Brian Moore
Moderator
One of our objectives in our recent driving trip though Western Canada, Montana, Idaho (only the Panhandle) and Washington was to see the Grand Coulee Dam.
Sometimes when you visualize a thing in your mind's eye the reality is quite different, even when you've seen pictures of it. Stonehenge was like this for me. It seemed smaller than I had visualized. (Somewhat counterintuitively, however, it was more magnificent than I had imagined.) I had seen a few pictures of the Grand Coulee Dam and although I was generally aware of its significance and something of its history, the pictures I had seen failed to portray its grandeur. But I wanted to see it anyway. I am glad now that I did because it is grand!
Here is the "spillway." It facilitates the flow of water from the lake behind, thus regulating the lake's level and preventing flooding. (Though it's not perfect, because a big flood happened in 1948, necessitating a treaty between the US and Canada to build dams upstream in Canada to further regulate the flow of the Columbia.) As you can see the spillway was releasing water at the time we visited. I think we were lucky and fortunate to see this.
Here is a wider view of the Dam. I shot this image from the Grand Coulee Bridge, which is a little ways downstream and was built in 1933 to facilitate the movement of trucks and equipment to build the dam. According to display in the Dam's visitor center, there is enough concrete in the Dam to build a 4 foot wide walkway that would go around the Earth twice at the Equator.
Sometimes when you visualize a thing in your mind's eye the reality is quite different, even when you've seen pictures of it. Stonehenge was like this for me. It seemed smaller than I had visualized. (Somewhat counterintuitively, however, it was more magnificent than I had imagined.) I had seen a few pictures of the Grand Coulee Dam and although I was generally aware of its significance and something of its history, the pictures I had seen failed to portray its grandeur. But I wanted to see it anyway. I am glad now that I did because it is grand!
Here is the "spillway." It facilitates the flow of water from the lake behind, thus regulating the lake's level and preventing flooding. (Though it's not perfect, because a big flood happened in 1948, necessitating a treaty between the US and Canada to build dams upstream in Canada to further regulate the flow of the Columbia.) As you can see the spillway was releasing water at the time we visited. I think we were lucky and fortunate to see this.
Here is a wider view of the Dam. I shot this image from the Grand Coulee Bridge, which is a little ways downstream and was built in 1933 to facilitate the movement of trucks and equipment to build the dam. According to display in the Dam's visitor center, there is enough concrete in the Dam to build a 4 foot wide walkway that would go around the Earth twice at the Equator.
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