On Saturday
I suggested we get up early and take a tour of the Glen Canyon Dam. The tour is $4 for seniors and lasts about 45
minutes. We had about a twenty minute
wait so we enjoyed some views from the visitor’s center patio.
See where
those people are down below? That is where
we will be in a few minutes. Silly me, I
never thought about how they got down there.
In a few minutes I found out. The
whole tour group, in this case 16 people gets on one elevator and goes down
through the rock of the nearby mountain 100+ feet. My claustrophobia and I were glad the tour
guide kept talking on the way down so I could concentrate on what she was
saying instead of the fact that we were in a very enclosed space and couldn’t
get out if it got stuck.
Some of the
original equipment used to build the dam was on display on top of the dam. This concrete bucket holds 24 tons about 1
and ½ truckloads. The first bucket of
concrete was poured on June 17, 1960.
The pouring of concrete went on around the clock uninterrupted until
400,000 loads later in September of 1963 the last bucket was poured. Our tour guide informed us that Glen Canyon
Dam has “concrete quantity bragging rights” over Hoover Dam which is just down
the river. Hoover Dam may be about 16
feet higher but Glen Canyon has more concrete.
There are 8
turbines that generate power from the water flowing through the dam. This original turbine installed on October
13, 1965 was retired on July 7, 2008.
The current turbines are made of stainless steel.
These
reinforcing rods were installed in the sides of the canyon to stabilize the
Indian sandstone walls which are basically petrified sand dunes.
You can see
the faces of the reinforcing rods all along the walls. There is one guy who rappels down the face of
the mountain to install them. I
understand he is the highest paid employee.
You get a
great view of Lake Powell from here.
Right now the lake is down to less than 50% of its capacity. See the white strip above the lake? They call it the Lake Powell “bathtub
ring”. That shows where the water level
has been in past years.
The
visitor’s center is pretty amazing from here too.
See that
green at the bottom? I’ve been thinking
that it was algae and that they should probably do something to clean it up. I found out differently later.
I was trying
to get my wildlife picture of the day.
This little lizard would only stand still for a few seconds. Every time it stood still this little lady
gave it a little shove to start moving again.
So, for $4 I
thought we were good with walking around on top of the dam and listening to the
very informative tour guide. Then she
tells us we will be going into this building up ahead to view the works of the
dam which are 500+ feet down through the solid concrete walls of the dam. Actually, I could have turned around at any
time. But, at this point we were being
escorted by two armed security guards, so how much can go wrong? I am glad I finished the tour.
The hallway
down below was originally installed in the 60’s with tour groups in mind and it
hasn’t been changed since then.
That green
that I that was algae is really grass.
The water comes through the dam to the generator through eight tubes
called penstocks which are 15 feet in diameter.
This much water rushing through causes a lot of vibration. The solution to the vibration was to pack
tons of dirt around the penstocks and then cover the dirt with grass.
The
generators which produce the electricity.
Great tour and our tour guide, Page, was really informative..
On to
Wahweap. The last time we were in the
area we stayed at the RV Park at Wahweap.
They were full this year.
Scenery on
the way.
The number
of boats on the water is surprising, in all the days we have spent here
previously we have never seen this many.
No wonder we couldn’t get an RV site.
As we watched, Greg said it looks like they are doing some kind of
race. Lots of really fast speed boats.
More scenery
in the area.
The marina
hotel is where we are going for lunch.
We are
making one last stop today at the dam overlook heading back toward town.
Scenery in
the area.
There is a
trail down but we thought we were safer staying on top.
One last
picture on the way home. It’s getting
warm out here, time for some air conditioning.
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