Arizona, Page - Wednesday, April 20, 2016 - Glen Canyon Dam

Yesterday as we were out walking I got kind of a nice shot of the motor coach with the mountains in the background.

Another shot of some of the local scenery.

Our trip to the grocery today was made special with a stop at the Glen Canyon Dam.  When you can see things like this on the way to the grocery, life is good.

The Carl Hayden Visitor Center gives a lot of information about the dam and the bridge.  We were both amazed at the similarity of the Glen Canyon Dam to the Hoover Dam that is on down the river.  The Hoover Dam gets so much publicity while this one is little known (at least to us).  The visitor center here looks like it was made especially for photographers to get great shots of the dam and bridge.

There was some heavy duty mountain moving done just to accommodate the parking lot.

These tracks from a one-ton, twenty foot long Dilophosaurus were found in a slab of limestone that came from a nearby canyon.

This dam at 710 feet high is just 16 feet shorter than the Hoover Dam.  The thickness of the concrete at the base is 350 feet.  The first 24 ton bucket of concrete was poured in June of 1960.

Lake Powell began filling March 13, 1963 - it was fully filled 17 years later on June 27, 1980.  Currently Lake Powell is at about 45% of its capacity.  The last time it was full was in 1999, the drought conditions for the past 17 years have greatly diminished the capacity.

The bridge over the Colorado River just beyond the dam was actually completed prior to the dam construction.  When I look at structures like this bridge and dam I can’t help but think about what the discussion must have been years ago right before construction began, “Ok, guys here is the plan”.  I wish the shadows weren’t in my pictures of the bridge because they take away from the magnificence of the way the bridge is anchored to the sandstone.

This tunnel is for vehicles that service the power station at the base of the dam.  Not sure where it goes but I do know that there is a lot of mountain on top of it – not something I want to explore.