by Jacqueline Kochak

I couldn’t wrap my hands around the twisted tree trunk tucked away in a corner at the West Point Lake Visitors Center. And I couldn’t contain my surprise when I found out this wasn’t a tree trunk. It was a kudzu vine, brought from Japan to the U.S. in the early 1800s for shade and to feed hungry livestock. Today, kudzu is synonymous with Southern living, but the out-of-control vine can grow several feet in a day, cloaking trees in a death shroud that shuts out the light and stops photosynthesis.

That’s just one thing I learned at the visitors center, located on the south end of West Point Lake just 45 miles north of downtown Columbus. In fact, “West Point Lake Visitors Center” is a whopping misnomer. Actually, this is a great little interactive museum designed to educate children about the flora, fauna and history of the Chattahoochee Valley region, making a day trip the perfect way to combine education with a day of outdoor fun.

Nearly every display in the center is designed with children in mind. First thing, the visitor is asked to figure out which Indian artifacts in a display case were used for the same purpose as some common everyday items, such as face powder, earrings and a cup. What child could resist the challenge? And what a perfect way to inspire interest in the other displays on Creek Indian life.

Children can also play the “wildflower game,” the “fishing game” or the “ranger card game” on a computer, match fruits and cones to the proper trees, and identify birds by their descriptions. In a sunny atrium at the back of the center, they can get up close and personal with the stuffed bobcat seemingly poised to prowl the room, study the climbing raccoon or the small gray fox, or pet the white-tail fawn. Suspended overhead are birds of prey, some with talons extended. Yikes!

Adults will find the history and nature exhibits engaging, but will also like the saga of flooding and dam construction on the river. The rain-swollen, roiling Chattahoochee periodically washed away bridges and deluged the town of West Point, but the final straw came in 1961. Four feet of water submerged downtown and “joyriders” in motorboats pulled water skiers through town; Congress authorized the dam’s construction by the U.S. Corps of Engineers the following year.

For those so inclined, West Point Lake offers 11 campgrounds for overnight stays.
The lake also offers 25 day-use parks offering a variety of recreation facilities, including
tennis courts, ballfields, basketball courts, fishing piers and boat-launching ramps as
well as picnic shelters. Four additional parks offer beaches, showers and playgrounds for kids.

A forested valley was inundated to build West Point Lake, and the trees and other
structures left standing provide an excellent fish habitat. Naturally, fishing for bass,
channel catfish, crappie and bream is the most popular activity on a dozen creeks and
more than 40 square miles of lake. A pond especially for pre-teens and disabled visitors
at Hardley Creek Park (check the map in the visitors center) makes West Point an especially family-friendly lake.

Jacqueline Kochak lives in Auburn and survived raising five rambunctious children. She is now writing a book called “Daytripping in East Central Alabama.”