On the 26th, we hung out at the park and did some things around the motorhome. On the 27th, we decided to check out the Columbia River area and the dam.
The Columbia River Bridge:
The Dam:
There were some dirt roads and railroad tracks along the river:
Boat launch area:
We left the north side of the river and went to the visitor center on the south side. There was a lot of information on the dam and its history.
“The dam is 7,365 feet long, rising approximately 183 feet above the streambed. It consists of a concrete structure with an earthfill embankment at the Oregon (south) abutment. The spillway is a concrete, gravity-type spillway dam. It is 1,310 feet long, and contains 22 vertical lift gates, each 50 feet by 51 feet. The crest is at elevation 291 feet mean sea level and is designed to pass a flood of 2,200,000 cubic feet per second.
There are two fish ladders for salmon and steelhead passage, one on each shore of the dam. The Washington side also has an 86-foot (26 m) wide, 683 foot (208 m) long navigation lock that lifts boats an average of 75 feet (23 m). The dam flooded the Umatilla Rapids, forming a reservoir called Lake Wallula. The lake extends 64 miles (103 km) up the Columbia to the US DOE Hanford Site. It also extends up the Snake River to the Ice Harbor Dam.
As with some other dams, it has two additional turbines whose purpose is to power the dam itself. That is, this dam is entirely self-sustaining. In the event of a large-scale grid outage, McNary would provide the black start capability necessary to restart other generation facilities. These two "station service" turbines are only capable of providing about three MW, compared to the 70 MW each of the other 14 turbines. These two turbines alternate service duty to provide the dam with its energy requirements.
McNary Dam is part of the Columbia River Basin system of dams.”
There was also a lot of information on the salmon runs:
This is the separator. During migration to the ocean the salmon are separated by size and species, reducing the possibility of stress and injury to the smaller fish. As they move over the openings in the separator, the smaller fish swim thru the wider slots and are guided into holding tanks until they are transported downstream.
The larger fish are guided thru this tube:
That empties back into the Columbia River. There are two tubes. In the center of the picture below is one of them and further downstream is another.
Explanation of where everything is located.
From there we went to the fish viewing area. These fish are heading upstream. Even though it is not time for the salmon run, we did see a few. There is also a fish counter here that counts the fish as they pass thru the ladders.
It was very interesting and I am glad we stopped.
Lake Wallula:
We continued our tour and found Hat Rock:
“Hat Rock is a natural monolith of basalt carved by floods from glaciers melting over ten thousand years ago. Hat Rock was the first distinctive landmark passed by the Lewis and Clark Expedition on their journey down the Columbia, and is one of the few remaining sites not underwater. Lewis and Clark saw this monument on their expedition, and noted that it had a strong resemblance to a man’s hat. Imagine seeing this otherworldly boulder in the middle of a field of rolling hills in a vast, unexplored territory — the members of the expedition must have felt like they were on a different planet!”
More information can be found here:
https://www.nps.gov/places/hat-rock.htm
https://lewisandclark.travel/nomination/hat-rock-state-park/
What a nice day and tour!
Tomorrow we head northwest so stay tuned and enjoy today.
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