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Trinity Site
The Trinity Site is located near the north end of the White
Sands Missile Range. It is only open to the public on two days per
year. The first Saturday in April and the first Saturday in October. I
took this picture of the sign and my Kawasaki Voyager XII the night
before as I passed by going from Roswell to Socorro, NM.
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Trinity Site
National Historic Site marker.
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The Road In To The Site
It was a bit eerie seeing the wire guides left over from the
atomic test. My preconceived notion was that everything within a
couple miles was obliterated. Not so.
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The Remains Of The Tower
Right next to the obelisk is the only remaining element of
the original tower. It looked like they put up the guardrail just
for today.
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The Remains Of The Tower
I call it "Stumpy" as it's all that is left of the tower from
the explosion. The steel looked to be in pretty good shape for
being at ground zero. Again, my preconception was that everything
was vaporized.
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The Monument (Obelisk)
I got to the site right away in the morning. The place was
fairly empty (as you can see). But, by about 10 am it started to fill
up and by early afternoon it was a zoo. Fortunately, I was able to
catch the sites and then hit the road toward the Very Large Array (VLA).
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Commemorating
The Event
Here's a close up of the obelisk and dedication plaque.
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The Monument (Obelisk)
What a day to visit the Trinity Site on my motorcycle.
What started out as foggy and a bit gloomy, turned out to be bright
sunshine. This view is from the North side of the site, looking
south toward the entrance to the fenced off area.
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The Original Ground Surface
Along the west edge of the site is a little structure built
to protect an (allegedly) undisturbed portion of the original blasted
ground surface. Someone arranged a few pieces of Trinitite to
give you the general idea of what the surface looked like immediately
after the test. It seemed a bit contrived, but that was okay.
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Jumbo
This is what's left of Jumbo. Jumbo was originally intended
as encapsulation for the materials just in case the bomb was a dud.
Well, in the end it turned out they figured that they didn't need to
encapsulate the bomb. So, for fun they just set Jumbo a few
hundred yards from the tower and detonation location. Jumbo got
its current shape being roughed up a bit through botched attempts by
individuals trying to destroy it.
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McDonald
Ranch
The McDonald Ranch. This is where they assembled the core of
the bomb before inserting it into the detonation device.
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McDonald
Ranch
Me in front of the McDonald ranch. The other tourists were
very friendly and most of us offered to take each others
pictures. How cool!!!
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GPS
Coordinates
When searching
for the Trinity site on the internet, I had difficulty confirming
exactly where the site was. So, I include the GPS coordinates for
all you techies to confirm you will be in the right place. My GPS
is a Garmin Street Pilot III.
Turn off of Hwy 380 - N33 53.036 W106 40.263
Stallion Gate -
N33 49.254 W106 39.151
Trinity Site -
N33 40.601 W106 28.529
McDonald Ranch -
N33 38.990 W106 27.549
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