Here are pictures of the Hoover / Lake Mead Dam that I took in March
2001. Click on each picture for the high resolution view. What an
impressive structure. I took the Hoover Dam tour, which lasted about 30
minutes. We went down over 500 feet below the top of the dam and looked at
the structure, the powerhouse, and the bypass tubes. The generators rotate at
180 RPM, yet each one produces enough electricity to light up a city of 1.5
million people.
Fish near the spillover tubes
Lots of fish!
The spillover tube (one of two)
The intake towers
The intake towers are the biggest maintenance nightmare of the dam, according to
the guide due to the inherent problems with the web concrete and their 400 foot
depth.
One side of the generators in the Nevada powerhouse
The dam from the powerhouse level
Lots of moisture in the wall
Brian Bas and Mark standing on top of the tour area
The powerhouse opposite of the Nevada side
Down the river on the lower side of the dam
The transmission towers are awesome. They are all at something like a 45
degree angle to the ground in order to get the wires up and over the top of the
area. It cut down the number of towers by 1/2.
