Welcome to Horseshoe Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario! Approximately 154 MILLION gallons of water rush over this 2500 foot curved waterfall every MINUTE, tumbling down 176 feet! This is of course during daylight hours....no, they don't exactly "turn the falls off" at night, BUT...between roughly midnight and 8 am up to 50% of the water is diverted upriver to the hydroelectric plants. Both the Sir Adam Beck II and the Robert Moses hydro plants provide clean renewable energy to thousands of homes on both sides of the border! They say it is quite noticeable, but the following day, the weather was rather poor, so I didn't get up early enough to check it out for myself!
To the left is a photo that I took while standing in Niagara Falls, New York only about 2 feet away from the water. The water flows past with such weight and force at 40 mph you can understand why the edge is so jagged. They say the falls are eroding back upstream about 1 foot every 10 years...it used to be much quicker, but the diversion of some of the water to the hydroplants has helped.
If you look in the bottom right corner of the photo to the left, you will see my next destination, on a large spot of bedrock immediately next to the falls.
This cataract is right next to the waterfall and peers directly into the heart of it. This tunnel was quite dark, damp and slick! The bursts of spray and gusts of water and thunderous noise were unbelievable!
To the left is a photo that I took while standing in Niagara Falls, New York only about 2 feet away from the water. The water flows past with such weight and force at 40 mph you can understand why the edge is so jagged. They say the falls are eroding back upstream about 1 foot every 10 years...it used to be much quicker, but the diversion of some of the water to the hydroplants has helped.
If you look in the bottom right corner of the photo to the left, you will see my next destination, on a large spot of bedrock immediately next to the falls.
This cataract is right next to the waterfall and peers directly into the heart of it. This tunnel was quite dark, damp and slick! The bursts of spray and gusts of water and thunderous noise were unbelievable!
Here I am at the bottom of the falls on the Canadian side on that walkout I described above. It was just a soaking spray and I am very thankful that I decided to don my Gore-Tex in lieu of their free very thin yellow ponchos! I even had to jerryrig rain gear for my camera, but even after a minute, that began to fail and fog up! Yes, that's me in the bright orange get-up.
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