Sorry I haven’t posted for awhile. It’s not for lack of photos – I’m actually several trips behind and I embark on another journey on Tuesday to Monterey, sure to be another treasure trove of photos. I’ve just been so very busy and there are other things I should be doing right now, but I’m going to sneak in a photoblog post.
Ever since I bought my new SLR camera, I feel I need to visit my favorite infrastructure sites to photograph them with my new camera, and since I found myself with a day in the Eastern Sierra, I decided to start out with a trip to the Los Angeles Aqueduct intake.
The Owens Valley still had its winter colors on, which was quite different from where I live in Santa Clarita where spring has already been underway for weeks. The Eastern Sierra Mountains looked spectacular with their dusting of snow.
Unfortunately, the morning hour was not favorable in terms of lighting on the aqueduct intake (although I could probably photoshop this.)
A large dredger is off to the side, and presumably in anticipation of construction or maintenance, all the “No Trespassing” signs are off the intake, so I am free to roam about the area – which, of course, I do! This is the water that is headed to Los Angeles via the Los Angeles Aqueduct (below).
This is the water that is headed down the Lower Owens River as part of the restoration agreement.
This is the weir – the Owens River is to the right – it flows past this weir and into the intake. The layout is complex, so I’ll post some resources at the end of this post.
Below, the Owens River …
Unfortunately, the sun is not favorable for the face of the aqueduct, so …
I’ll throw in some shots from when I was here before, about three years ago, the middle of summer at mid-afternoon:
It’s easier to read the engraving on the face of the intake on this picture below:
Here is the weir from another angle.
One last shot of the Eastern Sierra as I am leaving …
For more information on the Los Angeles Aqueduct:
- Everything you wanted to know and more is in my Los Angeles Aqueduct slideshow: Click here for the flash movie presentation or click here to view it at SlideShare. The portion of the slideshow about the intake starts on slide 80.
- The Historic American Engineering Record is a set of photos and drawings documenting American engineering projects. You can view the record for the Los Angeles Aqueduct here.
- Other photoblog posts on the Los Angeles Aqueduct are here, here, and here.
Nice work! And what amazing country. It would be fun to see what you might come away with if you ever had a chance to bang away with that new rig in Oregon’s SE quadrant. Right up your alley. Thanks for sharing!
In the second picture down, notice the criss-crossing “cloud” formations. They will eventually spread out into a mist that thickens into a cloud cover. They are known as chemtrails (aerosol nano-particulates) that are part of ongoing weather modification. USAF brags about ‘owning the weather by 2025’ – google that phrase and download their PDF right from a usaf mil site. See also carnicom.com if any of this is new or interesting to you.