Day Trip!

 This post will be put up as I have time to write, so keep checking back for updates.  It was a very busy day!


Saturday is a day during which the long-term volunteers and staffers try to do exploring, recreation, and other unstructured activities.  Four of us got permission to use one of the trucks to go visit some of the MDS project sites and other places on the way.  Our first destination was Oroville, which is about 20 miles away.  We used the easternmost road heading down from the Paradise plateau to the valley below.  Along the way, we skirted an arm of the reservoir behind the Oroville Dam.  This is the dam that back in 2017 overtopped, and nearly had the spillway destroyed by the historic rain and snowmelt that February.  As you can see from these pictures, they are having the opposite problem at this time.

A view down the canyon, showing the low water level


This should be full of water

Another shot showing the low water level

Lots of houseboats couldn't make it back to the boat ramp

These were some that made it out

We drove through Oroville, which actually should be spelled Auraville since it means Gold Town.  On the other side, we started up along the other side of the reservoir where we could reach the top of the dam.  We spent some time driving to various vantage points, and then drove across the top of the dam. You will notice lots of haze in many of these photos.  I decided to leave it in most of the shots, since smoke from the Dixie Fire is ever-present here.
Our first view of the dam from above

One of the impellers from the hydropower station

Informational plaque

Some curious residents


A view from the top of the dam toward the spillways

On top of the dam, looking upstream


From the top, looking downstream

This shows how they fixed the part of the emergency
 spillway that was totally eroded.  The concrete steps
break up the action of cascading water.



This is from the top boat-launch ramp

This is the bottom of the bottom boat ramp. 
The water is probably 300 feet lower.

This is the regular spillway.  During the emergency
the concrete was undercut and destroyed, causing
fears of catastrophic flooding.




Here is a link to a video about the Oroville Dam incident

Oroville Dam Video







Comments

  1. JudyAugust 30, 2021 at 5:20 AM

    I'm glad for this video. I'd not heard of the 2017 flooding. I wonder who the skilled repair people are. Engineers and construction workers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JimSeptember 1, 2021 at 2:43 PM

      I remember seeing a video on Discovery about the repairs

      Delete

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