Damn dams and waterfalls

I will start off with a bit of humor courtesy of Barb Swanson who is in Iowa as presidential hopefuls descend. We are in high spirits ourselves having landed safely in Great Falls and with 110 power working (no GFI breakers!).

Apparently the confluences of unmapped rivers with the Missouri posed problems for the Corps of Discovery. Sometimes it was hard to tell which was the correct channel. Today they pose opportunities for the Corps of Engineers. We've talked about the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers at Fort Union. For the

Fort Peck spillway has 16 gates

past two nights, we've camped at the base of the largest hydraulically made earthen dam in the world holding back the fifth largest man made lake in the US. Made me just a taste nervous... That said, the Fort Peck Dam is an engineering marvel. The dam is 4 miles long. To avoid erosion, the spillway is three miles away. There are four tunnels over a mile long that divert water to the far side of the dam. Two tunnels power turbines, two simply drain water so that the spillway is only needed in

Spillway downstream

emergencies, though they have been in regular use due to heavy rain and melting snowpack. Over 40 men were killed building the thing, some whose bodies were never recovered when a portion of the dam failed during construction. The dam was built as a WPA project during the Depression. 10,000 men and women first had to build a town, railroad line and power lines into the middle of nowhere and then build, what was at the time, the world's largest dam.

The Fort Peck Dam has two powerhouses, one built in 1940 and another added in 1961. They are tall because the facade covers up two enormous tanks that act as surge protectors. If the turbines have to be turned off quickly, water diverted to them needs a place to go.

Fort Peck Powerhouses

As I mentioned, this place is in the middle of nowhere. Everything had to be brought in or built on the spot. Much of the original town is lost but a few buildings remain, including this recreation hall that now serves the town as a theater and city admin building.

Fort Peck Recreation Hall

Lake Peck itself is primarily a fishing lake. We saw campers everywhere who had come for the purpose of fishing. The state operated boat launch had fish cleaning stations and there were two marinas to accommodate their boats.

Back in L&C's time, the big problem was whether to take the "milky" river branch or the clear one. The Milk River empties into the Missouri at this
point, and again, our intrepid adventurers discerned the right path and continued up the Missouri.

Panorama Fort Peck Lake and spillway

Our intrepid selves headed off to Great Falls via Loma, MT to another place L&C had to take on a river confluence. On the way, we got our first glimpse of the Rockies rising on the horizon. We drove through an Indian Reservation and found this abandoned mission church with a

Distant Rockies

Abandoned Mission

graveyard full of cheerful, recently placed flowers. And Ruthie had to safely navigate through a blinding rain with wind gusts that nearly ran us off the road as a front came through. We dodged our first tumbleweed during the storm and later saw a prong horned antelope and mule deer enjoying freshly mowed fields. We also saw something we'd never seen before--power poles made from laminated wood instead of whole trees. They tended to be used at corners, when the lines turned. Seemed like a cool idea.

Laminate light pole

We also caught a great shot of a train rolling past a small town grain elevator. EVERY town we passed through had these old timber elevators covered in metal like my grandfather's, except they were much larger than the ones back home. I'm amazed they have survived. Most appeared to be still in use.

Old grain elevators

Like the old cotton mills in North Carolina, they tell the history of the Montana economy in each town.

We also had lunch near this statue of James J. Hill, Empire Builder and founder of the Great Northern Railway whose tracks we frequently followed.

James J. Hill

Loma, MT is at the confluence of the Missouri and the Marias Rivers. Once L&C figured out which was the Missouri, Lewis named the other river for his cousin Maria--Maria's River. We've had this discussion about improper punctuation regarding Hungry Mother State Park (as in Hungry, Mother). With time, the apostrophe got dropped, clouding the meaning of the river's name. The story goes that L&C asked the men to vote on which branch of the river to take. One branch was muddy, the other clear and cold. The men thought the muddy branch was the main branch. L&C decided to take the clear and cold one. Again, they made the right choice. Despite the disagreement, the

Sign at Decision Point

men followed faithfully and the mission continued. The Forest Service has named the area Decision Point and has created a trail with more of those interpretive signs to tell the story.

Decision Point

At this point, everything in Montana feels isolated, even this historic site. The actual confluence of the rivers is green and gorgeous but this picture of Libraryann in the parking lot conveys just how desolate a feel the rest of the area creates. We skipped the early parts of the L&C trail where it passes through highly developed areas in favor of visiting areas they retain the flavor of what the Corps of Discovery saw. I can't imagine how they felt in

Where Maria's River meets the Missouri

a place so far and so foreign from their lush Virginia.

Note this picture of the town of Loma from Decision Point. There are four grain elevators. Not a single church. The abandoned mission may have been the only church we saw today. We are clearly not in the South...

Loma from Decision Point

We finally made it to our KOA in Great Falls, so called because there are 5 major
waterfalls in a 12 mile stretch of the Missouri River. The problem for L&C was how to get around them. The answer was to build carts out of Cottonwood trees and portage 18 miles to a place where they could safely re-enter the river upstream. They had four heavy dugouts and made the trip four times. Historians

Panorama Rainbow Falls

consider it their greatest challenge. The Corps of Engineers has turned four of the five falls into locations for hydroelectric dams. The fifth set of falls is often underwater from the downstream impoundment. I took a panorama of the Rainbow Falls dam that includes a railroad trestle bridge built for James J. Hill's railroad. He brought the trestles for the bridge in from Ohio in 1901. They are still in use.

Pictures of the dugouts are from the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Rainbow Falls.

We are headed out to Glacier National Park tomorrow early, hoping to beat the crowds. Stay tuned!