A Side Imaging look at bridges….then and now.

One of the most compelling areas that I have imaged on Lake Wissota is the area where the little lake and the big lake meet, on the south end of the big lake. The two lakes are connected by a short, deep channel that is spanned by two bridges. The northern bridge is quite low to the water….less than 6 inches of clearance today, while the southern bridge is slightly higher off the water.

I want to share two Side Images with you all. The first was collected with my 1197, traveling north from the small lake into the big lake. There are two sets of wide bridge pilings (note the dark sonar shadows outside each of the pilings), and then something that looks like girders or some sort of metal mesh….look for the red squiggly arrows.

Next, here’s the same area imaged by my 997. Here, I’m traveling south from the big lake into the little lake. Note that the girders or metal mesh appears towards the bottom of this image, and is much more resolved than it was in the 1197’s image. Again, the red squiggly arrows point towards this object.

Whatever this object is, it cuts completely across the channel.

Curious as to that it is, I started digging around in the small set of Wissota historical photos on the web. Some of these are from the era when the Wissota dam was being built, and show the lakebed as it once was. A relevant photo is included below.

This photo was taken standing on what would become the lake bed of the small lake, looking north towards what would become the big lake. Note that there are two bridges present…a southern bridge for Cty X, and a northern railroad bridge. Now, look underneath that northern span….there’s the girders, or metal mesh, or whatever it is.

Apparently, a third bridge was in place before Wissota was flooded, supported by a framework of metal girders. That framework still spans the channel connecting the two lakes, although it is currently under several feet of brown Wissota water.

That is really cool Jason. Did you noticed what the metal mesh looks like from another angle? How far is it below the surface do you think? Cool shots man!

Here are a few more of the bridge images. I had been wondering about that metal/mesh structure as well.

Mike

Next shot…

Cropped….

Cropped…

Mike, have you seen this?

It is north of the metal mesh stuff, on the east side of the channel?

To me, it looks like some old bridge decking, that has fallen on its side and has a bit of twist in it.

Looks like that piece of I-35 that my sister’s car ended up on! (She was OK)

Kinda like this, but on a much smaller scale????

Her car, BTW….

Ouch!!

That is pretty sweet. I can always see that return on my locator and am always wondering what is down there. Someone had told me a while back that there was an old box car down there, but that doesn’t appear to be true.

It always looked like a school of fish to me….but Side Imaging tells the true story.