Thursday, October 4, 2012

The Linn Cove Viaduct......

One of the most interesting parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway is the Linn Cove Viaduct.  It's not a very big part of the Parkway itself, but the amount of effort involved in it's creation was enormous.  Here is some interesting technical stuff from the internet about the Viaduct.

The last section of the Blue Ridge Parkway to be constructed was on the slopes of Grandfather Mountain. This section presented engineers with the challenge of building a road 4,100 feet up, without cutting down any trees except those in the path of the road itself. The solution was the Linn Cove Viaduct, the most complicated segmental concrete bridge ever built. Completed in 1983 at a cost of almost $10 million, it is 1,243 feet long and contains 153 precast segments, no two alike and only one that is straight. The Viaduct's signature S-shape uses every geometric alignment ever used in bridge building, all within a radius of just 250 feet.

When we travel the Parkway, we sometimes stop at the visitor's center at the Viaduct.  This weekend we did and Rob actually hiked to short trail to underneath the Viaduct.  

Here are a few pictures he took....






He said to be able to take the last picture, one has to be about 4/5ths mountain goat!  

Since you can't actually walk out onto the Viaduct itself, we drove really slow and snapped a bunch of pictures.  It was a very foggy day, so this made some of the pictures very interesting.  

Here is a collage of a few of those pictures......



Thanks for checking in today.  We are off to get new cell phones tomorrow after school!  WOOHOO!!!  Until next time, stay safe out there...-R,T,&J.

2 comments:

  1. On Sundays while the Viaduct was being built, it was possible to park on the Grandfather Mountain side and walk to the construction site to see the progress. We did this with Daddy on several occasions...it was INCREDIBLE!

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    1. I bet that was awesome. It would be fun to be able to walk it and take pictures.

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