After our tour of Antelope Canyon, we got a bite to eat for lunch and then headed over to the Glen Canyon Dam to check it out. You start out at the Carl Hayden Visitor Center. We read up on the history of the building of the dam, signed up for the 2:30 tour, and looked through the Gift Shop. Cost for the tour was $5 per person which we didn't think was outlandish.
Some dam facts: Construction started in 1956 and began producing power in 1966. The lake has been filled to capacity only twice since being completed. The dam has three functions: water storage, power generation, and recreation. Length is 665 feet, width is 150 feet, and height is 100 feet.
What we thought was green scum when looking down from the bridge or dam (in the bottom of the picture above) turned out to be lawn. There are some pipes in the ground (don't remember what they do) that were surrounded with sand. When the wind blew, guess what happened to the sand. It wasn't too long before Bermuda Grass was planted to keep the sand from blowing away.
There is always continual maintenance on the turbines. The one that is being worked on now will be completed some time next year.
View of the Glen Canyon Bridge. When the dam was under construction, this bridge was originally a suspension footbridge with see through plating and a cable that ran on both sides as handholds. Yikes, I couldn't/wouldn't have crossed that for anything. Thankfully, this bridge was constructed once the dam was completed. I did walk the length of both sides and even looked over the edge down to the river. With no way to fall over or jump, my fear of heights/falling didn't kick in.
It's not hard to imagine that dinosaur fossils can be found in and around the area. The tracks below came from a one ton, twenty foot long, meat eating dinosaur. The chunk of sandstone came from a nearby canyon. Talk about big feet.
John liked this replica of a pterodactyl (?). Could it be because it was made out of sheet metal? I thought it was rather cool myself.
