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Day 03 of 07. August 17, 2009


We started the morning of the day by heading out to Glen Canyon on Lake Powell, east of Kanab, more than 100 miles of driving. The landscape in the southern route on the Arizona side on highway 89 changed from rural country side to the high country by the Jacob lake area, and then came the desert for the rest of wide open road with rocky, giant mesa running along the freeway by the Glen Canyon country.

Glen Canyon country had a few interest points, yet we had just enough time for half of the day trip, enough to see the engineering marvels of Glen Canyon dam of its colossal scale of human work, opened 1966.
The tour of the dam was impressive. The dam generates an average of 451 megawatts, 6% of the total electricity generated in Arizona and 13% of that generated in Utah where most of Lake Powell resides. The Glen Canyon Dam is 710 feet (216 m) high. The concrete arch dam has a crest length of 1,560 feet (475 m) and contains 4,901,000 cubic yards (3,747,000 m³) of concrete. The dam is 25 feet (8 m) wide at the crest and 300 feet (91 m) wide at the maximum base. Its height above the Colorado River is 583 feet (178 m). it took 3 years, and 7 days per week to complete the construction.
Eight turbines were used to generate the hydroelectric power. The green area at the bottom of the dam in the images was 3 times of a football field, and being used as soccer filed occasionally; the dirt filled area with green grass on top had its purpose to dampen vibration of rushing water flow created by the eight large turbine engines.
Images were taken from the visitor center, high above the dam against the rocky ledge at the street level, and on top of the dam.


Return to the Southwest
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