Today I rode out to Fountain Hills as part of a 75 mile ride around the Northeast valley. Fountain Park is a frequent highlight of my longer rides and I wanted to share a few brief seconds of the joyous sight of the fountain with all of you.
Every hour, the fountain fires off for a solid 15 minutes. It's quite a spectacle to see.
Here's a little blurb about the fountain from the Fountain Hills municipal website:
The centerpiece of Fountain Hills is our beautiful fountain; one of the world's tallest man-made fountains. It serves as a focal point for the community and attracts thousands of visitors each year.
The fountain was built in 1970 by Robert McCulloch the year before reconstruction of the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, another of McCulloch's projects. The fountain sprays water for about 15 minutes every hour at the top of the hour. The plume rises from a concrete water lily sculpture in the center of a large man-made lake.
The fountain, driven by three 600 horsepower (450kW) turbine pumps, sprays water at a rate of 7,000 gallons per minute though an 18-inch nozzle. With all three pumps and under ideal conditions, the fountain reaches 560 feet (170m) in height, though in normal operation only two of the pumps are used, with a fountain height of around 300 feet (91m). When built, it was the world's tallest fountain and held that record for over a decade.
