Dam, That's Big!
North Cascades Travelog #16
Coulee Dam, WA - Tue, 5 Sep 2023, 10am.
Today we're headed back to GEG airport in Spokane to fly home. Our 4 day trip to eastern Washington and the North Cascades is almost over. Almost over is not the same as over-over, though. There's still stuff left to do and time to do it! We stopped in Coulee Dam, Washington, to see the Grand Coulee Dam.
The Grand Coulee Dam is the largest dam and largest hydroelectric generation plant in North America. The photo above shows a view from outside the visitors center. The scale of this behemoth can be hard to discern from pictures. The dam is 5,223 feet wide- nearly one mile across. It's 550 feet tall. People often marvel at the Hoover Dam east of Las Vegas... the Hoover Dam is about 32% taller (726 feet vs. 550) but, at 1,244' across, less than one-quarter as wide. The Grand Coulee contains 11,975,521 cubic yards of concrete, more than 3.5x the volume of the Hoover Dam, and the collective 6,809 megawatts its hydroelectric generators can produce is more than 3x the Hoover Dam's output.
Just to put that 550' height figure in perspective.... If the Washington Monument had its base at the river level at the foot of the dam, only the tip would peek over the bridge at the top of the dam, by five feet. The Statue of Liberty's torch (the highest part of the monument) would come just over halfway up the dam, even including the 151' tall pedestal the statue stands on. This dam is big.
Big Nuts, Big Tools
When you've got a size queen like this dam you're going to need big nuts and big tools.
"Everything's bigger at Grand Coulee," this sign at the visitors center explains.
Coulee Dam, WA - Tue, 5 Sep 2023, 10am.
Today we're headed back to GEG airport in Spokane to fly home. Our 4 day trip to eastern Washington and the North Cascades is almost over. Almost over is not the same as over-over, though. There's still stuff left to do and time to do it! We stopped in Coulee Dam, Washington, to see the Grand Coulee Dam.
The Grand Coulee Dam is the largest dam and largest hydroelectric generation plant in North America. The photo above shows a view from outside the visitors center. The scale of this behemoth can be hard to discern from pictures. The dam is 5,223 feet wide- nearly one mile across. It's 550 feet tall. People often marvel at the Hoover Dam east of Las Vegas... the Hoover Dam is about 32% taller (726 feet vs. 550) but, at 1,244' across, less than one-quarter as wide. The Grand Coulee contains 11,975,521 cubic yards of concrete, more than 3.5x the volume of the Hoover Dam, and the collective 6,809 megawatts its hydroelectric generators can produce is more than 3x the Hoover Dam's output.
Just to put that 550' height figure in perspective.... If the Washington Monument had its base at the river level at the foot of the dam, only the tip would peek over the bridge at the top of the dam, by five feet. The Statue of Liberty's torch (the highest part of the monument) would come just over halfway up the dam, even including the 151' tall pedestal the statue stands on. This dam is big.
Big Nuts, Big Tools
When you've got a size queen like this dam you're going to need big nuts and big tools.
"Everything's bigger at Grand Coulee," this sign at the visitors center explains.