Glen Canyon Dam

May 30, 2011

After a 2 hour trip from Zion, we arrived at the Glen Canyon Dam about 12:40 Arizona time. We had a snack and decided to try to get on one of the tours of the dam. Standing on the dam certainly made you feel small. We are looking down at tour boats which are used on the Colorado River below the dam.

This bridge has an interesting history because it had to be built before it was practical to construct the dam. One of the interesting details was that Page as a town did not exist when the dam project began. The town dates to 1957 when the project was initiated. The two ends of the dam were to be on opposite sides of Marble Canyon, and the only way to get from one end to the other was a 200 mile dirt road. So they built the bridge to make possible the logistics of building the dam. Part of the material to make the cement was taken from one side of the canyon and part from the other. The project was completed in 1963, so it was underway when we crossed the Marble Canyon Bridge in 1960.

While waiting for our tour to start, we wandered around the nice Visitor Center. They had a very impressive dinosaur skeleton, found not too far from here. There was an acquarium with the kinds of fish that are native to the area.

We headed down a tunnel into the massive concrete structure.

We got to see the massive turbine room. One of the turbines is being replaced with a new stainless steel turbine. The size of it can be scaled to our guide who is showing us one of the old turbines above while we were up on top of the dam. The scale of the generator to the dam structure is on the graphic above.

When we emerged out on top of the dam again, we again got this feeling of smallness as we watched rafters far below us on the river.

After the tour, Jordan and Elyse work on the last steps of their Junior Ranger material.

Mom helps Elyse fill out the forms for the Ranger on duty.

Jordan and Elyse sign in on the Ranger's log book.

Jordan and Elyse are sworn in as Junior Rangers.

The swearing in as Junior Rangers completes the process Jordan and Elyse have been involed in through all the National Parks we have visited. They got a badge for their hats and the certificate.

By now it was 1:45 and our snack had worn off , so we drove across the high bridge and over to Page to the big Safeway store and got supplies and sandwiches and had lunch there.

This is our view of Lake Powell as we left Page, Arizona for our trip down toward Flagstaff.

It was interesting that when we got to this point, we could barely see the bridge, barely see Lake Powell, and couldn't see the dam at all.