When life and work get busy this series tends to get overlooked. So, it's a been a while. The picture below is of the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge that straddles the Arizona-Nevada border and Colorado River (it's about 800 feet above the river). Not only is a cool bit of engineering, but it's special to me because I did the geologic investigation for it's design. I spent about 6 months in the field for the project that included geologic mapping, rappelling, lots and lots of drilling, helicopter recon and more mundane things like providing traffic control for the drillers. It was a lot of hard and often very miserable work (temperatures in the summer routinely hit 135 in shade (57 C) and there was pretty much no shade to be had - the rock got hot enough to cause second degree burns to exposed skin. And now it's awesome to see the project completed. A couple of weeks ago (when the picture was taken) was my first trip back to that area since I last did field work on the project. It was a nice experience, in spite of it being 115 in the shade (46C).
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| Hoover Dam Bypass, Nevada-Arizona |
5 comments:
I can't believe how hot it gets down there. That's an awesome picture, by the way.
I've been down that direction a lot, but I haven't ever been to any of the Hoover Dam things. I really want to, though. Maybe someday...
Very cool, I was down there on my way to the Grand Canyon and saw the bridge under construction. Nice to know it's finished.
I love your part of the country.
I always wanted to move out to Arizona or New Mexico -- or Colorado or Utah for that matter. Never found the opportunity though.
I'm impressed! Must be great to see the end results of your work. And cool photo as well. It wasn't there last time I visited Hoover Dam.
Anytime you are in the area, ie: near Las Vegas, you should take time out to see Hoover dam and the bypass. It is worth the time.
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