February 14, 2007: Big-ass drain hole

Axlrosen finds this tiem via the blog Fogonazos - no I don't know what it means either, but it has highlighted this, the largest drain hole in the world.



This water passageway is the usual spill method for the Monticello Dam in Northern California.



It blows out its hole with great might.



More pics at the blog entry linked to above. They link to this site which explains it in some detail. Apparently the engineering term for this type of spillway is 'morning glory spillway', and they use the term 'glory hole' for this particular one. I decided not to attract Google links by using the term as the subject for today's item.

I hope they don't allow boating when the water level is high.

[COLOR="White"].[/COLOR]

I guess to some, that would be an appropriate Valentine's Day image.

I'm never dissapointed in IOTDs that use 'big-ass' in their title....

[SIZE="1"]UT said Gl0ry h0le. huh huh huh huh huh[/SIZE]

Just what I need, another draining hole.

Someone with mad 'Shop skills needs to insert a crane with a giant rubber sink stopper on a cable hovering over that drain.

Wow. It's like the resting place of the Water Sarlacc!

Man, what a ride. :speechls:

it looks strangely like the portal from Sliders

wonder what parallel world is on the other side ;p

It should be swirling counter-clockwise, this big ass-drain hole.

Man, what a ride.

A dam a few hours away had to put a fence around there "HOLE " because drunk idiots were waiting for the water level to drop ( when there was just a trickle running thru ) and jumping down the "HOLE " on rafts , After 3-4 of them came shooting out a [COLOR="Red"]piece[/COLOR] at a time , the Gubment put up the fence .

I used to work with a guy. the guy was named Dave. Dave used to manage an adult book store. The book store had those little booths in the back with the coin operated porn movie machines. Shortly after he took the job, he realized that there were glory holes between these booths. Disgusted, he patched them over with plywood discs. After a month, his video sales had dropped in half. So, he removed the patches, and sales went right back up.

here's some scale of the "OUT pipe "

Yeah, 72 ft diameter at the top tapering down to 28 ft dia at the out pipe. 48,400 cubic ft per second max. I wonder how long it would take to make it through the 700 feet? :idea:

wonder how long it would take to make it through the 700 feet?

Probley the rest of your life !!!

It doesn't look real to me. The white water in the first pic looks photo shopped.

I have not seen this one its self , but I have seen 3-4 others



[COLOR="White"]No snide ass comments about glorys holes[/COLOR] JIM

Elspode;315773 wrote:

Someone with mad 'Shop skills needs to insert a crane with a giant rubber sink stopper on a cable hovering over that drain.

No 'shop skills -this is my first ever creation apart from a few 'thread bombs" (and I needed rescuing/therapy/beer several times during creation), but never one to resist a challenge......

Well done Monster!!!!

ta :o

I actually stood and looked at that exact drain with my girlfriend during college days. It's just up the road from UC Davis. It made the hair go up on the back of my neck. It is quite a horrific sight when you think about it. Then you just walk down the road a hundred feet and look way down in the canyon at that jet coming out. I was amazed and appalled by the one little swimming pool lap lane divider that surround the hole out about fifty feet. I wonder how many ducks and geese have not noticed it in time. The only advantage over the usual bottom of the dam (safer version) is that this thing auto regulates. Water level drops - draining stops.

That road is fun though. There are about 10 creeks that cross it at concrete flats. They were fun to hit at about 45MPH. 3" deep by 10 feet wide. Nice and straight. BOOOOSH!

xoxoxoBruce;315787 wrote:

Man, what a ride. :speechls:

Absolutely! Here's one, that one might perhaps actually use for that purpose.

Aliantha;315860 wrote:

It doesn't look real to me. The white water in the first pic looks photo shopped.

Fortunately for life, as we know it, on Earth, water has the amazing property of cohesion which allows it to be a liquid.
As the water flows over the rim, it's all cohesively connected and uniform, then gravity causes it to increase speed. When the water accelerates it gets torn away from the slower water behind and the faster water ahead. Droplets form of the water that's close enough in speed to have cohesion triumph. That's the white in the first picture, water droplets which scatter light.:cool:

Monster, that's awesome! Exactly what I was seeing in my head.

Go, you!

zippyt;315814 wrote:

here's some scale of the "OUT pipe "

I didn't think you were supposed to go in the out hole.

I guess the spillway shaft itself is just a tunnel drilled through solid rock? I'd like to the see profile of that...I mean, it has 770' of drop, and has to make a bend from vertical to horizontal at some point. The water pressure at that bend must be tres' impressivo.

Kitsune;315999 wrote:

I didn't think you were supposed to go in the out hole.

That's a myth perpetrated upon clueless men by unadventurous women... :redface:

Two views of a dry glory hole.

The guy in the blue jacket is actually H. Ross Perot:

see Jim, I told ya that giant sucking sound was coming from California

Elspode;315997 wrote:

Monster, that's awesome! Exactly what I was seeing in my head.

Go, you!

:o thanks

Mind you, while I was poking around in your head looking for that image, I noticed a few other things you might want to get checked out :worried:

Elspode;316002 wrote:

I guess the spillway shaft itself is just a tunnel drilled through solid rock? I'd like to the see profile of that...I mean, it has 770' of drop, and has to make a bend from vertical to horizontal at some point. The water pressure at that bend must be tres' impressivo.

Pretty sure it's concrete all the way, constructed integral with the dam. Hoover/Boulder Dam, however, uses bypass tunnels through the rock that are fed by a spillway channel. I've seen that setup and those tunnels must be 50 feet in diameter. :mg:

monster;316091 wrote:

:o thanks

Mind you, while I was poking around in your head looking for that image, I noticed a few other things you might want to get checked out :worried:

Yeah, it gets kinda dark and gloomy in here sometimes.

Elspode;316112 wrote:

Yeah, it gets kinda dark and gloomy in here sometimes.

Don't worry, I left a little something to cheer you up.....

I can't help but see that and think of the Goatse thing that everyone told me not to look at.
I was permanently damaged.... :(

seakdivers;316120 wrote:

I can't help but see that and think of the Goatse thing that everyone told me not to look at.
I was permanently damaged.... :(

maybe it's just the title of the thread that put you in the frame of mind?

(this 'shop thing's fun -I may never get anything useful done in the entire rest of my life :lol:)

seakdivers;316120 wrote:

I can't help but see that and think of the Goatse thing that everyone told me not to look at.
I was permanently damaged.... :(

You're lucky you didn't see Tub Girl. :worried:

seakdivers;316120 wrote:

I can't help but see that and think of the Goatse thing that everyone told me not to look at.
I was permanently damaged.... :(

Now you can see Goatse everywhere, thanks to Goatse Stickers!

xoxoxoBruce;316157 wrote:

You're lucky you didn't see Tub Girl. :worried:

Unfortunately I saw that one too. :greenface

Quicktime VR panorama of another BLM dam with a glory hole spillway in the Shasta/Whiskeytown Recreation area in Northern California, my father's stomping grounds.

so if it gets cold enough to freeze would it be a Big Ass Ice Hole ???

Kitsune;316158 wrote:

Now you can see Goatse everywhere, thanks to Goatse Stickers!

oh my god I need those!! I don't know why, but I do!!

Yup, you're corrupted. :lol:

I want them for my wheelchair...

I feel awful for this threadjack, but it isn't completely out of the ordinary for a topic like "Big-ass drain hole" to degenerate into goatse.

seakdivers;316240 wrote:

oh my god I need those!! I don't know why, but I do!!

Do you iGoatse?

.

No no no NO! I am not going to say what that looks like!

SPUCK;324886 wrote:

No no no NO! I am not going to say what that looks like!

An alligator's belly button?

This reminds me of an ex-girlfriend.

toranokaze;456932 wrote:

This reminds me of an ex-girlfriend.

I think I know her.:lol2: