Please see the blog here Lake Powell Water Release
for background on flood. I was going to add the photos to the previous blog, but after being there for several hours today, decided they needed their own space!
The jet tubes are releasing 300,000 gallons of water a second. Yup, a second.
The first one is from a Glen Canyon Dam downstream viewpoint called "The Whitehouse" by the locals. Getting there is half the fun ~ it's a wee bit of a walk down steep rock steps, but beautiful. The image is HDR.
This picture was taken behind the Carl Hayden Visitors Center at Glen Canyon Dam looking @ 700 feet down to the bottom of the river. The workers are monitoring the flows. Each hollow jet tube is 15 feet in diameter.
Close up of the 15 foot hollow jet tubes ~ yes this is what 300,000 gallons of water a second looks like....
Lastly here is a panorama from this afternoon of the dam. The city of Page is on the right, the Glen Canyon Bridge is 700 feet above the river level, and 583 feet of the dam can be seen.
 |
|
|
Lake Powell Realtor specializing in Page and Greenehaven Arizona as well as in Utah, Big Water, Church Wells, Clark Bench and Paria. Property, homes or businesses - call me for Lake Powell Real Estate
ActiveRain Corp. is not responsible for the accuracy of the site's content (which is written by members of the ActiveRain Real Estate Network) and does not endorse the views of the real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and others listed here.
Powered by the ActiveRain Real Estate Network
© 2008 ActiveRain Corp. All Rights Reserved
Awesome photos. We used to fish in the canyon right below there - some monster Trout. There's about 14 miles till you hit the rapids so you put in downstream and motor up to the dam. Every night they shut the dam off (honest) and the water level sinks. If you beach your boat on the shore by your camp there'l be 15 feet of shore between your boat and the river in the morning. Great place. Thanks for the memories.
Gene ~ Yes, they used to flucutate the levels upwards of 15 feet a day. After enviromental studies showed that was one of the main causes of beach erosion, limits were placed on fluctuation which is now about 3 feet a day.
The bottom of Glen Canyon, before the rapids, is one of my favorite places on earth!
That's a lot of water...Great photo's.
Great photos. I was wondering what that must have looked like.
Awesome photos! Looks like you had a lot of fun.
Dorene ~ Standing on the bridge this afternoon I could feel the power of it. In floods gone past, 1996 and 2004, I was in the tour program at the dam so was able to see them up close, and very personal. Thanks for the comment on the photos. I am new to the whole SLR photography thing and am really enjoying it!
John ~ I may put together more photos and another HDR for my website, but I wanted to get these up before they start ramping down the water. It is only at full guns for 60 hours. It is truely a beautiful place to live and work. My oldest and I were marveling at it this afternoon. We do live in a National Geographic Magazine cover!
Glad to hear they're regulating that flow. Not only did it leads to erosion but it produced a lot of fish kill when fish would get stranded in little pools as the water receded. I still have a Lee's Ferry smile on my pontoon boat as a result of bashing into a boulder while drift fishing it. Beautiful spot. Did you take these photos? They are awesome. (think I said that before)
Gene - The flows have been regulated for as long as i've been involved with the dam, so sometime around 1996 maybe before. I used to know that LOL
Yes, I took the photos. I just purchased a Canon XT and have been playing with it some. One thing is, living here, there is just so much to play with. I mean, driving to the grocery store is a scenic adventure! I had looked at the XTI but for what I wanted to do, the XT seemed just fine. I don't care for point and shoot cameras all that much and the lack of control that goes along with them. I am still learning the digital SLR ins and outs. One cool thing is called "bracketing" which is what I used for the photo from "The Whitehouse". It produces the HDR images once processed. Really amazing stuff.
Did you ever do the walking tour at Lee's Ferry to the graveyard of the Johnson family? Haunting. I have company coming in April and July and plan on doing the Lee's Ferry walk. It is a hidden treasure of days gone by in a fast moving world. Hmm, now I am thinking I need to do a blog on Lee's.
Thank you so much for your input ~ it's great to talk about the places I love most!
Great photos. I saw this on the TODAY show the other day. Awesome to see still pictures.
Great photos. I have been to Lake Powell and Lake Mead and have always appreciated the "power" of the dams. Definitely makes me want to come back . . . Great photos - I love taking pictures as well!
I lived in Scottsdale for 12 years from 77 to 89 and we used to houseboat on Lake Powell and fish Lee's Ferry. I was the first guy to put a pontoon on Lee's Ferry. Rangers weren't certain it would work because the motor had a deeper draft than a regular fishing boat, which was a problem in the mornings before the level raised. I messed up more than one prop. Never took the walking tour but we'd be in the canyon for 4-5 days camping on the bank at night and drift fishing all day. Beautiful scenery but cold, cold water. You are fortunate to live in such a scenic area
Kim ~ Glad you like the pictures. It was really rather fun shooting them.
Sharon ~ I worked in the dam for seven years. The tour ends with you standing right over the top of a generator which was always my favorite part when it was on!
Gene ~ Well, I guess you are about a legend around here! The park service still talks about the first pontoon on the river! I sure heard about it when I was new. I've always worked in and around the Page area and driving the 17 miles there frequently takes my breath away. I am going to post a photo my son took this evening on the way home and I"ll let you know where it ends up.
I ended up putting the photo on my profile. It's called "the light". This phenomenon happens so often when a storm blows in, but having a camera in the car and ready seems to be the exception, not the rule. I think there is a lesson there........
Great shots!!!
Lindsey ~ Thanks. I've been traveling a lot, so not much time to take photos of my farm area. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I can start getting some more local shots up!
Are all of these HDR? Or just the first? What are you using to blend the images?
Thanks,
Reece
Hi Reece - Only the first one is HDR. I am using Photomatrix to do the HDR photos. I have one posted under Sedona and another one posted under the Travelingrainers group.
This week is kind of crazy, just got back from school and have a few music gigs so.. as soon as I find the missing few minutes there are more to post. I plan on making a section on my blog at Lake Powell Real Estate Blog just for HDR stuff, instructions, photos and the like. Maybe next month LOL
The water is really powerful and it looks like you could feel it in your body. Amazing.
Yes, you could really feel it, especially standing behind the Carl Hayden Visitor Center. I worked there for many years and the power held in the water stlll amazes me!
Incredible shots. I had seen this on the news but enjoyed your perspective also. The top shot is just a fabulous, breathtaking view. The pipes showing the force of the water - nothing short of amazing.
Thank you.
Trish ~ the Whitehouse is a pretty cool overlook for the dam - next time I head down there, maybe tomorrow as we have company, I'll shoot the actual overlook area, its beautiful in and of itself. By day two of the flood most of the media folks were gone so we had a better chance of getting some decent shots!
Heather-
Awesome photos, wow thats alot of water!
Heather, Awesome photos. Thanks so much for sharing them with us.
Bryant - Thanks for the compliment - am really just starting in photography and am finding HDR works really good for some things.
Bob - Thanks!
The water levels are going to be adjusted to do a "low steady" flow this fall so more measurements can be made of the effects of the spring flooding.
Heather-
I am pretty satisfied with my HDR work on Nature-Landscapes, it's the interiors I am still working to perfect. I did shoot and create an HDR image of the inside of St. John's Episcopal Church here in Hampton that turned out incredibly, stay tuned for an upcoming blog on the image.
Bryant - Look forward to you post on St.Johns. I've done some inside work with HDR but it is more difficult. I don't like to process a bunch in photoshop. I did the inside of a manufactured home not too long ago that had great wood cabinets and neat blue accents - turned out being the best inside HDR, so far, for me with very little after processing.
Heather-
I have found dark wood to be my nemesis in HDR, I am getting some very grainy weird results with darker wood. Any suggestions, hints you would care to share?