Sunday, August 9, 2009
Despite the fact that I was tired, fried, and a bit aggravated about the lack of support at the very end of the race, I took a few minutes to wander around the overlook above the Mt Morris Dam and went into the Visitor's Center to check out the displays. Definitely time well-spent... in fact, I wish now I'd taken more photos of the displays and signage, since some of it was very interesting.
The Mt Morris Dam is what's known as a dry dam - in other words, much of the time water from the river simply flows under the dam. That's because instead of being in place to create a reservoir, this dam was built for flood control. Prior to its construction (1948-1952) the sections of the Genesee River Valley closer to Lake Ontario were periodically subject to major flooding, causing a good deal of damage. The displays in the Visitor's Center had some incredible photographs of downtown Rochester underwater, with people using rowboats to get around. Construction of the dam allows for the control of water flow into the lower river valley - essentially, in times of very high water the gorge at Letchworth becomes a 15 mile long lake as water is more slowly released through the dam. The most dramatic example of this was the Flood of 1972, when Hurricane Agnes hit the northeast in June, stallled over north-central Pennsylvania, and dropped 6 to 12 inches of rain. Over the course of several days water in the gorge rose to the top of the 230 foot dam, at which point water was released through the gates to prevent it overflowing the dam. While this caused minor flooding downstream, it prevented the catastrophic damage from all of that water and debris flowing down the river unchecked. For more info and some incredible photos, I recommend a visit to the flood pages at Tom Cook and Tom Breslin's wonderful Exploring Letchworth Park History website. There are three pages detailing the flood - the effects on the upper gorge at Upper & Middle Falls and then at Lower Falls, and then the effects at the dam. The US Army Corps of Engineers site has more info about the dam and its history, as well as useful information for folks planning a visit.
One of the fun things about the dam is the number of turkey vultures that hang out there... during one visit to Letchworth Ann and I watched a dozen or more soaring on the air currents above the gorge. Apparently they consider the dam a great spot to take a break - while I was there today there were a dozen or more of them perched on the top. Every few minutes one or two would take off to fly for a while, and others would come in to take a break.
I didn't take my camera with me on the run, both because there was a possibility of rain and because I wanted to focus on running and having the camera with me definitely slows me down. The downside to that was I couldn't get any pictures from the overlooks we passed along the way. Fortunately, just down the road from the Visitor's Center there was a small parking area with a view down the gorge. Not quite as nice as the view a few miles further down the trail, but much easier to get to, especially in my fried state.
JMH
