Today we drove the 35+ miles over to Flaming Gorge Dam. The dam was built between 1958 and 1964, and it took twelve years to fill up. Unlike many other western dams, this dam retains most of their water from year to year…seeing a 10-12 foot drop in off years from fall readings year to year. This year is a record year. See that water shooting out in the bottom right of the picture above? That water is going full bore, has been since March…where as normal years it only shoots out for 4-6 weeks.
The dam is just over 500 feet in height, is just under 1,300 feet in length, and has a capacity of 3,788,700 acre feet of water….it is currently at 86% capacity. Carrie said that it raised nearly 15 feet in the past two weeks due to snow runoff.
They are currently releasing 6,600 cubic feet per second. The water is shooting out of those release tubes at over 100 mph. It is so “white” because they aerate the water so that it will spray down into the green river away from the man-made ponds needed to run the electric generators. Carrie said the water is about 50 feet deep between where I was taking pictures, and where the water is shooting out. Remember, the water is released like this for only a short period of time through the year…this year is much longer, one would normally not see this in a normal June time period.
There are three generators that combined produce over 150,000 kilowatt of electricity, enough to supply power for around 100,000 people…that’s homes, offices, restaurants, etc.
Before you get to the dam, you pass over the Cart Creek Bridge, pictured from both the west side (left) and the east side (right).
Back to the motorhome, after being gone for nearly 4 hours, we had two very happy puppy dogs. It was near 80 degrees, so we turned on the A/C for a few hours. It is amazing that here in the dry heat that the A/C will run off and on, but very little water runs off the sides of the motorhome from the A/C units…and some that does dries before it hits the ground. Had a visit from four of our Pronghorn friends…saw about eight different ones today between the entrance to the park to within the park itself. They run away from any people, and are very weary of the dogs, of bicyclist, and especially automobiles. Saw a lady a few slots to our north who tossed some sort of food their way…they ran. I felt like telling her that we are not suppose to feed the wildlife…but why argue with stupid…she knew better and did it anyways.
We arrived at Flaming Gorge on Wednesday, if you missed it, read about that and see pictures of Red Canyon here. Friday will be a “stay around the motorhome” day, although I will probably go and get the car cleaned up for our visit with my daughter in Salt Lake on Monday and Tuesday. Saturday we plan to do the scenic drive, and on Sunday we head for Lake Jordanelle.
Just WOW!! Another one for my must see list.
ReplyDeleteThe RV Park we are at is very large rig friendly...with the back-in sites being wide enough for Motorhome and Car with lots of room to spare, and the pull through long enough for motorhome and car and a boat in some cases. Also, the route through Salt Lake City to here along I-80 is very easy...don't know if you would like the inclines the way we came, but it is doable.
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