Landing in Las Vegas last weekend, our first stop was to visit Hoover Dam before heading into the city of Sin. This bridge is brand new- only a few years old & is a bypass from Nevada to Arizona instead of driving over the actual dam on a two-lane road. We originally missed the turn-off for the Hoover dam & found ourselves driving across this cool structure and a few miles into Arizona.
On a cold, rainy Friday morning, there was plenty of parking at the new visitor’s center & I was a felt so far away from Vegas without my booze & guns. Although palm trees in the middle of a rocky desert canyon cracked me up, I guess they had to put some type of landscaping along the walk down.
No lines & we quickly forked over $30 each to get the full tour. By the elevators to go down into the hydro-electric areas, we had a great view of the sheer size of the dam.
This thing was MASSIVE! The tour guide made sure to point out these itty-bitty tiny ventilation shafts we could see on the face…we’d be in them shortly.
Our first stop was an observation room above one of the bypass tunnels. These diversions tunnels regulate the flow of water from Lake Mead down into the Colorado River and are something like 30+ feet in diameter. We could hear the rumbling of the water flowing & also checked out a very cool graphic showing the layout of the dam and hydroelectric plant.
Next stop was the electricity room! All the turbines and generators powered by the flow of the mighty Colorado river to create tons of electricity.
Although some of the power goes to local area, the main purpose of the dam is to control flooding not generate electricity.
This room is enormous! Full of 1950′s equipment, gigantic cranes on tracks and some really beautiful decorative details.
All the preceeding areas had actually been “oustide” of the dam itself, but our tour continued as we walked into the dam- down small, dark hallways and past prison-cell gates. There is some great art history in here about how many states and groups contributed to design elements all around.
Next we came to a small tunnel, where we had to duck down to walk to the end of the ventilation shaft where we had great views.
A few more highly choreographed stops on the tour, including the never-ending stairs that went all the way from top to bottom. Apparently, the tours were much more extensive before 9/11, but Homeland security had severely restricted where the tours could go- only recently even letting them show the ventilation shafts again.
An elevator ride back to the top & we walked along the sidewalks far above the Colorado River below. I was really impressed with the whole dam- such an incredible engineering feat & given that they did it during the 1930′s with so little technology & so many people/resources is astounding.
Although I had my 10 mm wide angle lens, it wasn’t even close to capturing all of the vast expanses of the dam as it wrapped between the walls of the canyon. I couldn’t believe that they still let people close enough to the edge to peer over & there was no safety glass or security bars in place to ‘protect’ visitors.
This stop was very cool & one of the top things to see on our Vegas trip. I have vague memories of writing a social studies report on the Hoover Dam in junior high school, so it was neat to finally see the place and appreciate it’s sheer size.
Behind the dam is Lake Mead- itself a very beautiful & popular attraction. The 4 intake towers where water is collected for the turbines tower as massive structures over the water below.
We learned some really neat facts & history on the tour, including that the spillways have only ever been used twice- once when they were initially filling the lake & once after record snowfalls/fast summer that caused crazy amounts of water to run in the Colorado River. If you are ever out in Vegas, this is a very cool & quick side trip to an incredible piece of American history & ingenuity.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Going to do more tourist stuff in Philly today after going for a brisk morning run.
