Located on the west side of Glen Canyon Dam, the Carl Hayden Visitor Center pays homage to the American resolve to manage water in the arid West. The visitor center is named after Carl Hayden, a man with a long political career as both a congressman and senator, who was very influential in developing water in the Western United States.
Today, the Colorado River is over allocated and one of the most intensely managed rivers in the world. Exhibits, videos, and topographical relief maps inside the visitor center explain the overall development of water storage in the Colorado River Basin, as well as information on the Glen Canyon Dam. Over 700 feet tall, the curved retaining wall (visible from outside the visitor center) backs up water in our country’s second largest man-made reservoir. Lake Powell stores water from the Colorado River’s Upper Basin (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, and a small part of Arizona). When full, Lake Powell has a surface area of 266 square miles and is 186 miles long.
The Glen Canyon Natural History Association offers tours of the dam for a small fee, and a bookstore is available in the visitor center as well. Many people stop here on their way to Lake Powell.
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