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| 2370 Grand Canyon - Colorado River in Marble Canyon |
Posted on 07.12.2013, 20.12.2013, 06.01.2014, 31.01.2014, 12.03.2016
The park's central feature is the
Grand Canyon, a gorge carved out by the
Colorado River (nearly 1,500m deep, 445.8km long), which is often considered one of the
Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Its horizontal strata retrace the geological history of the past 2 billion years, and there are also prehistoric traces of human adaptation to a particularly harsh environment. The primary public areas of the park are the
North Rim and
South Rim of the Grand Canyon itself. The rest of the park is extremely rugged and remote, although many places are accessible by pack trail and backcountry roads. Only the
Navajo Bridge near Page connects the rims by road in
Arizona.
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| 2371 Grand Canyon - Point Imperial overlooks Mount Hayden |
"The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance af time..." writted the poet
Henry David Thoreau nearly 200 years ago. And the
President Theodore Roosevelt said in 1903 after he visited visited the site: "The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison - beyond description; absolutely unparalleled throughout the wide world... Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimity and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see."
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| 2372 Grand Canyon - Sunset |
Marble Canyon is the section of the Colorado River canyon from
Lee's Ferry to the confluence with the
Little Colorado River, which marks the beginning of the Grand Canyon, and also the western boundary of the
Navajo Nation. Lee's Ferry is a common launching point for river runners starting their journey through the Grand Canyon. Marble Canyon is also well known for the
Navajo Bridge. Its name is a misnomer because there is no marble there. Although
John Wesley Powell, the first known European who passed through the Grand Canyon (1869), knew this when he named the canyon, he thought the polished limestone looked like marble.
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| 2373 Grand Canyon - Kaibab Plateau seen by Yaki Point |
The floor of the valley is accessible by foot, muleback, or by boat or raft from upriver. Hiking down to the river and back up to the rim in one day is discouraged by park officials because of the distance, steep and rocky trails, change in elevation, and danger of heat exhaustion from the much higher temperatures at the bottom. The most used are the
corridor trails, of which perhaps the best known is the
Bright Angel, originally built by the
Havasupai Native American tribe for access to the perennial water source of present day Garden Creek. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt ordered them to leave the area, to make way for a park, but however, it was not until 1928 that the last Havasupai left, forced out by the National Park Service.
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0911 Grand Canyon - Desert View Watchtower,
at the far eastern end of the South Rim |
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One of the most interesting historic buildings located along the South Rim is the
Desert View Watchtower, one of
Mary Colter's best-known works, built in 1932. Situated at the far eastern end of the South Rim, 43km from
Grand Canyon Village, the tower stands 21m tall. The top of the tower is 2,293m above sea level, the highest point on the South Rim. It offers one of the few full views of the bottom of the Canyon and the Colorado River. It was designed to mimic Anasazi watchtowers, though, with four levels, it is significantly taller than historical towers.
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0943 Grand Canyon - Krishna Temple, Vishnu Temple
and Freya Castle seen from Cape Royal |
Where the North Rim is wild and remote, the South Rim is teaming with activities, sites, lodging and more. Most who visit the Grand Canyon come here because it’s much more accessible, many roads leading here from major cities like
Las Vegas or
Phoenix, while to the North Rim leads just one road. The most popular, first-time views of Grand Canyon occur at either
Mather Point (named after the park’s first superintendent,
Stephen Mather) or
Yavapai Point. Other lookout points are
Moran Point (named after the painter and etcher
Peter Moran),
Yaki Point,
Grandview Point,
Lipan Point and
Lookout Studio.
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| 2374 Grand Canyon - Brahma and Zoroaster Temples |
The North Rim has also many named points, but comparatively few are easy to reach, as the terrain is much more uneven, split by deep side canyons. Of the ten points which are either next to a paved road or reachable on an easy day hike, in some cases the views are of
Bright Angel Canyon rather than the main gorge, and others overlook the easternmost section of the Grand Canyon where the cliffs and ravines are not quite so extensive.
Point Imperial is the highest of the North Rim overlooks, and the northernmost, presenting a rather different panorama than that from the other two popular viewing locations further south (
Cape Royal and Bright Angel Point).
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| 2375 Grand Canyon - Zoroaster Temple |
Many of the canyon's landmarks were named by geologist
Clarence Dutton who published one of the earliest detailed geologic studies of the canyon in 1882,
The Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon District. It was first in the Geological Survey's new series of monographs, "the inaugural big book of arguably the most significant scientific bureau of nineteenth century America," in one historian's view. Interspersed amongst the geology were reflections on the play of light and shade on cliffs, or comparisons to the landscape art of Europe or Japan, or suggestions for coming to imaginative terms with the many strange forms erosion had left.
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0891 Grand Canyon - Bright Angel Canyon on North Rim
seen from Mather Point |
In his musings, Dutton festooned the myriad spires and buttes with outrageous and fanciful names/Hindoo temple, Vishnu’s Throne, and the like, concluding that the whole ensemble amounted to "the sublimest thing on earth." The Tertiary History featured 40 plates and was accompanied by a beautiful atlas featuring the work of the photographer Jack Hillers and the artists Thomas Moran and William Henry Holmes. In its combination of science and art, it was received enthusiastically, and "quickly established itself as a model of modern natural history." He believed that the canyon was such an important feature on the planet, that the names of its features should reflect all the world's cultures and thus he chose many names from mythologies from around the world.
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| 0892 Grand Canyon - North Rim at twilight |
The Greek and Roman gods are represented with temples to
Jupiter,
Apollo and
Diana, which stand somewhat incongruously beside
Solomon's Temple. The
Viking paradise of the gods is found also in the Grand Canyon, on
Walhalla Plateau. Nearby,
Wotan sits enthroned. England's medieval mythology is represented, with
King Arthur's Castle nestled beside the
Holy Grail Temple. The Egyptian gods are clustered in temples to
Isis,
Osiris,
Horus and the Tower of
Set. Nor is Asia's mythology neglected. Hindus have temples to their trinity of
Vishnu,
Brahma and
Shiva, as well as a shrine to
Rama, one of the legendary incarnations of Vishnu.
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1000 Grand Canyon - Angels Gate and Deva Temple,
on North Rim seen from the near of Moran Point |
"The grandest of all the buttes, and the most majestic in aspect" is Shiva Temple, in the opinion of Dutton. He records, "All around it are side gorges sunk to a depth nearly as profound as that of the main channel. It stands in the midst of a great throng of cluster-like buttes. In such a stupendous scene of wreck, it seemed as if the fabled Destroyer might find an abode not wholly uncongenial." Even preeminent philosopher-prophets such as
Confucius, the
Buddha of India and the Persian
Zoroaster received temples. This poetic mythos of the Grand Canyon reminds us that the mechanistic interpretations of science need not destroy the sacred mystery of the cosmos.
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| 2376 Grand Canyon - Deer Creek |
Deer Creek, like its neighbor,
Thunder River, originates from springs in the
Redwall Limestone of the Norther Rim, that are a result of extensive faulting and fracturing. Because of this, it flows year round and is an oasis in an area so dry and barren. In the spring, water levels increase because of snow melt so on can expect more flow then. The water in Deer Creek is cold year round, even in the summer months. It culminates in a high waterfall that flows from the slot canyon almost directly into the Colorado River. Access to Deer Creek is the main reason the Bill Hall and Thunder River Trail were built, when tracer gold was found along the edges of Deer Creek back in 1876.
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| 0912 Grand Canyon - Havasu Falls |
Located on
Havasu Creek, within
Havasupai tribal lands, the
Havasu Falls consists of one main chute that drops over a 27m to 30m vertical cliff into a large pool. Due to the high mineral content of the water, the configuration of the falls is ever-changing and sometimes breaks into two separate chutes of water. The falls are known for their natural pools, created by mineralization, although the configuration of the falls and the pools are damaged or destroyed repeatedly by large floods that wash through the area. High calcium carbonate concentration in the water creates the vivid blue-green color and forms the natural travertine dams that occur in various places near the falls.
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| 2377 Grand Canyon - South Rim limestones |
The Colorado River has carved the Grand Canyon into
Colorado Plateau, a large area characterized by nearly-horizontal sedimentary rocks. As a result, the geology of the Grand Canyon area includes one of the most complete and studied sequences of rock on Earth. The nearly 40 major sedimentary rock layers exposed range in age from about 200 million to nearly 2 billion years old. Most were deposited in warm, shallow seas and near ancient, long-gone sea shores in western North America. Both marine and terrestrial sediments are represented, including fossilized sand dunes from an extinct desert.
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| 2378 Grand Canyon - Coronado Butte, Hance Creek Canyon |
An old range of mountains, which geologists suspect were much higher than todays
Rocky Mountains, now forms the base of the Grand Canyon. These mountains have long since eroded away and sediments were deposited by a series of advancing and retreating ocean coast lines, covering them over. Limestone deposits are created when the ocean moves in and slates, shales and mudstone deposits are created when the ocean moves out. The
Kaibab Limestone which is the current top of the Grand Canyon is composed mostly of a sandy limestone, with some sandstone and shale thrown in for good measure. The color ranges from cream to a greyish-white.
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| 2379 Grand Canyon - Ancestral Puebloan granaries at Nankoweap Creek |
The first people known to live in the Grand Canyon area were the
Ancestral Puebloans, it seems from around 1200 BCE. They evolved, becoming the
Pueblos, who lived in the Grand Canyon for at least 100 years before they migrated away from the area. They were farmers as well as hunters. More than one-hundred farm sites of the Ancestral Puebloan were found at
Walhalla Glades at the North Rim. Over 2,000 sites have been studied to date.
Unkar Delta, an area along the water, seen from the Walhalla Point, seems to be the place where they lived. A granary, where they stored food can be seen on the short,
Cliff Spring Trail, at the North Rim.
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| 2380 Grand Canyon - Dasylirion |
Differences in elevation and the resulting variations in climate are the major factors that form the various life zones and communities in and around the canyon. The five life zones represented are the
Lower Sonoran,
Upper Sonoran, Transition,
Canadian, and Hudsonian. This is equivalent to traveling from Mexico to Canada. Grand Canyon boasts a dozen endemic plants, while only ten percent of the Park's flora is exotic. The
Mojave Desert influences the western sections of the canyon,
Sonoran Desert vegetation covers the eastern sections, and ponderosa and pinyon pine forests grow on both rims.
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| 2381 Grand Canyon - Desert Bighorn Sheep |
Home to reptiles, fish, and mammals, birds and more, the Grand Canyon is teeming with wildlife and the abundant vegetation that helps support the entire ecosystem. The animals found there are vast and some of them can be found on the endangered species lists. Of the 34 mammal species found along the Colorado River corridor, 18 are rodents and eight are bats.
Bighorn Sheep, the largest native animal in the park, love rocky terrain and canyon walls. They are sure-footed animals and it is amazing how they can climb, walk and jump around sheer cliffs. Rams have large curved horns that can reach one meter in length.
