An episode of the video series Nick on the Rocks, which explores the geology of Washington state, simulates what Dry Falls would have looked like when water was rushing over it during the Missoula Ice Age Floods.
Category Archives: Astounding Facts
Stuff you’d never guess.
The inside story today at the dam
If you’d like to glimpse the inside story of one aspect of the mission of Grand Coulee Dam, this is a good video.
The dam was originally conceived to provide irrigation to more than a million acres of potential farmland in the Columbia basin, but these days most people think of it as a huge electricity producer.
It is that, but this video, produced by the Bureau of Reclamation as a tool to help potential recruits, also provides a good overview of the basics with some spectacular footage. Watching it will help you appreciate what you see when you visit in person.
Grand Coulee Dam is the largest electrical production facility of any kind, in terms of capacity, in North America. But it doesn’t just happen magically. These folks make it happen. Watch:
Take a tour on a bridge
You can take a unique tour on the bridge across the Columbia River, simply by walking across it and reading several signs depicting history and geology.
The tour is self-guided and free.
It takes advantage of the four-foot-wide sidewalks along each side of the 950-foot span across the river to tell the story, on the upstream side of the bridge, of the building of the dam.
Cross over to the downstream side and you’ll find out just how the site was formed geologically. Its fascinating prehistory led to this being the perfect site to build the Grand Coulee Dam. (Hint: humans weren’t the first to make a dam here.)
Depending on how fast you read, walk and absorb the fantastic story, the tour could take from a half hour to an hour.
Or, if you just want a brisk walk in a unique location with an unobstructed view of the dam, this is a good one.
It’s an exciting walk for most people, and safe, but if you’re extremely queasy about heights, this could be a little too exciting.
The bridge itself rests on two monolithic piers that rest securely on bedrock, each 150 feet high. Approximately 300 tons of structural carbon and silicon steel makes up the cantilever truss bridge that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began to build in late 1934.
It was designed by the Washington Department of Highways for the Columbia Basin Commission to serve a dual purpose, according to documents on file with the Historic American Engineering Record. It would initially serve in the transport of heavy equipment during construction of the dam, then as a permanent highway bridge for State Route 155. That meant the bridge was built to a heavier specification than normally would have been used for a highway bridge.
But as construction of the bridge neared completion, the east pier tilted nine inches, probably because of a deposit of fine glacial material that lay beneath the 20 or 30 feet of gravel at the surface layer.
The incident delayed completion of the bridge for several months, while a 50-ton jack, cables and 72-foot deadman steel beams on the shore kept all in place until the foundation was secured through the construction of pneumatic caissons.
Our printed Visitors’ Guide is online too
Wish you hadn’t forgotten to hang on to that great little printed Visitor Guide before you left home (or the restaurant)?
You’re in luck; here it is:
Huge laser show projected on Grand Coulee Dam
The laser light show that explains the history of the area and the dam shows nightly through the season. It’s the largest outdoor show in North America and is something to see, newly updated in 2014.
What time does the laser light show begin?
The laser show is held nightly at Grand Coulee Dam as follows for 2015:
May 23 to July 31 at 10:00 p.m.
Aug. 1 to Aug. 31 at 9:30 p.m.
Sept. 1 to Sept. 30 at 8:30 p.m.
The show is about 28 minutes in length. There is no admission fee. Call 509-633-9265 for more information.
How long is the laser show?
The laser light show lasts approximately 28 minutes, during which time colorful images created by the lasers move back and forth across the huge surface of the dam.
Where can I view the show?
The best locations are the seating area at the Visitor Center and from the park below the Visitor Center. These areas provide an outdoor sound system.
The town of Coulee Dam has a park — terraced and grassy for viewing the laser show — adjacent to the east end of the Columbia River bridge.
Other viewing spots: from Douglas Park in Coulee Dam; from Crown Point atop the granite cliffs above Lake Rufus Woods, access from SR174 towards Bridgeport.
The USBR broadcasts the audio portion of the laser light show nightly at 90.1 FM.
What is a laser?
Lasers are intense beams of light commonly used in medicine and science, but they’ve also found a niche as a high-tech, fast-moving form of entertainment. They are controlled by computers which, at Grand Coulee Dam, are in the Visitor Center.
Although a single dot of light, lasers can trace an image so rapidly it appears as a solid figure to the human eye.
The term laser is actually an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It is so commonly used now that the tradition of using capital letters for an acronym has been dropped.
How are the lasers used at Grand Coulee Dam?
As one of the largest entertainment laser projection systems in the world, and certainly the largest outdoor laser show in North America, the lasers at Grand Coulee Dam tell the story of the Columbia River and how its power was harnessed to provide multiple benefits to mankind, including electrical power, irrigation for farming and exciting recreational opportunities. As a result of the open process of scripting the show new in 2014, viewers will also understand the costs of building the dam — cost to wildlife, and to native peoples whose way of life was dependent on that wildlife, in particular, the salmon that no longer could continue upstream to spawn.
How much did the lasers cost?
With the original equipment in use since 1989, the Bureau of Reclamation commissioned a new show and new equipment. The equipment began operation in May of 2013, but projecting the new show began in May, 2014. Lumalaser, of Oregon, bid the project at $1.6 million.
How big are the laser images?
Pictures are beamed at the awesome height of nearly 300 feet.
How far do the lasers project?
The laser lights are beamed between 2,000 and 4,000 feet to the surface of the dam.