Immensity of Glen Canyon/Lake Powel

[RobertN]

I have read a few web sites recently about Glen Canyon and Lake Powel. I have never been there, but have heard of it, and seen some pictures. The size of it never sunk in until I saw some numbers on a web site today.

Lake Powel, if full would be 27 million acre feet, with over 2000 miles of shoreline. The shoreline would be longer than the west coast of the US.

Having travelled past Lake Shasta, I thought it was a big resivor. I live near Folsom Lake, which has capacity of 1 million acre feet, and about 175 miles of shoreline. Lake Oroville is 2.5 million acre feet, and Shasta is 4.5 million acre feet.

Lake Powell simply dwarfs them. One site said it took 17 years before it actually filled, although it is only about 33% now. There seems to be a lot of politics surrounding the dam and lake these days. Aside from that, the sheer numbers for the size just amaze me.

 

[_RaT_]

Robert, I have been there numerous times. The dam is awesome. The lake is large but that is a bit difficult to comprehend from land. Some of the issues with Powell are the rate of evaporation which is huge in this very dry climate on a lake whoose depth is not always so great but the surface is large. The other is the sandstone it rests on. It is not much different then a sponge. Millions of gallons of much needed water disappear from the lake. It is filling up with sediment fairly quickly. By the way, even though Tahoe is not nearly as large as Lake Powell surface area wise, it holds 125 million acre feet with depths on the West shore about 1600 feet in depth. Rat...

 

[ronjhall]

On our trip our west last April. We spent a night in Page AZ. After all the hype I got from my brother about Lake Powell I was a little surprised that there was not a lot visible. But we did some touring and were able to see larger portions of the Lake away from Page.
Attached is a picture of the Dam from a lookout outside of town.

 

[Bird]

When we were there, we enjoyed the tour of the dam and getting down in it and seeing the generators, etc. Quite an interesting place. And reading the history of how Page started as a construction camp in the middle of nowhere was interesting, too.

 

[EddieWalker]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Lake Powel, if full would be 27 million acre feet, with over 2000 miles of shoreline.
)</font>

One acre foot is equal to 325,851 gallons.

27 million acre feet is 8,797,977,000,000 gallons !!!!

Eddie

 

[turnkey4099]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( When we were there, we enjoyed the tour of the dam and getting down in it and seeing the generators, etc. Quite an interesting place. And reading the history of how Page started as a construction camp in the middle of nowhere was interesting, too. )</font>

The History Channel TV program has an hour long program on the construction of the dam. It re-runs fairly regularly and is well worth the watch.

Harry K

 

[SPIKER]

Is that the one that you fly over going/comming from the east of vegas? I remember flying over at some 35k feet thinking man that sucker looks like it is pretty big /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif anyhow I think I remenber seeing that program about it 9ro hoover dam & several others) a long while back...

mark m

edit in: I lalso remember seeing something about it (havving soft walls in the sandstone that the water was working it's way OUT and around the dam causing erosion of the walls past the dam and basically with in a hundred or less years that the lake will have to be drained for repairs or abandoned for a new dam elseware?

 

[thcri]

My wife and I took a tour of the plant and you end up down on the south side of the dam. You don't realise the size of that dam until you get down below it. A must see for any one.


murph

 

[KentT]

You may want to try downloading Google Earth and taking a virtual 3-D tour of it. I haven't viewed Lake Powell with it, but the Grand Canyon is pretty incredible...


http://earth.google.com/

 

[RedRocker]

A friend of mine owns a trading post in Page and lives in Bigwater. Last I heard the lake was down over 120', they're discovering all kinds of things as the water recedes. There's a lot of interesting history in that area, some of it was covered up by the lake which is where the controversy come in. Last time I was there we went out to Rainbow Bridge in his boat, neat place.