Here is an image from Google Earth. I wanted to show you an aerial view of the waterfalls I visited last week.

If you follow the yellow highway line up to the top 1/3 of the picture you will see the blue circle icon next to the road. That's where the upper falls are. Now, to the lake on the left of the shot. Follow to the right of it and you will see a white blotch. That's some buildings. Just a bit more to the right of the buildings you will see a streak of white where the water reaches up. That's the lower falls.


As I was out there this is one of the views I had:Endless hills and trees. The lake reflects the sun in the distance. So what's taking them so long to develop this land? Would you believe this land IS developed? Really.

As I have been out and about hiking this past year I realized that North Carolina and South Carolina have done an outstanding job preserving these lands. Look at a map and much of the land is blocked off with either State or National forests.

BUT. As I told you last week, we were in land owned and operated by Duke Energy. There is an electric plant in this land. A massive man-made operation to support the cities at the bottom of the mountains. The really cool thing is that you can not see most of it. It's under ground. Duke Energy dug that lake you see in the satellite image. The one on the left with the white bar on the bottom side. It's a man-made lake called Bad Creek reservoir. There are massive rock dams holding up the sides. There are underground tubes taking that water through turbines, creating electricity, and flowing into the lower lake. That reservoir is 1,100 feet above lake Jocassee.

We visited the visitor center last week. The first thing you notice when you get out of your car is the sound of the electricity. Cracking and popping from the enormous transformers. We quickly went into the building. I dared Cari to touch the fence. She wouldn't even look at it. It was pretty creepy.

Here is a model of the plant. The top of the box is the gray control building where we were standing. Everything else is under ground. The only access is one elevator.


The next two pictures are from the pictures describing the construction of Bad Creek. They are plastic, high gloss photos in a fairly dark hall.During the construction, the wall of photos tells us, Duke took care to preserve the environment. They even used helicopters to place wire towers. This meant they wouldn't cut down the trees between towers.

To think of what is going on under the earth is really incredible. The engineers at Duke Energy are amazing. The size of this project is mind blowing to me. Not only does water flow down into the lower lake at six million gallons a minute, but they can pump it back into the lake. At high peak times, the water turns the turbines. At off peak times, they pump it back up.

We have such command over the Earth.

With all this industry happening under foot, I was hiking to see some amazing waterfalls. Out in nature, admiring the forest, the hills, the lakes, I was ignorant to the massive engineering project that had been built.

As we were driving home, I told Cari, "I love Duke Energy!"

If you are interested, here is a little more information at Duke's website.