Week 3- Bonneville Dam visit

Vanessa planned a great trip to the dam for us which I hadn't visited since the 4th grade! On the way there we got to stop at crown point and multnomah falls and take pictures and walk around. Crown point was really cool because I had never been inside the building there and there were big exhibits with tons of old photos which showed the development of the highway that runs along the gorge and other neat attractions.

Kind of a side note, I recently learned about the Missoula floods in one of my classes last term and learned all about the formations they left behind in the gorge, so it was cool going and seeing first hand with that in mind.

I got to hike to the top of Multnomah falls, which, after living in Portland my whole life, I had never done before... it was rough but very worth it.

Our tour guide at the dam was very interesting and had lots of information to share. He tried to stick to the scientific/environmental side of things I could tell, and was very knowledgable. They have an old turbine displayed outside which he talked about for a while and explained the mechanics behind it. Theye are huge!! The other thing which I was completely unaware of is how much oil dams use. You generally think of a dam as being completely clean energy but it does have its signnificant downsides. Our guide said they use the oil mainly for hydrolics and they use the oil instead of water because it prevents the turbines, etc... from rusting.

We got to look at the fish ladders and it is so crazy that every year fish swim all the way upstream to where they were born just to lay eggs! The guide kept talking about the fish counter and how important it was, all the while I was picturing some sort of laser or device that would tally how many things swam by... it is an actual person! He or she sits in front of a window and counts how many of each specie goes by. That means that every single fish in the river gets counted every year!