The first site ride of 2026!!!

Guntersville Dam and Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant.

A quick(ish) day ride down into North Alabama to hit two major TVA power sites – Guntersville Dam and the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. Started out from the Tennessee side and dropped down along the river corridor. But first...

Guntersville Dam!

On a personal note. I had not planned to take this trip this weekend. The plan was to spend the weekend with the boy, but when that fell through I remembered something from Friday afternoon. One of my favorite VP's asked me if I was going to ride to a site again yet or not. I told her I did not plan on it.. But when the opportunity showed it's head, that's exactly what I did! I'm so glad she put the idea in my mind! 😁

Guntersville Dam is a classic TVA hydroelectric powerhouse. Construction began December 4, 1935 and the dam was completed in January 1939. It stands 94 feet high and stretches 3,979 feet across the Tennessee River. Four generating units give it a summer net dependable capacity of 124 megawatts. The reservoir it creates — Lake Guntersville — is Alabama’s largest with 67,900 acres of water and almost 890 miles of shoreline.

Riding across the top of the dam and down to the visitor area gives you that classic TVA feel — big concrete walls, spillway gates, and the massive reservoir behind it. Crappie is king here, with bass and sauger fishing also legendary. The bigger lock (added in 1965) keeps the commercial barges moving smoothly. It’s a working dam that still looks regal after all these decades.

Now it was time to saddle up and head toward Browns Ferry. The ride between the two sites is easy and scenic along the Wheeler Reservoir corridor. Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant

Now for the biggest contrast of the day. Browns Ferry is TVA’s first and largest nuclear plant — three boiling water reactors on 840 acres beside Wheeler Reservoir near Athens, Alabama. When the units came online in the mid-1970s they were the largest in the world at the time, each capable of over 1,000 megawatts. Today, after uprates, the plant can produce up to 3,954 megawatts — enough electricity for more than two million homes and about 20% of TVA’s total generation.

Because it’s an active nuclear facility, public access is extremely limited for security reasons. So, just like Appalachia and a few others on previous rides, you get the gate view from the road. Still impressive to see the scale of the plant and the cooling towers from a distance.

The entire ride was quite a marathon!

For more on these sites click the links below.

Guntersville Dam (TVA) | Guntersville History
Browns Ferry Nuclear (TVA) | Browns Ferry Details