meeyauw: dams

Showing posts with label dams. Show all posts

Monday, October 19, 2009

Vilas Pool Dam

After we photographed the Wendall Marsh Dam and the Lempster Wind Farm, we drove past the Vilas Pool Dam. This is another site that we need to explore more. But for now, I am learning my way around New Hampshire. Vilas Pool is in Alstead, the site of the horribly tragic flood of October 2005. They are still rebuilding sections of Route 123 and downtown Alstead. If you are interested in geology, an excellent article about the Cold River is Cold River Geology from coldriver.org. A fascinating timeline of history of Alstead is generated by Google here.

from Atlas of Cold River:

Vilas Pool: Built and donated to the Town of Alstead by Charles N. Vilas in 1926. Facilities include a swimming beach, boat rentals, picnic and recreational areas, two pavilions, and a carillon tower.

The gorge under the dam is very deep. Do you see the girl down on the river?

Interesting water carved rock can be seen in the "thunder hole" at the bottom of the falls.

I added a video (not mine) from youtube
demonstrating quarry jumping in Alstead:

_/\_/\_

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Wendall Marsh Dam

Wendall Marsh and the dam are at one end of Lake Sunapee in Sunapee. The fishing, I am told, is great. The marsh is beautiful and worth exploring for wildlife next season. There are over 4,800 dams in New Hampshire built from the 1700s to the present. Some dams are unsafe — and future posts will demonstrate this. I'm not used to seeing so many dams and it seems as if they are everywhere. I'm becoming more fascinated with them. (Perhaps I'll photograph them all!) Their uses, in New Hampshire, are:

fire protection 8%
electric power 5%
water 3%
flood control 2%
(source: Wikipedia)