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Published: July 15th 2009
Gorge Dam
The smallest and lowest of the three dams on the Skagit River, Gorge Dam stands just above Newhalem.About 128 miles north of Seattle, Washington is the Seattle City Light Hydroelectric Project, three dams that produce one-fourth of Seattle's electricity. First, there is Gorge Dam in Newhalem. It was originally built from rocks and logs and completed in 1921. It is only 300 feet high. Next is Diablo Dam, 389 feet high, constructed in 1930. Its art deco design is still admired in the graceful arches and lamp posts. Finally, there is Ross Dam, the highest and largest dam at 540 feet tall. It was completed in 1952 and named after J. D. Ross, "the Father of City Light." The three dams are controlled by computer from a station near Ballard in Seattle.
The North Cascade Mountains are a young mountain range, about 1,000 years old. Boulders the size of houses and buses tower over Highway 20. When the ground shifts and settles, City Light crews blast the precariously balanced rocks before an avalanche can occur. About 1300 years ago the entire area was under a mile of ice. There are 600,000 acres of wilderness in North Cascades National Park and 300 glaciers. The glaciers ground rocks down to flour that is suspended in the water. Sunlight shining
Newhalem General Store
Newhalem is a Seattle City Light company town. A visit to the former commissary is a good source for food. on the rock-flour reflects shades of intense blue-green, causing the reservoirs to glow like emeralds.
The first stop is usually in Newhalem, a City Light company town since 1917, where 1,000 employees used to live in tents and tar-paper shacks. Today, approximately 100 workers and their families live in Marblemount and Concrete. The Newhalem General Store is still a popular place to stop and indulge in their famous homemade soup and fudge.
The next stop is Diablo, site of Skagit Tours Lake Cruise on the Alice Ross III, named after the wife of J. D. Ross. It also is the location of the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, operated by North Cascades Institute. Visitors board the ship on a narrated cruise 24 miles to Ross Dam. The wind is often 30 to 40 knots here, but the views are too spectacular to miss. We pass Deer Island where deer swam to escape predators. Nearby is tiny Monkey Island where J. D. Ross kept rhesus monkeys for tourists to feed during the 1940's.
From the cruise ship, guests can see the narrowest passage on Lake Diablo. It is 100 feet deep and only 90 feet wide. We pass
Newhalem Company Houses
About 100 City Light employees live year-round in Newhalem, Marblemount, and Concrete. snow-capped mountains and towering waterfalls, eagles and hawks. Far above us, North Cascades Highway 20 curves along the mountainside. Ahead of us, Ross Dam stands 540 feet tall. Its eight generators can produce a total of 450,000 kilowatts of electricity to power 40,000 Seattle homes.
After the hour-long cruise, we return to Diablo and board a bus for the drive back to Newhalem. We are going to have a crispy chicken dinner in the employee cookhouse where visitors can enjoy a meal that is worth coming for by itself. At tables of ten, we eat family style, passing heaping dishes of chicken, potatoes, gravy, green beans, jello, rolls, and a choice of apple or cherry pie a la mode.
From the dining hall, we can see the incline railway. It was the last link of the 31 miles of track that carried workers to the dams. A 400-horsepower electric motor and counterbalance lifted freight cars 558 feet up Sourdough Mountain on a 70-percent grade to the level of Lake Diablo. The lift stopped carrying tourists up the mountainside in 2000.
You might notice that local people refer to Diablo Dam as Di-ablo while strangers call it Dee-ablo.
Alice Ross III
The cruise on Lake Diablo starts in the box canyon where the company town of Diablo is located. The dam was named after another Diablo Dam in the southwest, but Skagit people say Di-ablo because Dee-ablo means "the devil." Diablo will always be the preferred name for their spectacular hydro project!
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Natalie Ayerst Baumgartner
non-member comment
When I was a little girl ---
It's wonderful to see pictures of the incline today! When I was a little girl, about 3 or 4 years old, (later 1940's) we lived in a construction community near the base of the incline. In the evening everyone would go outside in the spring, summer and fall....to watch the bears come down the steep bank, only to take our chairs and toys and go inside for the evening as the bears roamed from house to house checking out the metal garbage cans...hoping someone had forgotten to secure the lid. My Dad, Charles Wilder Ayerst was the "paymaster" on that construction project.