Grand Coulee Dam is someplace we've always wanted to see. It's supposed to be bigger than huge....and it was !


When we approached it from the south, Kim remarked, "That doesn't impress me", then we went around to the front.....WHOA!!! Different story.
 

We had a great tour...even got to go on the very top and look down.


Terrific Visitor's Center with informative staff. One guy was so full of facts and detail, Kim had to make an excuse for me to get away. But he was great.


We saw a very good 45 minute movie showing the massive construction effort it took to build the dam.


 Here's more information then you will probably want to know. I found it interesting though.

http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/grandcouleehistory

In the 1970s, they took away part of the dam near the cliff wall and built a new powerplant to more than double the power capacity. Those pipes carry water straight down, using gravity to turn the turbines. The pipes are 40-ft wide. For comparison, the top of the dam is only 32-ft wide.


We both took a movie from the top that you might enjoy. Click on the image to play each movie.



 
  
A terrific dam and worth the hour and a half to get there and back from Spokane.

Oh, before you leave, these photos show what eastern Washington between Spokane and the Grand Coulee Dam look like. Fields are mostly wheatfields. (oh, and Nattie trying to eat one.)


Personally, I like the "wide open spaces".
 
Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Steve and Kim

I could probably write pages and pages of the construction and the details of how the dam operates, etc.

Instead here's some more data to further inundate you with information.
  

Grand Coulee Dam is the largest dam in the Columbia River Basin and one of the largest in the world.

 Everything about the dam is large: it is 550 feet (167.6 meters) tall, measured from its foundation in solid granite, or approximately 350 feet (106.7 meters) from the downstream river surface to the top of the dam. I

 t is 5,223 feet (1,592 meters) long, or 57 feet short of a mile.Grand Coulee Dam is the largest concrete structure ever built.

 Several other dams in the world are larger, but they include earthen berms (when completed 2009, the Three Gorges Dam in China will be roughly three times the size of Grand Coulee). Grand Coulee is 450-500 feet thick at its base and 30 feet thick at the top, and it contains 11,975,521 cubic yards (9,155,944 cubic meters) of concrete, three times as much as Hoover Dam.
 
Grand Coulee Dam is truly magnificent to behold. Built from 1933 to 1975, it is 550 feet tall, from the 500 foot wide polished granite base, to the 30 foot wide crest which supports a paved two lane road. When you include the third power house, Grand Coulee Dam is almost 1 mile long. Did you know there is enough concrete in the Grand Coulee Dam to build a 60 foot wide highway four inches thick, from Los Angeles to New York City!   That is a 4 lane Highway 3,000 miles long!

The only remaining wonder of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World, is the Great Pyramid of Giza, near the city of Cairo, Egypt. The original height of the Great Pyramid of Giza is approximately 482 feet. It's base covers over 13 acres.

In comparison, the base of the Grand Coulee Dam is almost four times as large as the Great Pyramid built by the Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops). It stands 550 feet in height, from the bedrock to the blacktop! Like the Pyramid, the Grand Coulee Dam has its galleries. They serve for gate inspections and control, drainage, regrouting, cooling, and other purposes. There are over eight and a half miles of corridors throughout the inside of the Grand Coulee Dam.