Showing posts with label rocky reach dam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rocky reach dam. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

fish ladder

we were lucky the day we went through the rocky reach dam near wenatchee, Washington the salmon were going trough about 200 an hour. from the underground view area I took the above shot. if you have never seen a fish ladder it is used to let migrating fish go through a dam area in their natural path. from below there are holes in the walls for them to pass. from above it really is like a ladder simulating them jumping up stream to spawn.
this is a partial view of the fish ladder. hard to get it all in remember we are on a dam and limited to where we can go due to heightened security since 911.


can you see the fish yet??

how about now?? they weren't breaking water today but skimming just under it.





Most dams have a picnic area and beautiful grounds. this was not an exception to that. it use to be that there were tons of bunnies on the grounds but they had to trap and relocate them due to excessive coyote and mountain lion coming down into the human areas to get to them.



a view from part of the dam into the valley of wenatchee.







and the best shot I could get of the dam. if you didn't see it go back a couple of days and check out the mural inside the dam.



Monday, July 5, 2010

horsepower

while visiting the rocky reach dam I saw this mural in the visitors center. I just fell in love with it. from above you can see the wall is curved to depict a dam and you can see dark and white horses in the mural depicting the water flowing over and the power or horsepower that is created from that water. took a while to find more information on it but HERE is more information on a blog I found which is how I found out the painter was walter Graham.



a close up of the work.
More on the dam later I just had to reserve this spot to honor this painter.