We stopped in the parking lot above the dam to get a view from above. This is a shot of the road as it switches back and forth on 3 levels in order to get down to the dam.
Look at all that traffic! It was basically bumper to bumper, and moving at about 3 mph, tops. That's mostly because cars have to stop numerous times while crossing the dam itself to let pedestrians cross the road. I'll put up a picture of this later on the page.
Hoover Dam is built in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River. The river here forms the state lines for Arizona and Nevada. The canyon is rock, all rock, and nothing but rock. On the way down the switchbacks, we saw that some spots of included rock seemed to be turning green where they were exposed to the elements. Dean figures it must be high copper content oxidizing.
The green isn't nearly as vivid in this picture as it was in person, but you can still pick out the green rocks.
We parked in the lot at the top of the last switchback. It's free to park here, but be warned that the walk to the dam is a long distance from here. And there are upmteen gazillion stairs--stairs that aren't so bad going down, but you DO have to get back up them, too.
Anyway, this is the view of the back of the dam from there.
Those are the 4 intake towers where the water enters the dam. That great art deco styling.
It was windy in that parking lot.
Very windy.
On the walk down to the dam there's a finger of Lake Mead (named for Elwood Mead who oversaw the construction) that reaches toward the spillways. We could see fish in the water.
Can you see them? They're the straight black shapes a little ways from the shore.
Hoover Dam was built to produce electricity. Here's a shot down the front of the dam to the powerhouse at the base.
That's hundreds of feet down. The dam itself is 724 feet high. The powerhouse is 154 feet tall, so that's 570 feet looking down the face of Hoover. Think two football fields.
This is a shot of Black Canyon itself.
You can still see the powerhouse below, but you can also see the base of the huge towers that carry electricity out of the canyon.
And in this picture you can see the whole tower and the top of the canyon. You can also see the eastern side of the bridge that's being built as part of the Hoover Dam Bypass. Since it's not safe to let traffic flow freely across Hoover Dam, the bypass is being built just downstream. Here's the western side.
That's going to be one tall bridge. I wonder how much it'll shake when big trucks go across. (Just in case you've never had the chance to sit on a high bridge when the wind blows hard or when big trucks rumble across, bridges sway and shake. You should try it sometime--it's an eye-opening experience.)
These are the "Winged Figures of the Republic" by Oskar J. W. Hansen. They are part of a dedication monument on the Nevada side of the dam.
This is how the base reads:
Although the official name of this feat of engineering is (and always has been) Hoover Dam, when it was dedicated it was named Boulder Dam, and some people still refer to it that way.
The convoluted reason for this is that the dam was first slated to be built in Boulder Canyon. The project was moved to Black Canyon due to containment issues, but the project was still referred to as the Boulder Dam Project. Added to that was the fact that President Hoover lost his bid for reelection to Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt's new Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, immediately issued a memorandum that the new dam was to be referred to as Boulder Dam. Slowly but surely all references to Hoover Dam disappeared from official documents, even though a Congressional Act in 1931 had already established the name as Hoover Dam. And so, when the dam was dedicated in 1935 (finished 2 years ahead of schedule), it was dedicated with the wrong name. The name Hoover Dam was not restored until 1947. Herbert Hoover wasn't even invited to the dedication ceremony. (It's amazing what politicians will do to each other, isn't it?)
This plaque sits in the exact middle of the dam. So it's half in Nevada, and half in Arizona. You can see Lake Mead behind the plaque. The high water mark is the line where it looks like the rocks have been painted white. That's actually mineral deposits.
Here are a couple of more shots that show the architecture of the time.
This was one of the booths where tickets for interior dam tours could be purchased in days past. There's a new visitor's center now, so these aren't used. Almost everything here is made of brass, though. A sign of the times.
When it was time to go, we had to make the trek back to the parking lot.
That's it up on the hill just behind the bus, where you see the group of street lights. My right hip/thigh was screaming at me after spending all day Saturday climbing around on rocks at the Grand Canyon, and I wasn't at all sure I would make it up those stairs.
So my gallant husband offered to go get the car and pick me up on the way across the dam. Here he is on the way. I'm zoomed all the way in to get even this shot. Here's the same scene without the zoom.
That's a L-O-N-G way. Dean's about a third of the way along the walk at the top of that white wall. And he didn't want me to have to wait long, so......
....he RAN up all those steps. (Lovely man!)
I entertained myself while I waited by shooting the traffic/pedestrian mix. Those cars are only a couple of feet away, and there's no wall along the Dam to separate people from cars. You can see the crosswalk painted on the road. There are numerous of those all along the Dam. And the expectation is that if a pedestrian turns toward the road at a crosswalk, as if to cross, the cars are to stop for them. Mind, this is an unwritten rule (at least I didn't see it posted anywhere), but everyone seems to understand. Hence the slow progress of traffic.
Here's Dean in Rudy (the car) approaching where I'm waiting. It only took me about 5 seconds to get in.
Ahhhhhh. My aching legs could finally utter a sigh of relief.
Look how close the sidewalk and the road are. Amazing. More of that personal responsibility attitude. And it must work. How often do you hear of a pedestrian being hit on Hoover Dam?
This is just a shot I wanted to show the wild flowers growing on the sides of the canyon. Like I said, they'll grown anywhere they can get a toehold, even on sheer rock.
And, finally, here's the sculpture dedicated to the high-scalers. Before construction began on the dam itself it was necessary to remove loose rock from the canyon walls. The men who removed this rock were called high-scalers. While suspended from the top of the canyon with ropes high-scalers climbed down the canyon walls and removed the loose rock with jackhammers and dynamite. This is the last shot we got on the way to Las Vegas.
We actually stopped at Hoover on the way back from Vegas and took a few more shots. I'll drop those into a post tomorrow, when I can find them. We took 139 pictures on Thursday, 78 pictures on Friday, 266 shots at the Grand Canyon, 90 at Hoover the first time, 359 in Vegas, I lost count yesterday, and 500 some odd today. I seriously need to get them a little organized. But digital is great. I can't even imagine how much film and developing would be for that many shots.
Talk to you tomorrow!
1 comment:
Thanks so much for this ...very interesting...&I didn't have to walk it!
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