Laowai

On our third day we went to a dam on the other side of the mountains from our hotel. It’s called the Grande Dixence dam. Brian rode his bike and the girls and I drove there. Here’s some info about the dam from its web site:

The Grande Dixence dam, the world’s highest gravity dam, is part of a vast complex that includes four pumping stations and three power stations with a total output of 2,000 MW.

The Bieudron power station alone holds three world records: the drop height (1,883 m), the output of each Pelton turbine (3 x 423 MW) and the output at each pole of the alternating current generators (35.7 MVA). 100 km of tunnels in the midst of the mountainous area collect meltwater from 35 glaciers in the canton of Valais. Thanks to 75 water catchment points, the water that powers the turbines comes from a vast area, all the way from the Mattertal valley (Zermatt region) to the Val d’Hérens.

The Grande Dixence hydroelectric power complex generates some 2 billion kWh of power per year and accounts for 20% of Switzerland’s energy storage capacity. It provides enough electricity to power the equivalent of 500,000 homes.

There’s Brian powering up the switch backs.

The dam was fascinating and surreal. Here’s the view at the bottom:

And the view standing along the top of the dam:

We saw lots of people on the zip line. Yikes!