a strain on the creek and potentially the University’s water delivery system.”
Salamanders and water unreliability prevent Lagunita from being used for in-reservoir recreation, but the University has made the basin available for approved academic activities, and you can often catch joggers on the perimeter trail.
“The Lagunita perimeter pathway and the BBQ area are fine for recreation, and both could be improved,” Launer said. “In-reservoir recreation is [a] challenge.”
A jogger and pedestrian enjoy the sunset from Lake Lagunita’s perimeter pathway on February 20, 2023. Photo by Nikolas Liepins
But that in-reservoir recreation is what alumni and current students want to see revived.
“It's always seemed kind of sad to me to have this space that used to be so vibrant, and such a core to the community, to just kind of sit there empty and unused,” Benjamin said. “And now it's just kind of this big scar [...] a reminder that people used to have more fun here.”
However, Benjamin did acknowledge the environmental challenges and that “safety clearly takes precedence.” Safety, Launer shared, was also an ongoing concern in discussions about Lake Lagunita’s recreational use.
In April 1987, 20-year-old David Dunshee drowned in Lagunita after “staggering out of the Zeta Psi party with a blood alcohol content of 0.25,” UPI reported. Launer did not comment on the impact of Dunshee’s death on the decision to suspend filling Lagunita recreationally, instead writing: “It was very expensive to maintain Lagunita at recreational levels…part of the expense was safety. In that respect safety was part of the decision.”
Despite the safety signs scattered around the lake instructing students not to enter the standing water, the students have seized the floating grounds as an opportunity they may never have again.
Students in the left raft paddle back to shore while those in the right paddle out towards the sunset over Lake Lagunita on February 20, 2023. Photo by Nikolas Liepins
“When the lake filled, I knew it'd be a special opportunity and that I probably wouldn't get another chance while I was here, so I wanted to take advantage and enjoy the water [by rafting],” said a second-year Stanford undergraduate who asked to remain anonymous for fear of penalty from the University.
Having heard stories from the “glory days” (Launer’s term) of decades past, “I get the sense that in previous years when it was filled professionally, it was a big source of community activity,” the student added.
A taste of that community has returned: while the lake is still filled, its paths and shores are frequently lined with nature-lovers of all ages (and dogs, too!). People especially flock to watch the sun fall behind the mountains in an orangey-pink wash.
As colorful skies obscure faces in shadow, students take to the lake on their inflatable rafts. Some go for a quick dip. Others come in groups for photos. These activities happen within the fenced perimeter — a barrier that the community itself has deconstructed. Not in defiance of authority but in pursuit of happiness.
“I think it's a fantastic activity and it's super nice to have water and be able to walk around it and enjoy a sunset,” the sophomore shared. “I have friends who have mentioned taking mental health walks around the lake [...] anecdotally, I've heard many, many stories of people enjoying the lake and finding the environment there helpful.”
Like those students, some community members have reported a boost in their mental health brought by the seemingly simple addition of water in Lagunita’s basin.
A family goes for a sunset stroll around Lake Lagunita on February 20, 2023. Photo by Nikolas Liepins
And there is a growing body of research to support that casual reality. A 2019 study in England found that freshwater in neighborhoods was linked to better mental health in its residents, though the exact reasons why are unknown. Separately, a 2022 study found that nature helps students gain “cognitive benefits” like “restoration from mental fatigue.”
In short, both studies assert that people are generally happier and healthier when they are around nature, including blue spaces like a full Lake Lagunita.
Despite these mental health benefits, “for the foreseeable future, it is unlikely that there will be significant changes in the way Lagunita is operated,” Launer wrote. “Returning Lagunita to its glory days cannot happen in the foreseeable future.”
However, “there was, and still is, considerable University-wide discussion about the appropriate use of water resources and potential to fill Lagunita to recreational levels,” Launer added. He did not comment on the nature of those discussions or who specifically is involved.
While the University may continue to weigh ecological and human interests in Lagunita, one thing remains certain: Lagunita is more than just a lake — it’s a part of the community.
“It's more of a kind of a presence than a single memory,” Benjamin explained. “It's part of my memory of my experience at Stanford.”
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Nikolas Liepins is an award-winning environmentalist and journalist with a passion for community-based storytelling. Outside of journalism, he enjoys photography, baking, exploring the great outdoors and going on adventures. Somehow, storytelling creeps its way into everything he does.
Contact Nikolas at contactnktl ‘at’ gmail.com, or find him on Instagram and Twitter @nikolasliepins.
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