On the way to the park, I ran across a little town called Newhalem that produced electricity for the dams (Gorge, Diablo, and Ross) that I would be passing at North Cascades. And guess what I saw there? This is Old Number Six - a 1928 Baldwin steam locomotive that used to take people to and from these dams.
These dams make up the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project. This is a switchyard, where you can feel the static electricity in the air and hear the humming and buzzing. It didn't make me all that comfy being by it in the rain. In the switchyard, transformers boost the voltage from the powerhouse to Seattle. Electricity flows through wires (like water in a pipe), the electrical current is like water flow, and voltage is like the water pressure. Transformers increase the voltage and decrease amps (the flow) in order to minimize power loss as it travels over long distances. When it gets to Seattle, the 230,000 volts are reduced to 26,000 at the substation, and then further reduced to the 120 volts we are used to seeing in our homes and businesses.
This first dam is the Gorge. The dam is 380 feet tall and 670 feet long. The dam itself is 2.7 miles upstream from here. This is the powerhouse, which has been producing electricity since 1924. The water behind the dam arrives at the powerhouse via a 20.5 ft "power tunnel" cut in the mountains. The river just above the Gorge powerhouse has very little water in it because the water flows through the tunnel instead. When there is more water than can go through the 4 turbines, the excess water is spilled through the dam. The reason the tunnel is needed is because the natural flow of water through the river doesn't have enough pressure anywhere to produce power by rotating the turbines. As a result of the tunnel, the water rushing out from beneath the powerhouse just produced up to 175 megawatts of power - enough to light 1,175,000 100 watt lightbulbs!
This is a little wooden suspension bridge I had to cross, which took me on a hike to the Ladder Creek Falls and powerhouse gardens.
And this bridge was built in 1935 for vehicles going to the powerhouse, replacing the old railroad bridge.
It is off season now, but in the summer time when there are a lot of tourists, they light up the falls and gardens with all different colors. This started in 1930 as the superintendent of lighting had a fascination with artistic lighting. Music also drifts through the gardens in the summer time (the gardens and water were empty this time of year). This is what it would look like.
This is part of the garden.
Here is the Gorge Dam.
There were small waterfalls in the cliffs off the side of the road all the way down highway 20 through the park.
This is Gorge Creek Falls.
By the Gorge Creek Falls was a trail leading to another overlook of the Gorge Dam, though it wasn't a very good view! I did learn more about the dams though... By altering the water temperatures and O2 levels, the dam affects fish and other wildlife that depend on them.
North Cascades Nat'l Park does not have an entrance gate. It is primarily what you see along the road, and there are some hikes as well. Glacier and snowfields in the High Cascades spawn these creeks and waterfalls. Because of the dense fog, it was difficult to see and enjoy the view of the High Cascades.
This is a view looking straight down Gorge Creek. The pictures were taken between the cracks in the bridge I was on. :-)
And a nearby waterfall.
Diablo Dam was the next area I drove through. This is Diablo Lake. With the fog, I did not want to go on a hike to see the dam, but it's not far from here. The Diablo Dam was built in 1929 and is 389 feet high.
The Ross Dam was near here as well, but not visible from the road due to the fog (the road climbed into the cloud). The Ross Dam is 540 feet high, which is one of the world's highest arch dams. If there wasn't so much fog, there would have been some nice overlooks from here as well.
As I continued along highway 20, the road climbed into the snow.
The cold temperature and low clouds made the road very slippery even though there weren't snowflakes.
The Washington Pass Overlook wasn't even plowed yet. I was way too early in the season! And with the clouds and fog, I missed a lot. I may need to go through this park some other time, though it was still pretty neat to see the mountains playing peek-a-boo with the clouds.
I left the park and stayed on Hwy 20. My directions said to go to 153 and then 97 N. Well... I came to a sign that said turn left for 97 N and turn right for 153. Huh? Had I taken the time to look at my map I would have seen that 153 was a short cut and I'd later connect with 97. Instead, I had just passed a group of cars and made the decision to go on 97 N. This took me over a long mountain pass and about 20 miles out of the way. I realized the mistake right away, but by then I'd be behind a line of cars that I worked so hard to pass, so I stayed on the other road and enjoyed the drive up the twisty road through the forest, and then headed south on 97 when I got there.
My first stop was the Chief Joseph Dam, which was under construction.
From this map of the Columbia River, you can see it's not far from the Grand Cooley Dam, which is the next stop.
It's hard to believe that yesterday I was in a rain forest and this morning I was in fog and snow. At this point, the sky turned blue with just a sprinkling of clouds and the green scenery went back to desert.
This is the Grand Cooley Dam, the world's largest concrete structure. It was built in 1941 and was supported by President Franklin Roosevelt as it put people to work during the great depression. The dam would also produce large amounts of electricity and supply water to irrigate over a million acres of new farmland.
Thousands of workers spent 8 years building the dam. They mined sand and gravel, polished bedrock for the foundation and froze hillsides to prevent slides. Millions of yards of concrete were poured and generators were installed to produce electricity.
The dam was completed just as the US entered WWII and the electricity was able to power critical wartime industries. Irrigation began in the early 1950s, when water was pumped through huge tubes from Roosevelt Lake (behind the dam) to Banks Lake.
From there, I took Hwy 155 to Dry Falls. This scenic road went alongside the Devil's Punch Bowl and Bank's Lake.
It is a beautiful road to drive. Curvy, but still fast, with changing scenery around every curve. The cliffs were unpredictable along the road, and just as beautiful across the water.
This brought me to the world's greatest waterfall (without water). :-) This cliff was once the world's greatest waterfall. With the end of the last Ice Age, flood waters no longer swept through Grand Coolee, leaving the waterfall dry. It was 3 1/2 miles long and 350 feet high, and would have dwarfed Niagara Falls.
The story behind Dry Falls... During the Ice Age, there were more than just squirrels looking for acorns. ;-) Glaciers to the north blocked the Columbia River and forced it to find a new route. The river, swollen from melting glacial ice, began to carve a new channel here.
A river in Idaho found no way around its ice dam. The river filled its valley with a huge lake that flooded a large chunk of Montana, until the ice dam broke. With a flow up to 10 times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world, this huge lake emptied across Idaho and onto eastern Washington. A lot of the water rushed through the new channel opened by the Columbia River. The new turbulent water enlarged the channel and created huge waterfalls. Eastern WA was hit by many such floods, each lasting a couple of weeks.
When the last flood subsided, large areas of eastern WA were left scarred with large dry channels called "coulees". This one, the Grand Coolee, is the largest. Cutting across the coulee is Dry Falls.
This is what it might have looked like 13,000 years ago.
I made it to Spokane with plenty of time, so I spent a half hour washing my beautiful car. Now she's all ready to meet her friend - Tungsten GT. :-)
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